Red Nose

Apparently I Have A Following Among Graffiti Artists

I started out just snapping an occasional picture of the interesting graffiti along the Red Line during my daily commute.

Now I have over 250 photos of street art in a Flickr set. I think this has become a full-fledged hobby! In fact, I now have actual graffiti artists following me on Instagram and Flickr! Who knew? I simply tagged the Instagram photos as "#urbanart" and "#graffiti" as pretty soon folks named "trill_ass_arnold" and "durkstevens" and "loudmanee_shmokindopee" were liking and commenting and following. Then I started seeing that graffiti artists found my Flickr set and starting favoriting (it pains me to write that, but not enough to refrain from doing it) and commenting on the photos in it. Scando-Commando even sent me a link to a DC graffiti forum, where I found a posting of one of my pictures! At least the poster labeled it as "stolen" rather than taking credit for it. Honor among thieves, I suppose!

It's really fascinating to watch how the art changes. Sometimes it takes years; other times it happens within days. For example, for months this tag appeared on the side of a building in between the Takoma and Fort Totten stations:

Then one day I saw that this minimalist piece was covered by this extremely colorful and intricate piece featuring Dick Dastardly:

The names on either side of Mr. Dastardly are "Snek" and "Gowje" -- I've got several other tags featuring Snek, but he's usually paired with Fant. I wasn't entirely pleased with this shot -- it's a bit fuzzy -- so I was determined to get a better one. But before I could, this happened:

Voyer struck! I'm glad he didn't cover up Dick Dastardly, because this shot of him is much sharper.

Here's one more example -- I put these three shots in a collage picture to show the original graffitti, the coverup, and the coverup of the coverup! I swear the coverup lasted all of two days before the coverup of the coverup appeared. I'm waiting for a coverup of the coverup of the coverup.

Now, I know that "beef" is urban slang (also circus slang) for having a grudge against or wanting to fight another person. So... do you think Voyer is sending a message here? Or, as trill_ass_arnold commented on the Instagram post of the "Voyer loves beef" photo, perhaps Voyer actually loves beef and broccoli - as evidenced by the broccoli tree under the "loves beef".

In any case, it makes for an interesting and fun commute, watching how the art changes and trying to capture it before it disappears.

Inauguration Day (and Other Stuff)

I've only been to one presidential inauguration, that of John F. Kennedy. I was nine years old. Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic president, so all of us Catlicks were beyond thrilled. (In my Catlick school classroom were two portraits: the Pope and John F. Kennedy.) The only thing I remember about that day is that it was freezing cold. I don't remember the parade; I don't remember seeing the presidential motorcade. I just remember the cold.

So I'm very glad that it was not so cold today for President Obama's ceremony. Joe and I watched on TV and listened to the radio; I was very moved by all of the performers. The president's speech was impressive and forceful -- I was particularly happy to hear him mention Stonewall and be explicit about supporting gay rights.

We didn't watch the whole thing, because it's also Joe's birthday! He turned 60 today (yes, he's younger than I am by a whole year and three days), so we went to the movies to celebrate. We saw Hyde Park on Hudson, with Bill Murray as FDR and Laura Linney as Daisy, his cousin and mistress. It was very good. Bill Murray is a very good actor and his FDR was understated and subtle.

I had a great birthday weekend too! My sister and brother-in-law took us out to dinner Saturday night; I think we surprised them when the music started up at the pub and we joined in on a rousing version of The Wild Colonial Boy. Afterwards we divided up our Caps tickets and commiserated over their opening night loss.

I also sent in my request for an audition appointment. At 12:15 am. The rule was that you couldn't ask for an appointment before January 21 -- so I responded right when the day turned. I thought that the producers might think I was a bit nuts (and they would be right!) but I got a response at 9:00 this morning confirming my request! So it is on.

And it's not too late to vote for your favorite. The audition isn't until February 16, so I have plenty of time to prepare and be nervous.

Urban Art Along The Red Line

I ride the Red Line to work every damn day, and when I'm not shooting birds at pigs or playing Scabble with my phone, I like to look at the urban art along the way.

I've posted many of these to Instagram and Facebook, but I don't get a chance to talk about them much there.

Some people think that graffiti is awful and ugly, a blight on the landscape, or malicious destruction of property. I suppose in some cases it is, when it consists of obscenities or random splotches of paint. Some of it is repetitive and can get a little boring, like the bazillion "Cool Disco Dan" tags that appeared like weeds around town in the 80s and 90s. But even those tags were fun to spot -- way more fun than reading billboards.

Some of the tags are downright beautiful! These two shots are just outside the tunnel north of the Silver Spring station. I can't make out the names, but I love the beautiful color and ornate styling.

Some are rather whimsical. These two shots are part of a large Top Cat themed piece at Brookland, featuring Fancy Fancy, Benny the Ball, and Top Cat himself.

  

I liked this one because it seemed to be framed by the greenery, like the artist planned it that way.

This Joker is quite scary to me; I'm impressed by how sinister it is.

