Tag Archives: Green Lightning

“Green Lightning”: A Controversial Piece of Art I Vaguely Remember from my Buffalo Childhood

Once in a while, I get hits from internet searches from people googling about the Buffalo dancing penis sculpture I mentioned in a blog post more than two years ago. At the time, I couldn’t find anything online about it, but I just did, and I’m not crazy. It really happened.

Here is a clear photo.

This artist, Billie Lawless, made this installation sculpture in a Buffalo public space, and here is the Buffalo News article about it. And here is an article from the New York Times. Since this all happened in 1984, I would have been eleven. I seem to remember my dad talking about it as he read the story in the paper. I also pictured the neon penises as green, but perhaps this was because of the title of the piece. Finally, here is Wikipedia’s two cents.

I also found this really fun page, The Guide to Buffalo English, a sort of guide for outsiders. Especially great is the “The List.”

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