SAUK CENTRE, MINN., was the hometown of Sinclair Lewis, whom some of you might recall as the author of "Main Street" and "Babbitt," novels that exposed the hypocrisy and smug provincialism of a small town that suspiciously resembled Sauk Centre, Minn. For years, the citizens there felt embarrassed and humiliated by his literary efforts. But over the years -- years that roughly coincided with the growth of Lewis' fame -- they overcame their shame sufficiently to host an annual event, called "Sinclair Lewis Daze" or something like that, held right there on Main Street -- sidewalk sales, rides for the kids, John Philip Sousa marches, parades. Just about every leisure activity a reluctant Pulitzer Prize-winner could desire in a satirized community. About 60 years ago, according to the Los Angeles Times, the "Salinas elite" burned John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" on Main Street. Today "Main Street is preparing to host a $9 million National Steinbeck Center, due to open in the summer of 1998." Many people in Salinas, claims the L.A. Times, hated Steinbeck, "his ugly stories" and "his pitiful characters." This new center must really stick in the craw of any aged Steinbeck-hater still active enough to quiver with rage. But it also sticks in the craw of those sympathetic to Steinbeck: "They say it looks like an oil refinery or a factory or a soulless suburban airport." I guess they were hoping for something more like an I.M. Pei-designed migrant worker's shack. Meanwhile, back in Washington, D.C., where monuments to our checkered past are rejected in committee every day, Bob "Bob Dole is Bob Dole again!" Dole made an impassioned speech launching a campaign to build a World War II memorial by the Rainbow Pool on the Washington Mall. Charles "Not Martin Peretz" Krauthammer wrote an essay in "Time" saying that "a monument of any kind would violate" the "openness and delicacy" of the "pristine vista." Even the tasteful design the American Battle Monuments Commission came up with, "two arches of 25 columns each, facing each other like parentheses around the Rainbow Pool, with large earthen berms sloping to meet the ground behind," is too unobtrusive for Charles "Not Leon Wieseltier either" Krauthammer. He says it doesn't serve to "mark the single greatest crusade in American history," to "commemorate the largest naval battle ever (Leyte Gulf)," and Normandy and Pearl Harbor, etc., etc. Krauthammer doesn't want a meditative place where the passing tourist can honor our fallen and/or take discreet snapshots. He wants some kind of humongous granite thing that would be the millennial equivalent of the war itself. Much like Europe in that late conflict, the Washington Mall would be destroyed by such a presence! Krauthammer suggests instead the "large traffic circle" at the bottom of Arlington National Cemetery. That's tasteful enough, I guess. After all, he could have suggested the Great Mall of America. In further news, monumentally speaking, there is a smaller version of the Vietnam Wall -- which is permanently housed elsewhere on the Washington Mall. This miniaturized memorial will travel from city to city as a portable salute to the original. I guess mourners will trot after it with their flowers as it pulls slowly down Main Street. Monuments! The Queen Mary is dry-docked in Long Beach! Scorpions and rattlesnakes slither beneath London Bridge somewhere in the American Southwest! As George Will might say, "Whatever." They come and go. Just the other night, I heard David Letterman refer to Dana Carvey as a "national treasure." (Of course, he was being ironic). And it was a rerun. Reruns could also be considered national treasures, in a sense. (Of course, I'm being ironic.) But just because Hollywood made "Wayne's World II" doesn't mean that "Wayne's World" was a monument of American cinema. Carvey explained that his impression of George Bush was a hybrid of Mr. Rogers and John Wayne, who both might be considered national treasures. John Wayne, for all his flaws, is also a monument of sorts. Garry Wills just wrote a book about him, for crying out loud. If that doesn't give him lasting cultural importance, I don't know what will. (I should warn you, though: If Garry Wills and George Will ever write about each other, the world as we know it will end. Better buy your Nikes and castrate yourselves now.) So what is a monument? It can be a street fair, an ugly building, a moving sculpture or Marilyn Monroe. (Oh, and Howard Stern -- in his dreams.) But who the hell remembers who Sinclair Lewis was any more? Only the good people of Sauk Centre, Minn. They still have an annual street fair (as far as I know) about a guy nobody's read since 1965. The monuments of tomorrow? Critics used to always wonder who was going to be "the next Dylan." For a while it was Bruce Springsteen, but then he became Bruce Springsteen, a former monument himself, and the Next Dylan Monument crumbled. And who is Bob Dylan anyway? Is he the subject of an annual event? I think not. Ever since that highly unnecessary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened, I find myself fascinated by rock stars, specifically Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) and Adam Duritz (Counting Crows), both of whom, like the late Kurt Cobain, have a certain ambivalence about their fame. According to the New York Times, Duritz's songs on the most recent Counting Crows album mainly concern the "burdens of stardom." Poor baby. Oddly, we often monumentalize those who have mixed feelings about their own monumentalizations (Letterman, Monroe, Dylan). I don't have these problems. I would welcome the Shoales Weeping Wall. Perhaps it could be a wall on wheels. It could be an annual much-awaited feature of Trent Reznor Daze. For a small stipend, I might even make a personal appearance. Yes, the Next Ian Shoales himself. In your face. For you. For a fee. April 17, 1997 Ian Shoales' CD, "I Gotta Go," is a compilation of commentaries that in the author's opinion sounded best when read really fast into a microphone. It is on the 2.13.61 label (Henry Rollins' label) and theoretically available in fine record stores everywhere, but it can also be ordered through Steve Baker at 1-800-989-DUCK, or through 2.13.6's Web site.

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