American Graffiti.

Some people call it ugly. Some people call it art. I call it urban enhancement.

Turn And Face The Strange.

Even though I’ve said many times that taggers prefer to work on blank canvases and usually show respect for each other’s work by not painting over what someone else has already done I know there are exceptions. I’ve seen exceptions. This one just happened to be really eye-catching and, I thought, pretty funny and clever too.

Any picture of a fish also reminds me of my college friend Katherine who was an art student and painted what I thought was an amazing picture of goldfish in a pond. She added dabs of white and very pale yellow to show light reflecting off the surface of the water and somehow managed to give the whole picture a genuine sense of depth. It was really well done trompe l’oeil. Then some highly regarded art critic visited the campus. He went around the gallery making comments about different student artworks. When he got to Katherine’s he said,  “Some mornings I want orange juice and some mornings I want tomato juice,” he said. “If I feel like orange juice and you give me tomato juice, even if it’s the world’s best tomato juice, I’m not going to like it. Then he paused and added, “This is pineapple juice. I hate pineapple juice.”

Katherine shrugged it off with her usual “Opinions are like armpits; everybody’s got a couple and some stink.” I, on the other hand, was annoyed with more than just his criticism of what I thought was a good painting. Judgments about art, I thought, should be fixed, based in solid reasoning, not just feelings. I didn’t know what that reasoning should be, exactly, but I felt there must be other, better critics out there who’d figured it out.

Now that I’m older—I try not to think about how much older, but that’s another story—I feel very differently about what that art critic said. Part of it, anyway. Art criticism is subjective. There are artists I used to not care for whose work I really like, or at least appreciate, now, and there are some I used to really like who don’t move me like they used to.

And also Katherine’s painting was pineapple juice. I happen to love pineapple juice. I hope I always will.

The Last Word.

It’s funny to me when people say “Welp.” What they mean is “Well”, usually as in something like, “Well, that’s it then” but the letter P at the end just emphasizes the finality. In linguistics P is a voiceless bilabial plosive—related to B, which is a voiced bilabial plosive. The letter L, on the other hand, is a voiced alveolar lateral approximant, and you’d think linguists could come up with a shorter term and you’d be right. I remember from college linguistics class that L and R are the liquid consonants. I like that term. I do wish the letter R could also get in there but calling them the lurid consonants would have an entirely different meaning.

I like this graffiti too. It’s bright and sharp. Because it’s only visible along a stretch of Interstate 40 just past Charlotte Pike the simplicity is nice. Only passengers are likely to see it as the cars they’re in speed by.

Here’s the graffiti that used to be in the same spot. I took this picture a little over two years ago but it stayed there for a lot longer. I looked it up in Google Maps and the earlier graffit was still there as recently as October 2023. I don’t know if it’s the same artist painting over their work. If it is their style seems to have evolved—it’s stronger now, more confident, but I don’t think it’s the last thing they have to say.

Just What I Needed.

It’s been ten years now since my cancer diagnosis, the perfect time to see that the hospital where I went for treatment offers an Introduction To Chemotherapy class. It’s a great idea and I’m glad it’s being offered, but where was it when I needed it? I could have used something like that when I was at the beginning of treatment—it would have been even better to have it before the first day I walked into the clinic scared out of my mind because I had no idea what chemotherapy was going to be like or what it would involve. I’d watched Breaking Bad and seen Walter White go the clinic for treatment but I don’t recall actually seeing what that involved until close to the end of the final season, when he was living alone in a cabin in New Hampshire. And, in spite of knowing far too many friends who’d been through cancer themselves, I didn’t realize he was getting chemotherapy. I’d also read memoirs by people about their own cancer battles, specifically Robert Schimmel’s Cancer On $5 A Day (which was originally supposed to be called I Licked The Big C), Gilda Radner’s It’s Always Something, and Julia Sweeney’s God Said Ha!

So I was prepared to face cancer with a lot of humor. And I was prepared for side effects, which I got. My hair fell out, I had bouts of nausea, and my fingernails got dark and crusty. I got a rash from sunlight. And I felt tired all the time. What I wasn’t prepared for was what the process of getting chemotherapy actually meant. Nothing I’d read or seen, I thought, actually showed what happens to a person getting chemo, so I imagined it was too gruesome to be shown or even described. This may sound really stupid, and my wife and other people have even asked me, “Why didn’t you ask about it before you started?” Because I was terrified of what it meant but also trying to put on an unnecessary brave face. And whatever chemotherapy involved I was going to go through it because the other option was, to be blunt, death.

