1243 - Dirty Old Town II

2010-03-09

I regularly infuriate Ted Byrne when I post images like this, and in a way I can understand it, imagining him scrubbing graffiti from his house’s walls. Yup, it’s destruction of private property, and especially, but that won’t make a difference to Ted, when it’s not even remotely artistic.

Yet I can’t imagine a city without these marks. No, I can’t even wish for it. It wouldn’t feel natural. You can threaten, you can punish, doesn’t matter. It still happens. You can’t prevent it - and that’s good. Look at that image, look at the layers. This is the closest our cities get to being natural, fractal, organic, aging, decaying. It’s not always nice, but neither is a carcass in the wilderness.

I’m still at home, still sick, still posting past images. This is from March, 1st and though I hope to be out again sometime this week, we could go on like that for a few hundred days. It’s interesting plundering the archives.

The Song of the Day is “Dirty Old Town”. We had a song of that title in “739 – Dirty Old Town”, but that were The Pogues. This time it’s David Byrne with a completely different Song from his landmark latin/crossover album “Rei Momo”. See a rare live performance, David Byrne some 20 years ago, on YouTube. A real gem.

There are 5 comments

Andreas Frei   (2010-03-09)

Great picture, Andreas. Also David Byrne, he never was my favourite, but I like the scenery and mood of that video, thanks! Wish you fast recovery!

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andreas   (2010-03-09)

Thanks. I'll do my best 🙂 As to David, he is a weird guy. I mean, why would you have a blog and not allow for comments? But then, he is one of the great trend setters, a real innovator. Funny, there was a time in my life, when the only music that I could bear, were records by the Talking Heads. Really. Everything else sounded shallow to me. Must have been weird myself 🙂

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Gina   (2010-03-10)

i love graffitti when i find it /capture it but i must admit i would not like it on my own property ... tis a fine line ... i hope you feel better soooooon ... at least with the onset of spring that might help a feeling of well being ? ... i really really will one day explore the music links you provide ... i am in awe of the consistency with which you provide a song that relates, with every post ... regards >>> Gina http://fyneimages.blogspot.com/ http://ginaseye.blogspot.com/

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andreas   (2010-03-10)

Thanks. As to the onset of spring and as I just wrote in the next entry, at the moment winter is back with a vengeance 😄

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Flo   (2010-03-13)

Andreas, I hope that by this time, you are feeling much better and back on your feet again. Winter returns, winter goes away, over and over, all spring, it seems. Right now my area is engulfed in a predicted 3-5 inches of rain, which if it were below freezing would become 3-5 feet of snow! About graffiti, I've often said that I wish there were a way for society to provide these artists - some of them really are super artists - with a way to beautiful the community plus earn a living for themselves. How about murals? Or painting on panels that people could buy? But so far, no one has come forward to help these people who feel the need to express themselves artistically, but who have no means or place in which to do so. However, the particular person who did this painting that you photographed doesn't measure up in my eye to the true graffiti artists. So in this respect, I agree with Ted. But, like you said, what would the grimier parts of cities be without graffiti? They have no beautiful wildflowers to look at, so they make their own kind of beauty. There have been a few cases of companies offering graffiti artists fence or wall space to beautify - construction companies who have to put up wooden fences around their sites - and a couple of towns - but these are few and far between. I doubt that the graffiti artists were paid for their efforts.

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