Anhinga

Next up in obscure public art, we're taking a trip down to industrial Milwaukie, home to the Oregon Liquor & Cannabis Commission head office, which consists of a low-rise midcentury office building attached to the state's vast central booze warehouse. In front of the office is a small midcentury concrete pond and (I think) water fountain, which was almost completely dry when I swung by. On a pedestal in the middle of the pond is a roughly life-sized statue of an anhinga, a heron-like bird native to South America and parts of the US East Coast. This was created by the artist Wayne Chabre, whose work has appeared here a few times before, largely at MAX stations and Multnomah County offices.

As a state agency, the OLCC is required by state law to spend 1% of the budget of any big capital project on art, whether they really want to or not, which is how the Anhinga came to be here. And as part of the state's public art collection it has a has a Public Art Archive page, which doesn't have a photo of it, but says it's from 2017 and describes it briefly:

A cast bronze representation of an Anhinga bird perches on a rock with wings outstretched in the feather-drying pose in the spring-fed pond to the north of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission headquarters. Acquired through Oregon's Percent for Art in Public Places Program, managed by the Oregon Arts Commission.

I did run across a couple of photos of another anhinga statue, seemingly an identical copy of the one here, but located in Florida instead. Which is at least in the bird's natural range. Before I stopped by to take a few semi-obligatory photos, I had some snarky remarks lined up and ready to go. At first I thought it was an uninspired and odd choice, and figured they just called around until they found a local artist who happened to have suitable unsold inventory that week at the right price point.. I was about to say that a less puritanical agency in a less puritanical state could have a lot of fun with alcohol-themed art. Maybe commission some whimsical kinetic art on the subject of beer goggles, or maybe flair bartending, or Henry Weinhard's proposal to have Portland's Skidmore Fountain re-piped to serve beer, or who knows what. I was going to go with the snark angle, but then I swung by to take these photos and realized the anhinga's awesome and terrifying hidden superpower, so I'll tell you all about that instead.

You see the feather-drying pose the statue is in? Note how it bears an uncanny resemblance to a Canada goose dominance pose, and then look at the geese sorta-clustered around it. Sure enough, the statue had attracted a small cadre of geese as its devoted cult followers, transfixed by its pure radiance and unable to turn away and leave the statue's presence, while also not getting too close to The Anhinga because just look at it. See how incredibly dominant it is? It just stands there with its wings out, ready to rumble, defeating all challengers without moving a muscle, standing its ground and not flinching even a little no matter how many humans stroll on by. The geese were clearly very impressed by this display, and continued to hang out here even though their little pond had just about dried up. Because of course The Anhinga is the Chosen One and will provide a newer and better pond for its flock of true believers if the need ever truly arises.

Elsewhere on the internet, and semi-related, here's a Reddit thread about how to assert manly-man dominance over a flock of geese, because Reddit. Most replies repeat the internet-wide onventional wisdom that this is impossible, but these people had clearly never heard of the anhinga statue trick. He who controls the anhinga, controls the goose. And in Oregon the OLCC controls The Anhinga, god help us all.

Which begs the obvious question: Exactly why has the OLCC built a small army of fanatical trained geese? What are they planning? And do they really need that many geese just to enforce state liquor laws? I mean, I can see how geese would be really useful in chasing down drunk boaters. And yeah, breaking up bar fights and ejecting unruly patrons when the bouncer isn't up to the job is right up in their wheelhouse, if The Anhinga so wills it. Swarming hapless grocery clerks en masse if they ever sell a hard seltzer to a 20 year old, or fail to card a 55-year-old grandma? Also an ideal job for geese. Honking at 200 decibels to ruin hip hop concerts? Flapping and hissing at any shenanigans in the Champagne Room? Geese. You and I may or may not approve, but the more you think about it, you have to admit there's a certain logic to the idea.

But it won't stop there. It never does. As The Anhinga's fame continues to grow and its army of believers swells, the state will look for and find more ways to employ them. Playing chess for money in the park? Geese. Unpaid library fines from before COVID? Also geese. And before long every billionaire will have a private goose armada, mostly for status, and then cheap knockoff anhinga statues will hit the market and the longtime head of your HOA will install one and start enforcing the CC&Rs with geese. And then one day, maybe years from now, maybe decades, the geese will discover they've been tricked into worshiping a false idol all this time, and then the great rebellion begins...