Here’s what happened on my first day, and every subsequent full session after that: I went into the clinic and sat down in a room. Some nurses came in and gave me a few pills and a cup of water. Because it was really cold in the clinic, in spite of it being 90 degrees outside, they offered me a warm blanket. They brought in an IV pole with a bag full of fluid, stuck a needle in my arm, and said, “Call us if you need anything” and left me there by myself for three hours. When the bag of fluid was empty an alarm went off, they came and took the needle out of my arm, and that was it.

When someone gets a cancer diagnosis they’re bombarded with information: what it means, what their chances are, what their treatment options are. I get that a detail like “At least part of your treatment will involve sitting in a chair for hours so figure out something to do with your time” is not something most doctors will think to say.

And I doubt any of them would recommend filling that time with some bad lip syncing.

The Rainbow Connection.

Source: Wikipedia

The Muppet Movie is the ideal movie for Pride Month.

That may sound like a completely random thought but it’s something that occurred to me both after I watched the new documentary Jim Henson: Idea Man about the life and work of Jim Henson and also reading the article On the Cultural Significance of ‘The Muppet Movie’ in the Nashville Scene.

Neither of those make any connection between the Muppets and LGBTQ+ community–in spite of its title the Scene article is really too short to do anything but highlight a few aspects the original film’s significance–but it’s something I thought about because, like many LGTBTQ+ people—and, for that matter, most of us who’ve felt like outsiders for whatever reason—the Muppets are a diverse bunch of odd characters who may seem like they have nothing in common but who form a family anyway. Jim Henson himself did the same thing, bringing a wide range of performers together into what ultimately became a family as they all worked together and shared time together through multiple projects. Although most of the performers behind the Muppets were straight there were a few who were gay, like Richard Hunt, who was hired to work on Sesame Street in its early years and he performed the character Scooter who was introduced on The Muppet Show.

Jim Henson wasn’t gay and neither is Frank Oz, but they were very close friends. Friendship is a form of love and I think they expressed that through the Muppets’ most endearing, enduring, and difficult couple—the on-again-off-again-who-knows-what’s-going-on-or-off relationship between Kermit and Miss Piggy. A relationship between a frog and a pig may seem transgressive, if not downright impossible, but love is love. Henson and Oz also originated another long-term Muppet couple, Bert and Ernie, who also love each other enough to stick together in spite of–or maybe because of–their differences.

There’s another old Muppet couple, Waldorf and Statler. I don’t like to stereotype but others have pointed out that they’re apparently single men who spend all their time together, and most of it at the theater where they sit in a booth making catty remarks. Whatever their relationship is they make each other laugh, and that counts for a lot.

Speaking of theaters Henson chose to model The Muppet Show theater on British dance halls, Theaters have a long history of being safe places for LGBTQ+ people—it’s not a coincidence that Polari, slang used by gay men to communicate discreetly—was also popular among actors, singers, and circus folk. And the Muppet theater, like Sesame Street, is a place where everyone is welcome.

These are just a few thoughts I had but the Muppets are multi-layered and complicated and, more than anything else, they’re for everyone. The Muppet Movie begins with Kermit singing “The Rainbow Connection” and ends with all the Muppets singing it together, and accepting each other. It’s why the Muppets still matter, and because they’re united by what they share rather than what makes them different we can see ourselves in them. Personally I’ve always felt a kinship with Fozzie Bear, who manages to make the worst jokes funny, but the point is that there’s at least one Muppet for everyone, and those lines still ring true:

Someday we’ll find it,

the rainbow connection,

the lovers, the dreamers, and me.

Both Baked In That Pie.

There are two quotes from Shakespeare that I’ve heard cited several times as evidence of The Bard contradicting himself. First is probably the most famous:

O! be some other name:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet…

That, of course, is from Romeo & Juliet, Act II, scene 2. Then there’s:

Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.

That’s from Othello, Act III, scene 3, and it’s spoken by Iago. It’s a noble thought and I understand why people quote it but of Shakespeare’s villains Iago is one of the worst.

Even if these ideas are contradictory, and I think they’re much too complicated to say they are, Shakespeare didn’t speak through his characters. Maybe he spoke through his plays—there have been whole books written about how the death of his son Hamnet might have prompted him to stop writing light comedies and turn to the darker subjects of his tragedies—but that’s a controversial idea.