Graffiti is by its nature fleeting. The urban art changes and shifts; it gets washed away or painted over. Cool Disco Dan is pretty much gone, replaced by Pear and Soma and Borf. But some of the art has survived for years, especially the memorials. This Michael Jackson tribute has been on the southbound side of Brookland since his death in 2009.

The shoes, the hat, the black and white color scheme... you don't even need the "RIP MJ" to know who this commemorates.

This one is my favorite. It's right next to the Top Cat mural and memorializes Sean Taylor, the Washington Redskin free safety who was murdered in 2007. This memorial has been untouched since it was painted. The burgundy and gold have faded in the last five years, but the art remains, respected by the artists and appreciated by the viewers, watching from the Red Line.

Early Spring (and Some Clouds)

Late spring has arrived early in DC this year. The trees have burst wide open, daffodils and forsythia are carpeting the median strips and highway embankments, and the temperatures are in the high 70s.

Unfortunately, my allergies are also in full bloom. My throat starting itching and my nose started flowing, so hello, Benadryl! Well, this too shall pass.

Today was the first day in the new office space. The move went off without a hitch; given the number of times my company moves people around, I would have been surprised if it hadn't. They've got this stuff down. So my five boxes of books and files and other office detritus were just a'waitin' for me outside of my new cube. (I did ultimately get the one I wanted, so no complaints.)

Because of this exceptional weather, the longer walk to work this morning was quite pleasant. An industrious gentleman sweeping the sidewalk with a pine tree branch wished me good morning and told me that I looked nice and to have a wonderful day. That made me smile.

So the theme for today's Photo-A-Day is "Clouds" -- and it's a good thing that I snapped this one yesterday, because was not a cloud in the sky today.

 

 

You Are Here

Today's Photo-A-Day theme is "sign."

I thought about being creative on this one, but ultimately I just snapped a picture of this helpful piece of user documentation near the Silver Spring Metro stop.

The reason for this sign (and many others like it on the surrounding blocks) is that the county (or maybe the state? I don't know!) is building a brandy-new transit center that will consolidate buses, subway trains, Amtrak trains, MARC trains, bicycles, skateboards, and maybe even scooters!

I kid. But they are building a transit center. It's that gray irregular pentagon on the sign.

Anyway, the construction of this behemoth has caused the bus stops to go all cattywampus and WMATA has had to accommodate the buses on the surrounding streets. They've actually done a pretty good job, including signs like this one.

At least you always know where you are.

Valentine's Day, Cool Sites, and Other Randomness

So, Valentine's Day came and went, didn't it?

Joe, that sneak, slipped a card and some Ghiradelli chocolates on the kitchen table while I was in the shower and then went back to bed.

I, therefore, bought his card and a Toblerone after work. When we got home from our super-romantic dinner at a local barbeque joint, I slipped them on the kitchen table while he was communing with the feral cats.

Hah! I can be sneaky too!

Although it appears that I have not been keeping up with the February Photo-A-Day meme, I really have. I just haven't posted all of the pictures here. Instagram doesn't let me share photos with Typepad (or at least I haven't figured out how to do it), but I do share them with Twitter and Facebook. I also put the ones I like best up on Flickr.

Anyway, Instagram is my new favorite picture taking and sharing app. It's immediate, it does all the work for me, and it has fun filters that I always try out but always come back to the same two or three.

I've also fallen for a couple of websites that I hadn't seen before.

Letters of Note and Lists of Note are fascinating. I can hours reading the letters and lists archived on these sites and already have a few favorites.

This one, from a former slave to his former master, blows my mind. On the surface, it is completely respectful, but if you read between the lines, you know that this freed man is pretty much his former owner to go fuck himself sideways.

And this one, from Albert Einstein, pretty much sums up my entire belief system.

As a DC native, Ghosts of DC has particular relevance for me. I love the photographs and the comparisons of then and now. I wish my folks could see it! They would be able to fill in a lot of details, I'm sure.

On the other hand, I have not gotten into Pinterest yet. Oh, I'm signed up, and people are following me, but I have done bubkus on the site. I can't really say why; I just haven't spent enough time on it to get anything going. Maybe this weekend!

Well, this has certainly been a random entry. I'll get more focused later. Maybe.

Vignettes

Here are some vignettes from the past week.

Once a Mom, always a Mom.

Last Monday morning, it was 33 degrees. That is, in a word, cold. Most people with a modicum of common sense would wear warm clothes: long sleeves, jackets, hats, that sort of thing. Alas, there are those who do not possess common sense, like this young woman on the Metro:

I really wanted to wag my finger at her and say, "Put on some goddamn shoes and socks!! You'll catch your death of cold!!" I managed to restrain myself, however.

Joe and the LL Bean Stock

Joe had gotten himself a job at LL Bean and bid adieu to Lord and Taylor. LL Bean is really more our style, so he is looking forward to this new position. As am I -- I get to use the employee discount too! (It is a dandy discount, too.) Although Joe looks damn good in a suit, he will be a lot more comfortable in khakis and a nice LL Bean shirt. They even allow employees to wear shorts! LL Bean shorts, to be sure, but still. Shorts!

I Miss Summer

As the weather gets colder and the nights get longer, I dig up pictures from summer, when the sun set after 8:30 and lit up the sky...

