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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Disagree that this is not a problem. Graffiti is one of the "broken windows" symptoms that eventually brings whole neighborhoods down. It's a pain in the ass for property owners who are required to clean it up.
Also: "…ideological instrument for the interests of the ruling class". Adorable! Absolutely fucking a-dor-able.
Livestock consumers cost public trillions, #1 cause of climate change, #1 preventable cause of death
Passed through Rio de Janeiro for the first time last year. Loved Rio. But the place is COVERED in graffiti. While interesting, it is one aspect of Rio that is very very ugly. There it is totally out of control. Do we want that?
Communities and graffiti artists can and do come together for enduring murals. When and where this happens, it is often the representative product of community co-operation, not antagonism. Also, I know Seattle graffiti enough to deduce that the front page is referring to that chicken scratch crap and acid etching childishness.
(No, I've never participated in street art of any kind, so disclaimer cleared.)
The "broken windows" syndrome of which you speak takes a back seat to participatory citizenship, proprietor surveillance and, ahem, "eyes upon the street". No amount of policing, bright lights, or anti-graffiti daggers embedded in brick walls can substitute for those. Citizens ignoring goings-on locally with a "not my problem" brush-off is your broken window.
Until they're gone.
Damaging other people's property is nobody's right, and the vast majority of these romanticized "artists" are overprivileged white upper middle class pukes (who should be punched).
If they confined themselves to corporate property, you could argue some kind of logic and meaning to what they do. But they hit renters and homeowners just as much as big business, if not more. They just don't give a shit about other people.
Also, I'm intrigued by this dagger-based system. How does that work? Where do you get one?
I'd call the poor fucking business owner taking time out of his day to pain over stupid vandalism just about as "participatory citizenship" as it gets.
I've got no beef with graffiti as an "art form", I just fucking hate it when these "artists" believe they are taking some kind of stand by turning every surface in public into their personal canvas.
world wide, decades ranging, vary~skilled, collection of "vandalism": www dot artcrimes dot com
www.artcrimes.com
And, as much as I dislike the Seattle Times, I am pretty sure they have had some headlines about bankers, as well.
Charles, care to share where you live and park your vehicle (bike, scooter, car, or otherwise)? I'm sure that since graffiti isn't an issue for you, you'd welcome community "contributions" to your (or your landlord's) property.
Your entire comment is a red herring. Your idealism is nice and I'd love for us all to be better citizens. But how is grafitti not a problem?
The facts that sometimes murals are made legitimately and that community policing, etc. is the best solution don't really change the fact that illegal graffiti (which must account for 99.9% of "street art") is still criminal vandalism and targets all types of businesses and homes pretty much indiscriminately.
Or are you claiming that if a property owner is vandalized that must mean that the property owner wasn't "community" enough?
That is a scary philosophy.
@14- clearly you know nothing about graffiti, nor those involved. you should probably avoid talking out of your ass on a public forum. where did you get that demographic stat?
Second, whatever graffiti means to you, it is certainly not going anywhere. It's a permanent part of the urban landscape and one minor cost of living in a city. You may as well get all worked up about the high costs of traffic noise.
Finally, "1+1=3," who is singled out in the article as an example of lawlessness, is a freakin' HERO. Seattle is lucky to have that guy on our streets. Stranger - you should look into him and how he does what he does. I think you'll be impressed.
I've yet to see a tagger voluntarily clean up their shit.
Little fuckers, all of them.
I'm willing to lose all three if it would get rid of the hideous tagging shit that has covered my neighborhood in the last three years. For every Haring there's a thousand worthless scribblers fucking up other people's shit at tremendous expense.
If you think about it, what makes a more profound artistic statement than the artist being destroyed by his canvas? Symbolically, the artist inseminates the sexualized female wall surface, creating ART, but the vagina dentata of philistine society becomes the black widow spider that leaves the artist impaled and bleeding out his last drop of lifesblood before his unfinished work.
Also. I reject the false dichotomy that elevates boobytraps that stab artists in the mouth above those that stab them in the rest of the face, neck, torso, or even arms, legs and groin. This is precisely the kind of male-dominated thinking that puts boobytrap makers of color or of gender at a permanent disadvantage in the face of hierarchical Euro-mouth-stabbing-centric thought structures.
BANK FRAUD AND BAD PRACTICE COLLAPSED THE ECONOMY.
While I am sure people don't like to pay to clean graffiti, I am sure THEY WANT BUSINESS/ A JOB more. This is the point. Graffiti can and will be dicussed ad nasueum, but what has actually cost TRILLIONS to the average person is the banking industry. What COLLAPSED the global economy was the banks. This is a pretty important point, and throwing headlines out about graffiti, which will never ever ever ever go away, is worthless and pointless.
It's like having a headline: Rain is wet!!!! ZOMG!
Wow? ya think? THANKS FOR THE UPDATE. This was Charles' point.
