This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Our motto is always read the plaque.

It's always worth stopping to see what person or event is being commemorated in stone and metal.

The person being depicted is not always worthy.

The story being told is not always true.

Plaques often tell you more about the person who commissioned them than the historical figure that they are honoring.

It's still worth always reading the plaque, but it's not enough to just read the plaque.

If I had to nominate one person to write all the plaques in the world, my choice would be

Nate De Mayo of the Memory Palace.

He produced an episode about a statue and an imagined plaque in 2015 that just destroys me. It's so good. I've been thinking about it a lot recently and I want you to hear it.

Notes on an imagined plaque to be added to the statue of General Nathan Bedford Forest upon hearing that the Memphis City Council is voted to move it and the exhumed remains of General Forrest and his wife, Mary Ann Montgomery Forest.

From their current location in a park downtown to the nearby Elmwood Cemetery.

First it should be big, the plaque. Not necessarily because there's so much to say, though there is so much to say, but big enough to be noticed on the side of this rather grand monument after they move it and the bodies beneath it, across town to the cemetery.

And not just big for the sake of bigness, it needs to stick out as

something off, something that disrupts the admirable balance of the statue, currently so

tasteful, regal even, this bronze man on this bronze horse,

go tea, square jaw, you get it, you've seen it before, even if you haven't seen it before. The statue faces north. The

sculptor wanted for us to face south, to better catch the light, but people

complained. Said it would imply that the general was retreating and he wasn't a man who

retreated. He surrendered once, but if the sculpture faced north, maybe people would forget that part, I guess.

So anyway, the plaque has to be big enough to catch your eye

when you're checking your cell phone or walking your dog or eating a chicken Caesar salad

from a plastic box and a bench, whatever people are doing there in the cemetery,

...