William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

Clearly from this and similar eloquent testimony certain members of the community have been subjected to annoyance and serious inconvenience in the pursuit of private errands of some urgency; however recalling to mind that vain and desperate effort to prevent construction of a subway kiosk in Cambridge, Massachusetts, enshrined decades ago in the news headline PRESIDENT LOWELL FIGHTS ERECTION IN HARVARD SQUARE, by definition the interests of the general public must not be confused with that of one or even several individuals (People v. Brooklyn & Queens Transit Corp., 258 App.Div. 753, 15 N.Y.S.2d 295,1939, affirmed 283 N.Y. 484, 28 N.E.2d 925,1940); furthermore the obstruction is not so substantial as to preclude access (Holland v. Grant County, 208 Or. 50, 298 P.2d 832, 1956; Ayers v. Stidham, 260 Ala. 390, 71 So.2d 95, 1954), and in finding the former freedom of access to have been provided by mere default where no delineated path or thoroughfare was ever ordained or even contemplated this claim is denied.

On a lesser count charging private nuisance, H R Suggs Jr, joins himself to this proceeding via intervention naming all parties thereto in his complaint on grounds of harboring a dog 'which makes the night hideous with its howls' which the court severs from this action nonetheless taking judicial notice of intervener's right inseparable from ownership of the property bordering directly thereupon, to its undisturbed enjoyment thereof (Restatement of the Law, Second, Torts 2d, 822c), and remands to trial. Similarly, whereas none of the parties to this action has sought relief on behalf of the well being and indeed survival of the sculpture's unwilling resident, and whereas a life support system of sorts has been devised pro tem thereto, this matter is not at issue before the court, which nonetheless, taking judicial notice thereof should it arise in subsequent litigation, leaves it for adjudication to the courts of this local jurisdiction.

We have now cleared away the brambles and may proceed to the main action as set forth in plaintiff's petition for a preliminary injunction seeking to hold inviolable the artistic and actual integrity of his sculptural creation Cyclone Seven in situ against assault, invasion, alteration, or destruction or removal or any act posing irreparable harm by any person or persons or agencies thereof under any authority or no authority assembled for such purpose or purposes for any reason or for none, under threat of recovery for damages consonant with but not limited to its original costs. While proof of ownership is not at issue in this proceeding, parties agree that these costs, including those incident to its installation, in the neighborhood of fourteen million dollars, were borne by contributions from various private patrons and underwritten by such corporate entities as Martin Oil, Incidental Oil, Bush AFC Corp., Anco Steel, Norfolk & Pee Dee Railroad, Frito-Cola Bottling Co., and the Tobacco Council, further supported with cooperation from the National Arts Endowment and both state and regional Arts Councils. The site, theretofore a weed infested rubble strewn area serving for casual parking of vehicles and as an occasional dumping ground by day and trysting place by night, was donated under arrangements worked out between its proprietor Miller Feed Co. and the Village in consideration of taxes unpaid and accrued thereon over the preceding thirty-eight years. In re the selection of this specific site plaintiff exhibits drawings, photographs, notes and other pertinent materials accompanying his original applications to and discussions with the interested parties aforementioned singling out the said site as 'epitomizing that unique American environment of moral torpor and spiritual vacuity' requisite to his artistic enterprise, together with correspondence validating his intentions and applauding their results. Here we refer to plaintiff's exhibits drawn from contemporary accounts in the press of ceremonies inaugurating the installation of Cyclone Seven wherein it was envisioned as a compelling tourist attraction though not, in the light of current events, for the reasons it enjoys today. Quoted therein, plaintiff cites, among numerous contemporary expressions of local exuberance, comments by then presiding Village Board member J Harret Ruth at the ribbon cutting and reception held at nearby Mel's Kandy Kitchen with glowing photographic coverage, quoting therefrom the time, the place, and the dedication of all you assembled here from far and wide, the common people and captains of industry and the arts rubbing elbows in tribute to the patriotic ideals rising right here before our eyes in this great work of sculptural art.'

Responding to plaintiff's exhibits on this count, those of defendant appear drawn well after the fact up to and including the present day and provoked (here the court infers) by the prevailing emotional climate expressed in, and elicited by, the print and television media, appending thereto recently published statements by former Village official J Harret Ruth in his current pursuit of a seat on the federal judiciary referring to the sculptural work at the center of this action as 'a rusting travesty of our great nation's vision of itself and while we may pause to marvel at his adroitness in ascertaining the direction of the parade before leaping in front to lead it we dismiss this and supporting testimony supra as contradictory and frivolous, and find plaintiff's exhibits in evidence persuasive.

Another count in plaintiff's action naming defendants both within and beyond this jurisdiction seeks remedy for defamation and consequent incalculable damage to his career and earning power derived therefrom (Reiman v. Pacific Development Soc, 132 Or. 82, 284 P. 575, 1930; Brauer v. Globe Newspaper Co., 351 Mass. 53, 217 N.E.2d 736,1966). It is undisputed that plaintiff and his work, as here represented by the steel sculpture Cyclone Seven, have been held up to public ridicule both locally and, given the wide ranging magic of the media, throughout the land, as witnessed in a cartoon published in the South Georgia Pilot crudely depicting a small dog pinioned under a junk heap comprising old bedsprings, chamber pots, and other household debris, and from the Arkansas Family Visitor an editorial denouncing plaintiff's country of origin as prominent in the Soviet bloc, thereby distinctly implying his mission among us to be one of atheistic subversion of our moral values as a Christian nation, whereas materials readily available elsewhere show plaintiff to have departed his birthplace at age three with his family who were in fact fleeing the then newly installed Communist regime. We take judicial notice of this exhibit as defamatory communication and libellous per se, tending to lower him in the estimation of the community or to deter third persons from associating or dealing with him' (Restatement of the Law, Second, Torts 2d, 559), but it remains for plaintiff to seek relief in the courts of those jurisdictions.

Similarly, where plaintiff alleges defamation in this and far wider jurisdictions through radio and television broadcast we are plunged still deeper into the morass of legal distinctions embracing libel and slander that have plagued the common law since the turn of the seventeenth century. As slander was gradually wrested from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts through tort actions seeking redress for temporal damage rather than spiritual offense, slander became actionable only with proof or the reasonable assumption of special damage of a pecuniary character. Throughout, slander retained its identity as spoken defamation, while with the rise of the printing press it became libel in the written or printed word, a distinction afflicting our own time in radio and television broadcasting wherein defamation has been held as libel if read from a script by the broadcaster (Hartmann v. Winchell, 296 N.Y. 296, N.E.2d 30,1947; Hryhorijiv v. Winchell, 1943,180 Misc. 574,45 N.Y.S.2d 31, affirmed, 267 App.Div. 817, 47 N.Y.S.2d 102, 1944) but as slander if it is not. But see Restatement of the Law, Second, Torts 2d, showing libel as 'broadcasting of defamatory matter by means of radio or television, whether or not it is read from a manuscript' (#568A). Along this tortuous route, our only landmark in this proceeding is the aforementioned proof or reasonable assumption of special damage of a pecuniary character and, plaintiff failing in these provisions, this remedy is denied.