Tilting at windmills 1988, which contained the song "Tilting at Windmills". Tilting at windmills Tilting at windmills is an English idiom that means attacking imaginary enemies. The expression is derived from the 1605 novel "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes, and the word "tilt" in this context comes from jousting. The phrase is sometimes used to describe either confrontations where adversaries are incorrectly perceived, or courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications. It may also connote an importune, unfounded, and vain effort against adversaries real or imagined for a vain goal. The phrase comes from
Tilted Arc as well as fierce defenders. Those who worked in the area found the sculpture extremely disruptive to their daily routines, and within months the work had driven over 1300 bureaucratic employees in the greater metro area to sign a petition for its removal. Serra, however, wrote, "It is a site-specific work and as such is not to be relocated. To remove the work is to destroy the work." Serra's side argued that "Tilted Arc" was designed to be counterintuitive, to "redefine" the space in which it existed, and that due to this intimate relationship between the location and the meaning