Oh Please

At the southeast corner of Central Park, they finally took down that confounding tornado of truck tires I posted about last year.

In its place, a worthy successor. It's a Piper Seneca hoisted by the wingtips between two pylons, motorized so the plane twirls slowly around its pitch axis.

As always, there's some explanatory text on a placard nearby to give passersby a clue as to what they're looking at.

"Airborne but flightless, its steady circular movement is mesmerizing," the curatorial spiel says. "The shift of context from airport runway to New York City plaza is equally dramatic. It creates the striking but surreal experience of a familiar object seen in an unexpected place doing a very unfamiliar thing."

Maybe I'm missing an art chromosome, but I can't see what makes this different from sneaking out at night to put the dean's Volkswagen upside down on his front lawn.

And am I the only one thinking that if ever there was a city that didn't need a replay of the not-so-amazing idea that it's startling to see an airplane in a high-rise neighborhood, it's New York.