I looked it up just now to see what that's about, and Wikipedia has the story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_Dorothy

So funny! I lived across the street from the Washington DC temple in the 1970s, and I never heard about the graffiti. But I thought even then that the architecture was fabulously spacey.

Anyway, I love your nickname. :-)

that is hilarious. I love it too! I just figured your name was Dorothy before

Nice! I never knew about the DC temple reference.

You're exactly right about why I picked the name, Makurosu, and thanks. Those kids who sprayed, and re-sprayed, and re-sprayed it had some BIG ones for daring to hang over the side of that train bridge to make their very hilarious point.

Tupperwhere, nope my name's not Dorothy.

The other guess I've heard was that I must be a fan of the "Wizard of Oz" movie. I like the movie okay. It's not one of my favorites though, and I'm a movie buff. I think it scaring the crap out of me as a kid has something to do with my tepid reaction to it.

Here's a link with a photo (you have to zoom in) of the entire graffito.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-06-25/local/35265461_1_beltway-overpass-mormon-temple-state-highway

From the article:
"...the perpetrator(s) risked not just falling onto the Beltway below but being flattened by a passing freight train.

Answer Man could find no reference to when it first went up. The temple was dedicated in November 1974, and certainly by the early 1980s “Surrender Dorothy” was a common sight for Beltway drivers — and an irritant for state highway workers, who would periodically be brought in to remove what was seen as a distraction to drivers.

In 2001, state highway spokesman David Buck told Mormon News, “We’ve fought an uphill battle for years with people putting graffiti on that bridge.” Maintenance crews that year shut down two lanes of traffic for an hour to scrub away yellow spray paint. (In that article, a temple administrator said he found the graffito amusing, although Answer Man figures many Mormons probably don’t like their religion being associated with witches and flying monkeys.)"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2013 05:32PM by Surrender Dorothy.

and I could only see a few spires and Gabriel (yeah, I know), on the left (east?) side of the road. We never drove straight at it, so I never saw the graffiti.

I'd never suggest the destruction of private property (ahem), but in the name of art, I think "Surrender Dorothy" should be preserved.

Well before we joined TSCC as converts in our 40's, our family would take day trips north for fun, and we all couldn't wait to see whether 'Surrender Dorothy' was back painted on again! We were always disappointed when it was removed, lol.

From what I remember, you really can't see the temple driving north. However, when I was living in Northern VA in the early 90's I went to see the Aquarium in Baltimore. Driving home when we made the curve and got smacked in the face with the "Emerald City" in its glory with fresh graffiti. I laughed so hard I cried.

I had almost that same experience when I moved to NoVa in the late 90s. No one had ever told me about the graffiti and I shrieked with laughter when I saw it, even though I was a diehard TBM at the time. It's just too apropos.

even though I'd seen a picture of the sign on the bridge. I laughed hard, but then forgot about it. I didn't know, either, that there's a singular form of *graffiti.*

However, to its own benefit, it's not AS good at being conspciuous as it intended.

For YEARS I heard the legend of how prominent the DC temple was from the freeway. It was supposedly un-missable, an "ensign to the world". As a TBM I wished I had ever lived in DC (I'm just a simple Utah transplant to the Left Coast), just to revel in the temple looming over the capitol and the white house always reminding the congress and the executive branch where their divine favor shone from...

...then I drove past DC one day.

Geez, kinda anti-climactic.

The temple isn't THAT dominating (I think pictures taken by both pro and anti temple photographers use that full-moon trick of zooming in with a telephoto lense from far away and making the moon look HUGE over a city or something).

Uh, the temple looked kinda...weak. It looked like it was TRYING to be seen, but not really turning every head after all. The photographs, IMO, overstate the temple's actual presence. It's there, but it just passes like anything else. There's really only a moment that the temple is centered on the freeway. It looks Disney...which I guess makes the "Surrender Dorothy" grafitti all the more fitting.

Anybody who lives in the DC area and listens to traffic reports is constantly reminded of the temple's existence ("traffic on the beltway is backed up from Wisconsin {Avenue} to the Mormon Temple"). In that respect, yes, it's a landmark and quite well known.

When I was living in the DC area and would be on the I-495 beltway, there were many times some reference to the Wizard of Oz's home hanging from the overpass with the Mormon temple right square in your face. I must admit that it is a panoramic sight but if one didn't know what it was, they'd probably never guess that it was a religious edifice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_City#Interpretations

"Scholars who interpret The Wizard of Oz as a political allegory see the Emerald City as a metaphor for Washington, D.C. and unsecured "greenback" paper money. In this reading of the book, the city's illusory splendour and value is compared with the value of paper money, which also has value only because of a shared illusion or convention..."

Mormon temples are also the symbols of a mass shared illusion and a bright, shining lie...

great name

great input here

all of you are my heros...


pretty funny stuff on here; keep it goin !!!!!!!!!!