Or, more reasons to question the value of the NEArts...

You've built a new library. You want to install a bit of art dedicated to several important thinkers. You hire an artist. But all is not well...

It didn't take a nuclear physicist to realize changes were needed after a $40,000 ceramic mural was unveiled outside the city's new library and everyone could see the misspelled names of Einstein, Shakespeare, Vincent Van Gogh, Michelangelo and seven other historical figures.

"Our library director is very frustrated that she has this lovely new library and it has all these misspellings in front," said city councilwoman Lorraine Dietrich, one of three council members who voted Monday to authorize paying another $6,000, plus expenses, to fly the artist up from Miami to fix the errors.

Reached at her Miami studio Wednesday by The Associated Press, Maria Alquilar said she was willing to fix the brightly colored 16-foot-wide circular work, but offered no apologizes for the 11 misspellings among the 175 names.

"The importance of this work is that it is supposed to unite people," Alquilar said. "They are denigrating my work and the purpose of this work."

But, uh, wouldn't it be denegrating to both Einstein and literacy to mispell his name?

Alquilar said it took her quite a bit of her own time and money to create and install the work, and that it sat idle at her Santa Cruz studio for two years until the city cleared the way for its installation.

Ah, the poor thing. All her sacrifices.

She talks as though she weren't paid $40,000 of the taxpayers' money. And despite the time allegedly involved, it apparently would have been too much trouble for her to take even a few moments to look up the proper spelling of these names.

Ah, but she has a much better explanation: It's not ignorance or sloth. It's her inherant superiority...

The mistakes wouldn't even register with a true artisan, Alquilar said.

"The people that are into humanities, and are into Blake's concept of enlightenment, they are not looking at the words," she said. "In their mind the words register correctly."

Uh, but wouldn't English Literature be one of the humanities?

Sigh.

Kind thanks to Christopher Johnson.