chase the light

About 6 months ago Culver City unveiled this lion statue in the downtown area. Most of the reactions to it were a bit puzzled, but I totally love the statue. I think it’s rather nice that the lion could care less what’s going on around him while he shuts his eyes and dances around in the water. A great moment of having no self awareness. The water fountains shoot up from below to about six feet. Nobody’s quite figured out who the lion’s supposed to be but a few theories have come up. One being that Culver City was the home of MGM studios for many years and whose logo was the growling lion. Secondly, there’s a lion and some wardrobe, but there really ain’t no witch. That’s a dumb one. Another is that The Wizard of Oz was shot at the studio in ’39 and it’s an homage to that. The hotel behind him housed the munchkins while they were shooting the film across the street. He doesn’t look anything like the cowardly lion though. So, personally I think it’s along the lines of the long long history MGM studios had in the city. MGM pretty much put Culver City on the map. Of course it could be just a lion, but I’m cool with that too.

Update… 12:20am. WELL, DUH! It just dawned on me! Yes of course it’s the MGM lion, but it’s the lion doing Gene Kelly from Singin’ in the Rain”! [GENE KELLY] I had to check, but yep it was an MGM film and shot at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios – 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA according to IMDB. Which is now Sony Pictures. Ahhhh jeez… it all seems so obvious now.

And yes I was still thinking about this 5 hours later. Come on my little brain, think harder, think faster…