CHOCOLATE JESUS RESURRECTION

Cosimo Cavallaro, the artist behind last spring’s "Chocolate Jesus" controversy, will display the sculpture in a show at the Proposition Gallery in Chelsea timed to coincide with All Saints Day (Nov. 1).

The life-sized sculpture of Jesus will be part of Cavallaro’s "Chocolate Saints...Sweet Jesus" show, in addition to eight chocolate sculptures of Catholic saints.

Invitations to the art show feature an image of the Virgin Mary with the breasts enhanced by scratch-and-sniff technology.

"It sounds pretty sick," said John Horvat, a spokesman for the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (ASDTFP). "Obviously [Cavallaro] has an agenda. He’s targeting very revered religious figures."

The gallery director, Ronald Sosinsky, begs to differ. "I see it as basically a show about healing. The sculptures are extremely traditional when you see them in their use of material. When you first see them they look like bronzes."

Last March, Cavallaro’s "My Sweet Lord" sculpture created a furor when it was displayed in a window at the Roger Smith Hotel in midtown.

Made of chocolate, My Sweet Lord is an anatomically correct representation of Jesus, sans loincloth. The sculpture set off howls of protest from the likes of Cardinal Edward Egan and other prominent Catholics.

A spokesperson for the Catholic League commented, "The timing was appalling. That was an up-front assault on Christian sensibilities during Holy Week."

The spokesperson added that the Catholic League will not protest Cavallaro’s upcoming exhibit because it will be limited to an art gallery where people "expect and like that sort of thing."

Cavallaro has kept the location of his My Sweet Lord sculpture under wraps due to the many threats he has received from angry Christians. He recently repaired the sculpture, which had been ravaged by rodents.

The artist insists that he is not trying to be sensational or provocative.

"When I wake up in the morning everything relates to food. I accepted the world of food and ever since then I’ve been a lot freer," said Cavallaro, who hopes the chocolate Jesus sculpture will bring attention to the fragility of life and the lived experience of Christ.

"Depictions of Jesus in plastic or wood are what I find offensive," he said. "With my work, you don’t want it to melt, so you have to be more aware of the time you have with it. It’s more alive."


Chocochrist.


My Sweet Lord.

LETTERS TO HITLER

A new book features 300 letters to Hitler, ranging from the shockingly erotic ("I love you so much. Write me–please. Many greetings. Your Gina) to the downright evil ("Please erase the dishonorable, Jewish heritage of my wife, which is not her own fault...[by doing so] my wife’s and my offspring will become your loyal and enthusiastic followers.").

Letters to Hitler was originally published in Dutch in 1995. Deemed too upsetting for survivors of the war, the book was not translated into other languages at the time. It is finally available in plain English.

The letters were written by a diverse range of people: women (and little girls like Gina) asking Hitler to marry them or father their children, anti-Semites offering political and military advice, and Germans and foreigners urging Hitler to end the war and his persecution of European Jews.

The book is bursting with children’s artwork–disturbing drawings of Hitler encircled by hearts.

Letters to Hitler has been reviewed as "severely unsettling" and even "oppressive." It is not surprising that it took so long for the information in this book, originally compiled by an American official in 1945, to be disseminated beyond the Netherlands.

CHRIST FOR SALE ON EBAY...Very Few Bids

A Lawton, Oklahoma, man’s attempt to auction off the body of Jesus ran into a snag when ebay removed the item from auction just minutes ago.

The man saved a communion wafer from the last Catholic mass he had attended. "Instead of eating it right then and there, I decided to save it for a later time," he said.

He also happened to watch Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ on the very same day he acquired the consecrated communion wafer. The film filled his head with "numerous ideas."

Threatening to reenact Gibson’s movie if the bidding for the Jesus wafer did not rise to "an appropriate amount," he hastily glued together a couple of popsicle sticks, also gathering three thumbtacks, a needle and a thorny rose stem.

The man said that his motive in auctioning the wafer is to "objectively" determine the value of the Lord Jesus Christ.

By 11:30 this morning, Jesus had attracted only two bids. The high bid was $1.99. By noon, ebay had pulled the listing.