Anyway both Juliet and Iago understood that names carry a lot of weight which is why the Oprah tag I’ve noticed around Nashville caught my attention. And it’s been noticed by others too. Is it a callout to Oprah Winfrey? She did live in Nashville and attended both high school and college here, winning Miss Black Nashville in 1972 and Miss Black Tennessee and started her career at a local radio station.

Maybe it’s just someone else named Oprah, or someone who chose it as their tag for aesthetic reasons. Whatever the story behind it is I don’t think the famous Oprah has anything to worry about. If she were inclined to quote Shakespeare herself she might say, “Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.”

And if you recognized the line from Titus Andronicus, Act V, scene 3, “Why, there they are both, baked in that pie,” give yourself ten bonus points.

The Not So Secret Garden.

Every spring and summer local libraries put in community gardens. It’s a great idea that brings people together—although at the Richland Park Library there’s also a weekly farmer’s market that draws big crowds so you have to get there early to find a parking space. Like a lot of Nashville’s libraries it’s also placed in a neighborhood where it’s within easy walking distance for a lot of residents so that helps.

The pizza garden is a brilliant idea since it brings kids into the community gardening project too. Obviously there’s basil in there but also tomatoes and in the larger plot they’ve planted zucchini and peppers. I’d like to see a pineapple planted in there somewhere. There’s also a large rain barrel set next to the library building that people use for watering its gardens. And the Richland Park Library has a “catalogue” of seeds for anyone who wants to take some seeds to try growing plants at home, or that they can donate to if they have any extras. As you can see it’s decorated with a very hungry caterpillar.

Looking at all this made me realize how much libraries and community gardens go together: they belong to everyone but they also need care and tending and also—librarians will get this—occasional weeding.

Droning On.

So Washington state is trying to address the problem of graffiti by employing drones that will spray paint over it. The drones will cost about $30,000 each, not including the time and money that will go into training people, operating them, and filling the drones with paint for each outing. Naturally I have an opinion about this. It may not be worth much–it’s a lot cheaper than $30,000, though, and it’s based on my own experience of looking at graffiti and also sanctioned public art. Something I’ve noticed is that, for the most part, taggers will leave public murals alone. There are some exceptions. A Nashville mural for Gideon’s Army, a restorative justice program that works to reduce community violence, was vandalized because some people are terrible.

Mostly, though, the people who do graffiti want a blank canvas. There’s an area near where I work where I’ve photographed a lot of graffiti and it’s where I first noticed this. On one side of the street there are several empty buildings—the whole block is undergoing major renovation right now with some historic spots being torn down. The empty buildings have been tagged, scribbled on, even gotten stickers slapped on them in some spots. On the other side of the street there are several active businesses with murals that have been left as they are.

It’s not a perfect solution. As I said sometimes murals and other public art will get vandalized, and not every place that gets graffitied is necessarily a great spot for a mural. On the other hand $30,000 could buy a lot of art supplies with money left over to tap into local talent—giving some of those taggers a legal outlet—which would also be a way to brighten up cities. Sometimes the low-tech solution is better. Just consider what happened to a drone at a Renaissance fair.

Source: makeagif.com

I can’t find more information about what happened afterward but at some point that event was memorialized.

Source: imgur

 

Back In Style.

I bought the t-shirt back in 2011, during the last great cicada invasion, and joked at the time that I wouldn’t be able to wear it again for another thirteen years. In fact I’ve worn it several times since then just because I like it. It was created by local artist Eli Moody who works as a freelancer. You can also check out some of his work at Eli’s Art Pad. He has a very distinctive art style I really like. He does great pictures of people but it’s his animals, with varying degrees of anthropomorphism, that really stand out to me. It’s also really cool that he sometimes includes detailed rough drafts, as in his Dapper Armadillo picture.

He also did the art for a fun webcomic about working behind the scenes at a library called Search & Research with a main character named Marc Record. That’s a joke for the librarians out there.

Source: Search & Research

The cicada is a good example of that. It’s definitely a cicada but it’s also got a slight smile. Their adulthood may be short but the cicadas are going to make the best of it. And one of the fun things about this shirt is sometimes when I’m wearing it people come up and tell me it scared them because they thought at first I had a giant bug on me. I wasn’t trying to scare people, and neither was Moody, but it does make me laugh.

He didn’t make one for 2024, having a lot of other projects going on, and who knows where we’ll be in 2037? Maybe I should put the shirt in storage, though, to preserve it for the next time around, just in case.

And, yes, that’s an actual cicada on the shirt. It’s been thirteen years since I’ve been able to have one on it. Maybe it thought the picture was real too, only it wasn’t scared.