If Sally Quinn Hates It, I Am for It

There are all sorts of asshole neighbors.

You have the ones who play their music too low, the ones who leave their trashcans on the curb, the ones whose lawns look crappy (like me), the ones who terrorize their neighbors with guns, etc.

On the other hand, I fully approve of the asshole neighbor in Georgetown in the District of Columbia who has, erected statues of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee on his front yard in the tony DC neighborhood:

The thing about putting a pair of 10-foot metal Transformers statues outside your townhouse in the most picturesque district of the nation’s capital is that the neighbors are going to have opinions.

And on Prospect Street in Georgetown, they were not pleased.

The statues — Bumblebee and Optimus Prime, two of the good guys from the long-running “Transformers” movie franchise — appeared in January 2021 outside the white-brick home of Newton Howard, a cognitive scientist and machine-learning expert with ties to the intelligence community.

He had ordered them from a factory in Taiwan to the tune of more than $25,000 each. Where large brick planters had once blended in with the local aesthetic, there was now something akin to outsider art by way of an anonymous welder and Hollywood’s reinterpretation of 1980s toys.

Plenty of people love the statues, which resemble invaders from the future, in a neighborhood that does its best to hang on to its cobblestone past. Students at nearby Georgetown University can’t get enough. Neither can tourists: The Transformers statues have their own entry on Google Maps as a place of interest, with 4.9 stars. “The best part of visiting Georgetown,” one reviewer declared.

………

But some of his neighbors are less enthusiastic, and the critics of his notion of a Georgetown-appropriate sidewalk display have been trying to get rid of Bumblebee and Optimus Prime for more than two years.

………

A rich guy with loud cars is one thing, a known story. The Transformers were something else altogether. They quickly became a flashpoint in Georgetown, and on the internet, after the local news site DCist reported on the efforts of Dr. Howard’s neighbors to get the statues removed.

Sally Quinn, the author and longtime Georgetown resident, said she was firmly in the anti-Transformers camp. “I think they’re really ugly,” she said. “Some people may like them. You know, everybody’s taste in art is different. But that’s not the point.”

"Author and longtime Georgetown resident," huh?

More like former Washington Post society reporter, and widow of Ben Bradlee, who has described her dinner parties as a, "Form of sacrament."

She is literally the avatar of fake DC.  

There is a real DC you know, but it's never written about, because it's not rich, and it's not white, and it doesn't hold dinner parties like Sally Quinn.

The point, she continued, was historical preservation: “People come to Georgetown because it’s Georgetown. It’s a beautiful, quaint village.”

But the author Kitty Kelley, who said she has lived in the neighborhood for “two husbands,” or since 1977, sent Dr. Howard a handwritten card in support of his sidewalk flair.

One of these women has a sense of perspective and a sense of humor. 

I'm with Kitty Kelley, and I cannot f%$#ing believe that I just f%$#ing said that.