freak magnet

I'm going on a bit of a hiatus for now (hey, at least I'm finally owning up to it).

Terrifying (?) Brookeville Angel

I have the Roadside Attraction app on my iPod because, well, I love weirdo roadside attractions and will happily drive miles out of my way to see hoodoo markers, giant muffler men, and offbeat museums. The Internet happily makes my obsession very easy and the iPod app just takes the cake. Last Saturday I decided to take a drive out to see what the app describes as "a life-size polychrome angel with bug eyes and a psycho-crazed face. An unintentionally alarming view of the Christian afterlife."

Since the Rapture's been postponed until October, I figured I might as well get a peek at what I'm in for.

 
Okay, it is big. Terrifying? Not so much. It's supposed to be the archangel Gabriel.

 
All right. The Roadside reviewer has a point about the eyes. I'll give them that.

 

Brookeville is a cute little town in Montgomery County--I think it might be somewhere near Olney. Lots of what had obviously previously been farmland converted to lots for sprawling McMansions on the drive out there. According to some sign I read on the way to the angel, Brookeville was the nation's capital for a day in the early 1800s after President Madison sought refuge there after the Battle of Bladensburg. Huh. I didn't even know there was a Battle of Bladensburg. When I think of Bladensburg, I think of strip malls not "the greatest defeat to American arms."

See? My interest in all things weird leads to intellectual enrichment!