Friday, March 30, 2007

Thompson Street, SoHo, February 2007


OK, enough of the Golden West. We're back in New York City now, back to "real life." I'm happy to report that while I was away in California, spring seems to have sprung in New York. The bulbs are coming up and the daffodils in front of our building are starting to bloom. On Wednesday, I cleared away all the pine boughs that cover our garden in the winter, revealing more naked little daffodil shoots emerging from the ground.

I thought I'd better use these photos, since they include snow and in a few weeks they'll look really weird. This long poem, for lack of a better word, is neatly written across a long wall on a basketball court. Here's what it says: “A true holy war the streets are, to claim your pain, a voice in winds, where the women and mother nature are the muse bleed mom bleed and die with honor -- Rambo"

Now, I hate to be a poetry critic, but this seems a little like stringing together unconnected phrases and expecting some meaning to emerge. It brings to mind those collections of magnetic words that you can use to compose a poem on your refrigerator door. In fact, maybe that's what Rambo did, and then he just transferred the outcome to this wall.


I like the graphic effect, though, of the words running down the long wall. Rambo is a graffiti artist whose tags appear frequently. In fact, you may remember this one.

I watched "Borat" last night - my God, what a cringe-inducing movie! Funny in places, laugh-out-loud funny, but also really horrible. I suppose there's some value in pointing out our American stereotyping and prejudices, but I've always really hated practical jokes, and I feel terrible for the people on the receiving end of these stunts. Yikes. It makes me wince even now.

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