It’s kudos time. Let’s get that out of the way right now. A friend of mine back in the old country has a really great blog (LINK). Heck of a guy, as they say in The States. I play the role of digital parasite, feeding off the links he posts, siphoning new ideas and inspiration from what floats his boat. Granted, a decent percentage of the external links will lead to sites dealing with web development languages and technologies (XML, XSLT, AJAX, CSS...) that I know fuck all about but there are also a fair quantity of links for the lay man.
He recently posted a link (LINK) related to the subconscious, accidental art of graffiti cover up. The artists being the city workers detailed with slapping mundane concrete shades of paint over vivid and unsanctioned works of public art. I spent a while thinking about what I had read at (LINK). It brought to mind personal observations of this tit for tat relationship between those who paint graffiti and those who try to pretend it never happened. The graffiti temporarily exists, is removed, appears elsewhere and is once again blotted out, all with the end result of the urban surface being forever altered which is exactly what those who run the city have been fighting against. Nobody wins. It’s hard to imagine any civic manager being passionate about coordinating this removal effort. What satisfaction can be taken home from a day’s work when you know that as soon as you go to sleep the graffiti artists begin their shift, providing you with your work for the following day? Tit for tat, back and forth, up and down, profit and loss... cyclic, rhythmic. Those who win are the likes of me, the man who walks the street and drives the freeways noticing fresh graffiti, and counting the days until it is replaced by a rough rectangle that’s three shades different from the surface it tries to mimic.
Mental sustenance and being privy to art mixed with crime mixed with psychological warfare between city government and artist is the reward. It fractures the monotony of the drive to work in the gray dead of winter with bursts of color in unexpected places. The façade of the city approximates the walls of a gallery with a rotating catalog of artists that any museum would be jealous of. The stealth with which Minneapolis removes graffiti seems to feed the problem and nourish the artists. The city is wasting money in trying to defeat something that it perpetuates.
Anyway, here (LINK) are my findings on The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal. Hopefully I have added something to the dialogue.
27 March 2006
22 March 2006
Prior Avenue
Martha and Elise (LINK) back on the mean streets of St. Paul today.
You just know they're gonna topple that building any day now. Those plywood windows are a dead give away. A damn shame.
You just know they're gonna topple that building any day now. Those plywood windows are a dead give away. A damn shame.
18 March 2006
Happy St. Patrick's Day
"Top of the morning to ye on this gray, grizzly afternoon. Kent O'Brockman here, live on Main Street, where today everyone is a little bit Irish, except, of course, for the gays and the Italians."
Kent Brockman
For most people I’m sure it was an accordingly messy day commemorating Ireland’s patron saint. God bless you all! Unfortunately I was not able to contribute to the flowing rivers of blood and green vomit this year. Earnestly putting in my hours at the fatherhood trade was I, and it’s worth every second. I’m apprehensive about letting this site transform into a cutesy, egocentric testament to Elise’s affect on our lives. Although the agenda of the blog may be vague there are some unwritten rules that govern its output (no half ass political analyses, no arrogant opinions on matters partially researched, no disclosure of these unwritten rules... oops) but it’s hard to pretend that life will ever be the same again and it is wrong, selfish and even shameful to suppress such delight for the sake of obsessively-compulsively adhering to such daft constraints. Inhibiting any form of organic behavior inevitably leads to problems. Try and kill a worm by chopping him in half, now you’ve got yourself two worms. Build a house too close to a tree and over time those roots will jack your house up and crack your walls good.
So the blog will be whatever it needs to be and that’s that. Phew.
Kent Brockman
For most people I’m sure it was an accordingly messy day commemorating Ireland’s patron saint. God bless you all! Unfortunately I was not able to contribute to the flowing rivers of blood and green vomit this year. Earnestly putting in my hours at the fatherhood trade was I, and it’s worth every second. I’m apprehensive about letting this site transform into a cutesy, egocentric testament to Elise’s affect on our lives. Although the agenda of the blog may be vague there are some unwritten rules that govern its output (no half ass political analyses, no arrogant opinions on matters partially researched, no disclosure of these unwritten rules... oops) but it’s hard to pretend that life will ever be the same again and it is wrong, selfish and even shameful to suppress such delight for the sake of obsessively-compulsively adhering to such daft constraints. Inhibiting any form of organic behavior inevitably leads to problems. Try and kill a worm by chopping him in half, now you’ve got yourself two worms. Build a house too close to a tree and over time those roots will jack your house up and crack your walls good.
So the blog will be whatever it needs to be and that’s that. Phew.
16 March 2006
Family fortunes...
The baby
Elise (LINK) continues to make us happy. Yeah, we'll keep her. A new friend (LINK) of hers is also proving to be a big hit around the joint.
The old man
Junk worthy of a mention. Self storage (LINK) building off University Avenue in St. Paul and some graffiti (LINK).
The mother
Martha (LINK) hasn't been slacking off either. No sir. In fact, she took these (LINK) Polaroids the same day Elise was born. Yeah, nothing like an unemployed man and a pregnant lady (in labor at the time) checking out a trash pile by the train tracks. Wouldn't have it any other way.
Elise (LINK) continues to make us happy. Yeah, we'll keep her. A new friend (LINK) of hers is also proving to be a big hit around the joint.
The old man
Junk worthy of a mention. Self storage (LINK) building off University Avenue in St. Paul and some graffiti (LINK).
The mother
Martha (LINK) hasn't been slacking off either. No sir. In fact, she took these (LINK) Polaroids the same day Elise was born. Yeah, nothing like an unemployed man and a pregnant lady (in labor at the time) checking out a trash pile by the train tracks. Wouldn't have it any other way.
13 March 2006
Hiawatha hump yards
Martha (LINK) and I were down at the Hiawatha hump yards on the day Elise ((LINK), (LINK)) was born. It was nine days past the due date and we were bored as crap loafing around the apartment not so patiently waiting for her to be born, so we hit the streets. Minnesota Commercial Railroad (LINK) uses this yard as storage for empty grain and liquid cars (LINK) and you’ll typically see up to 50 cars there, the same ones for weeks at a time. The longer they sit the more they get attacked by graffiti painting punks. And when there is no rail stock about, the delinquents paint all over (LINK) the yard walls.
12 March 2006
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