Walking past yet another housing estate whose walls are festooned to arm’s length with torn posters, glued art, endless tags. A small, modest sign up top reads: Nothing is to be stuck on here. “Nothing is to be stuck on here! Yeah… so I see.” “Yes… it’s hopeless.” “No, no. I think it’s absolutely hopeful. Beautifully so.” We walk past another building which reads, in part, Love is not a private possession. We wait for the dog, who is snuffling round a tree trunk with great assiduity. How does he know how to measure out his urine so as to have a little to offer every staging post and chat point, but without finding himself trapped back in the apartment all night with a half-full bladder. “I guess every young man has to have his tag. And then he has to stop on every corner to pee a little bit and mark it out.” “Just imagine if every young man had his favourite plant. And everywhere he went, he just had to plant out some of those plants, to make his mark on the place.” “Place sure would be green.”
Tag: street art
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election earring
A federal election approaches Germany, they’ve a Conservative government to vote back in. It’s an unequal fight: the sitting Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is called “Mummy” by the press and one of her would-be opponents is the Pirate Party (they’re good, but they’re goofy). This town is festooned with candidates’ placards. Barely a one unadorned with some form of wry or dark or daft commentary. Most common, because easiest, is the black-marker scribble under the nose which denotes A Moustache Like Hitler’s.
One of the locally beloved candidates approached in the markets last weekend, handing out leaflets in person. He is well into his eighties. On his election posters he appears to be wearing lipstick and a light powder, has in his glaringly perfect false teeth. His posters are the least defaced. Today I saw a poster on a bus stop which had grainy B&W pictures of the two major party leaders with the legend, “Who sucks most? Vote with your gum.” People had stuck wads of gum onto the faces of each, an almost literal vox pop. On the poles down the cafe strip I noticed official campaign placards have been interspersed, must have been overnight, with photos of cheesy-looking 70s fashion models from large-format old magazines. Mounted on cardboard and strapped between candidates they look to me eminently electable. Though possibly the recent experience of picking through the bizarre and downright crazy single-issue Senate candidates for Australia may have soured my outlook.
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visiting Berlin Wall
Passed a remaining section of the Berlin Wall and saw tourists of all languages leaning up against it for photographs, posing with big smiles and often two thumbs up; one Japanese girl had a coy, sexy grin. I wonder what it is they imagine they are visiting.
photograph is of a building-site skip transformed into street art with the aid of a shopping trolley turret, carpet-roll gun & many layers of clingwrap plastic.
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Tom Waits for no man
I somehow forgot Berlin’s imaginative beggars. This guy held open the door to the autotellers in the foyer of the bank, with a grand flourish, saying, “Welcome!” He was as confident as though he owned it. And he did! He was wearing a greasy navy-blue pinstripe suit like a boxer and had his hair slicked back. On the way out I gave him some coins and he snipped them up in the hand that was free from cigarette-rolling, clasped them to his breast, “Danke!”, kept rolling, grinning at me salty and devilish as Tom Waits. The joy of life is a great thing to share, if you’re a beggar or busker, if somehow you can manage it. Irresistible!
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heart of stones
I walked downstream to the picnic place where someone had made a heart of stones and filled it with pads of moss. The stones have gone now but the moss remains and some of it has taken root. A wet Spring. It makes not a green heart shape exactly, but something like. Heart like a blob. Heart like jelly, like a cloud.
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with my bare hand
Interesting coincidence between the accidents of physics and the compulsions of human nature: so often when a glove falls, in the street, like a leaf it will lie palm-side-up, as though its fortune is about to be told. That way when you walk past these lost lonely single gloves they are usually in postures of imploring, or appeal. It occurred to me retrieving my own glove outside my door that a nice filmclip could be made by stooping and dropping a coin or small offering – even a leaf, perhaps, as Balinese do – in the palm of each glove, randomly about the city.
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I can escape! if you’ll only believe in me
I was standing on the Underground platform just now gazing at a poster for a guy who calls himself the New Houdini. His hair was frosted & his hands outstretched imploringly: I can escape! If you’ll only believe in me! A voice came at my elbow, from a very small, very elderly man: “Might I offer you something to read?” He spoke so humbly I could hardly hear him.
Now, ordinarily this would be an ideal question from a stranger. But the highly-coloured brochure he held out looked so familiar. I laid my hand on his upper arm as gently, as affectionately as I could. “Geht’s um Gott? (Is it about God?)” Yes, he said, nodding soberly. I had the feeling of reaching round in the back of my brain for any extra shards of kindness that might be lying about unclaimed. “You know… I think perhaps I might have read that one before.” He nodded again and turned away, back to his tiny wife who was wearing a soft pink beret, hand-knitted, and was also carrying brochures. With a pang in my heart I watched them conferring, about, perhaps, who they might approach next. He had offered me his treasure, and I loved him for that.