Where is the continued update and outrage about the failure of the banking system, our failure as a nation to police them, and how the "too big to fail" has costs us TRILLIONS? It's nowhere, because the average person just can't seem to care/understand, and the media is more than willing to throw away paper and space on pointless, stupid "problems".
The problem is you're lumping a few "graffiti artists" in with the other 99.9% which are just taggers. I'm sorry but tagging with a marker or spray-can is not "street art" in any way. Again, red herrings. We're not talking about whether a few people graduate from vandalism to edgy art. That's a drop in the bucket.
And it's NOT a minor cost to someone who has to repair vandalized property.
Just because things like vandalism, noise, pollution, etc. are inevitable in a big city (which is not doubt true) that doesn't mean we should just shrug our shoulders and say "eh". Ask Telsa @12 what he thinks of "not my problem" brush-offs. :)
@43 FTW and a hilarious Charles-esque post! :) And you're right - this is a stupid false dichotomy. You can provide leniancy and a safe place to work for the few graffiti "artists" and still try to deter taggers and vandals.
Only one of the last 12 Stranger features stories was about the economy, and it wasn't actually about bankers. Two of those twelve were goofs about pit bulls. None of the last 15 Stranger covers has been about banking.
But still. The Seattle Times needs to focus on what matters.
It's like 9/11. You have to look beyond the surface, the truth is out there.
@Charles, nice try.
That said, I have no idea how many taggers are actually inner-city kids.
"Sorry, we can't cover those other local stories, folks. Don't you know there's a banking system crisis going on?"
Meanwhile, Charles Mudede continues to keep us abreast of the dreaded beastiality scourge.
"Where is the continued update and outrage about the failure of the banking system, our failure as a nation to police them, and how the "too big to fail" has costs us TRILLIONS? It's nowhere, because the average person just can't seem to care/understand, and the media is more than willing to throw away paper and space on pointless, stupid "problems"."
Yes! When oh when will the right wing, pro business, incredulous hacks that run the Seattle Times finally weigh in our myriad economic woes??? OH WHEN?
Ahem.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/bu…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/bu…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/bu…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/lo…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/bu…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/bu…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/bu…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/bu…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/bu…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/bu…
and that's just this month!
I would offer more links but I only felt like wasting 3 minutes on this. Here is a handy link to help you in the future...
http://www.wikihow.com/Search-the-Intern…
And more the point, AGAIN, graffiti isn't a "local issue". It's a non-issue, and when hacks at the Seattle Times (one of the WORST PAPERS EVER) makes a huge "ZOMG GRAFFITI COSTS MONEY" BS they should be called on it. And I am sure they can come up with a better story about wasted money from the city than f'ing graffiti. Which, as I said, is a complete non-issue.
And re: The Stranger not covering the crisis: Hum, 1 is the local daily, the other is an alt-weekly. Second, Golob has done several great blog posts about it, however he is not a staff writer (except his science column). Sure, they should have been doing more, but Seattle Times being the only daily in this city, I think they have fallen short. And a graffiti headline used to scare NIMBY's and WASP's? Great job!
"Not in my back yard" refers to people who want valuable services, like the Children's Hospital expansion in Laurelhurst, or the soup kitchen in Ballard, but they want them in somebody else's neighborhood. I'm not aware of anybody who dislikes graffiti in their own neighborhood but wants to see more graffiti in some other neighborhood. It makes no sense, does it?
And WASP? White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant? Don't get that reference at all. Catholics like graffiti? Brown people like graffiti? Buddhists? Who are you talking about?
And Charles Mudede is an editor who can assign himself write about any subject he likes. And Tim Keck and Dan Savage could, if they wanted to, pay Jonothan Golob actual money to write features about banking. Why don't they?
And if the city of Seattle is spending millions on anything, whether it is graffiti cleanup or whatever, it is a worthy subject for a local paper to cover. Makes you wonder why the Stranger never asked any questions about where all that city money is going.
That said, the Seattle Times does suck. But not because of this one thing.
Graffiti is not ever going to go away. It's always been around. And yeah, maybe you can curtail it, but it's always going to be on the city budget and to try and say otherwise is stupid.
So no, it doesn't deserve a front page. Maybe the back section? Maybe an opinion piece? Fine.
And yes, The Stranger SHOULD be doing a better job covering the financial news, in my opinion, but the Seattle fucking Times is the main source of news for this town. That is just a fact. And to cover this, and make it sound important, is BS.
For the record, I don't give a rats ass about graffiti or street art or tagging. I nothing it. I don't think it's "clever" and I don't think it's "evil". I am sure there are better stories about wasteful spending, but it would require actual journalists to cover that. Somthing maybe Seattle doesn't have?!
I am just glad we can agree that the Seattle Times sucks.
WASP's: Fine, maybe that is a shitty label. Just trying to say the goal of the piece is to piss off middle to upperclass white peopple. Poor label. I take it back.