Skulking sculptor creates 4-way split

One sunny afternoon a local developer summoned sheriff’s deputies to a Hilltop Road residential construction site to investigate what could be termed anti-sculpting. Sometime during the previous 24 hours, a determined anti-artist had transformed a handsome 9-square-foot stone mega-sign welcoming passers-by to “The Observatory on Independence Mountain” into four smaller signs that, individually, convey no clear message. Although the anti-sculptor didn’t sign his work, the doleful developer suspects he may have seen his handiwork before. Other anti-acts against the planned subdivision have included strewing roofing nails along the entrance drive and depositing the site’s building permit and blueprints into the most fragrant part of a portable toilet. Officers promised a month’s-worth of increased patrols and, with luck, the destructive Degas will soon be making big rocks into little ones for the county.