THE NUTTY NET TRAPPER

Taiwanese inventor Kuo-Cheng Hsieh has been winning some dubious accolades for his prized invention, a "Net Trapping system to Catch a Bank Robber Immediately." Mr. Hsieh was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize (in absentia) last night at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre.

Mr. Hsieh invented his signature net-trapping system in 1999 and received a United States patent (patent #6,219,959) for his device in April 2001. Mr. Hsieh’s patent application is bursting with sad errors in grammar and syntax, like "storing box," a phrase he returns to time and again.

From the application: "The device looks like a storing box and is installed above the entrance of the business. When a robbery takes place and the system is activated, a net trapping system for capturing a robber immediately is used in a place of business such as a bank. The device looks like a storing box and is installed above the entrance of the bank. When a robbery takes place and the system is activated, an infrared detecting device determines if a robber is in a zone beneath the storing box. A net, a curtain, and a plurality of barriers will drop down immediately and simultaneously. After a lifting motor is activated, the system traps the robber and suspends him above the floor."

How the "infrared detecting device" can distinguish between a bank robber and a bank customer is anyone’s guess.

Mr. Hsieh has invested more than $500,000 in his ubiquitous storing box and net trap. Mr. Hsieh, 56, has operated his own security firm for twenty years.

LAST CALL IN INDONESIA

Yesterday, Indonesian officials held a public ceremony in Jakarta during which 35,065 bottles of booze were destroyed by a steamroller.

The alcohol had been confiscated from illegal vendors during the holy month of Ramadan, when practicing Muslims abstain from various activities (eating, drinking, smoking and sex) from dawn to dusk.

QUICKIE WAR

In the annals of bizarre warfare, the Anglo-Zanzibar War remains the shortest war in recorded history, spanning all of 38 minutes.

The Anglo-Zanzibar War pitted the United Kingdom against Zanzibar on August 27, 1896 from 9:02 to 9:40am, according to a BBC chronology. Other sources have clocked the war at 40 to 45 minutes long. At any rate, the war was an exceedingly quick and decisive victory for the UK.

The events that precipitated the war included the death of a slave-trading sultan, a coup d’etat carried out by his rogue nephew and other intrigue. On the 24th of August, Sultan Hamad bin Thuwain, an ally of colonial power Britain, died.

Tensions had been growing between the British and the sultan over Zanzibar’s flourishing slave trade. Britain had been pressuring the sultan to abolish slavery. The deceased sultan’s nephew, Khalid bin Bargash seized power in a timely coup.

Sultan Bargash was a strong supporter of the slave trade. The British favored royal cousin Hamud bin Muhammed, who supported slavery but not to the extent of Bargash.

The British issued an ultimatum demanding that Sultan Bargash relinquish power by August 27 at 9:00am. Bargash had other plans, and conscripted a personal army of about 3,000 men (the regular army of Zanzibar consisted of just 900 soldiers, only a few of whom supported Bargash). Next, Bargash commandeered his dead uncle’s yacht (the HHS Glasgow) to serve as his Navy. Bargash ordered the Breit el-Ajaib palace to be fortified (nice try!).

Meanwhile, British warships were amassing in the harbor directly in front of the newly fortified palace. The British Royal Navy assembled three modern cruisers, the HMS St. George, the HMS Philomel and the HMS Raccoon alongside two gunboats.

Sensing something was awry, the perceptive Bargash initiated a last-minute negotiation effort through the American embassy.

The ultimatum had expired, and the British warships opened fire on the palace at 9:02am. The Sultan’s Fleet was immediately sunk, and the fortified palace had seen better days. Sultan Bargash retreated to the German embassy, where he was granted asylum.

The shelling ceased at 9:40 am, with reports of 500 casualties.

Zanzibar was further humiliated when the British demanded compensation for the shells it had fired on the palace.

Britain also insisted that Germany hand over Bargash for prosecution. The erstwhile sultan managed to escape, living in exile for twenty years before his capture by the British in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1916. Bargash was later freed, living in Mombasa, Kenya until his death in 1927.




The Sultan’s Navy.


Zanzibar Army.