It averaged a brutal 91 degrees this week in Cameron County, the southernmost tip of Texas, and a group dressed as the cast of O Brother, Where Art Thou have been there sweating away at something big. A colossal limbless torso is parked on the dunes and a head, suspended from a crane, is swaying very gently in an ocean breeze. There is the smell of metal and hot dust. 

Pending some finishing touches and last-minute dabs of glue, this Atelier Missor’s Prometheus, soon to be unveiled at SpaceX’s Starbase launch site – standing contrapposto, torch aloft, bidding the rockets a comradely “Adieu!” It is Prometheus who gives the gift of fire, and thus technological civilization, to man, and so it is to him that we owe stainless steel, the internal combustion engine, the nuclear bomb and, in a roundabout way, Elon Musk. 

A grabby attitude to money seems to be the common thread

A grabby attitude to money seems to be the common thread

The statue is big. Very big. Very very big. But things are not quite as they should be. Initial plans for a 65-foot Prometheus in titanium have been reduced to a more modest 50 feet and a respectable, third-place bronze. Worse, the head does not sit quite flush with the neck, drawing a long gash right across the jugular, and a patchwork construction of welded sheets draws undue attention to the fact that it is hollow. The titan has the look of an inflatable; he is so obviously empty. The body is weightless. The face is faceless. The eyes are mute. Even at 50 feet tall Prometheus is set to look strangely vulnerable. I (who come knocking on the door of five foot eight and a half in a new pair of brogues) feel quite confident that, should my shoelace ever get snagged under his foot, I could tilt him an inch off the ground by pressing my shoulder against the ankle and set myself free with relative ease. I imagine a Giacometti falling over makes the sound of a church bell striking one in the morning; Missor’s Prometheus falling over makes the sound of a rollercoaster accident.

British citizenship has become meaningless

Can James Cleverly turn London blue?

We don’t need to be afraid of the Greens any more

Who is responsible for this clumsy giant? Who, or........

© The Spectator