Goin' Mobile

Joe has great ideas for Sunday excursions, especially on beautiful autumn days. Today we went down to the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art -- Joe wanted to see the exhibit of Antico bronzes from the Renaissance and the immense and amazing Pastrano tapestries. They were wonderful, of course, but I still love the huge Alexander Calder mobile.

Moving Through Sparkles

The East and West Wings of the National Gallery of Art are connected by an underground passage with a moving sidewalk -- it is a work of art in and of itself.

We enjoyed the West Wing too -- we visited our favorites and took in some new exhibitions. I'm grateful that I have such an energetic husband, otherwise I would turn into a complete lump.

Ukulele Progress

I am still practicing the ukulele. So far I have almost mastered Everyone Says I Love You. I still have a little trouble going with the D minor 7th chord and the bridge between verses, but it is coming along. I am also practicing You've Got A Friend In Me, which is pretty easy but which has a tricky opening riff. Once I get that one down, I'm moving on to Sweet Caroline and White Sandy Beach.

This is Tim Thomas

Lately my favorite commercials have been the Discover card commercials featuring Peggy of USA Prime Credit. This one is especially funny, especially if you're a hockey fan:

 

 

Not About The Hurricane

Yes, yes, yes... there's a goddamn hurricane bearing down on the east coast. Ocean City is under a mandatory evacuation order, blah blah blah.

I will, no doubt, write about the goddamn hurricane, but not now.

Now I want to talk about how I helped set a new world record!

My great good friend Andrea posted on Facebook about UkeFest 2011 and asked if anyone would like to go with her. Now how, I ask you, can anyone resist going to a ukelele festival?? I couldn't, especially since the main event at the fest was the attempt to break the Guiness world record for simultaneous strumming! The record is 851 ukelele players strumming and singing at once.

So Andrea and I met up at the metro station and hoofed it on over to the festival. The evening was perfect: warm, nice breeze, no bugs. Andrea registered to be counted as a player; I did not, because I did not have and cannot play a ukelele.

While Andrea registered, I scanned the crowd and found two wonderful clowns! Mark Jaster, who is a friend of one of my oldest friends, and Michael Rosman, a fellow Clown College grad. They are both supremely talented! Mark was in character; Michael is a character! (Heh.) If you ever get a chance to see these guys, go!

Andrea and I staked out a spot on the lawn, grabbed some supper from the barbeque shack, and settled in to listen to the various wonderful musicians. They included Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, The Sweater Set, and several other ukelele experts. I really loved an amateur ukelele group called The Riders, a group of seniors ages 68 through 94. They were great!

The crowd got bigger and bigger, but would there be enough strummers to breat the record?? The emcee kept encouraging folks to register, yet it seemed like we would fall short. There were 452 registered; there were 602 people registered! It was almost time, oh no!

 Andrea kept encouraging me to sign up, but first I would have to buy a ukelele. And wouldn't you know it? The House of Musical Traditions (a wonderful area music store) had ukeleles for sale, including beginner ukes for the princely sum of $40.

I caved -- it didn't take much, if I'm honest. I trotted over to the table, picked out a candy apple red number (no metal flake, alas!), forked over my cash, and registered. Andrea tuned up the uke and gave me a crash course in three chords: C, F, and G7. Those were the only chords I needed to play the two required songs.

Finally, the announcement! Did we have enough players??

YES! We had a grand total of 944 registered players!

Now it was time to strum. I did my best, but I'm glad there were so many other players there to drown out my clumsy attempt to play. At any rate, we played enthusiastic versions of This Land Is Your Land and Aloha O'e.

So yeah, I helped break a record! And I own a candy apple red ukelele -- luckily, I can take lessons starting in September.

 

Earthquake!

Holy smokes!

There I was, sitting at my desk preparing for my weekly one-on-one meeting with my manager. I noticed that my monitor was shaking a bit -- who the hell was stomping around so hard?

And then my desk started shaking, my chair started shaking... heck, I started shaking! Just as my brain realized that we were having a fucking earthquake, my colleague -- who is from California -- said, "It's an earthquake! Get under your desk!"

So I did!

Most of my co-workers dashed outside. I started to join them, but then the shaking subsided and stopped altogether.

Then I got a text from Joe: We had an earthquake! So of course I texted back: I know! We did too! I called my sister, who answered the phone saying, "Are you buried under rubble?" I texted SonnyeBoy in Ocean City, who also felt it.

Yes, we had an earthquake, magnitude 5.9 or thereabouts. I realize that my west coast friends are yawning and saying "Pish tosh! A mere shiver!" But it was pretty amazing for this area; in fact, it's strongest quake we've had in over 100 years. (I guess we were overdue.) The quake was centered in Mineral, Virginia, less than 100 miles from here. So far, no injuries have been reported, but there has been some damage around the area -- a wall fell in Centennial Plaza in Vienna, Virginia -- and structural engineers are inspecting the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

Of course, the tweets (including mine!) started flying. This is my favorite:

Actually, next up for the East Coast is Hurricane Irene. It looks like it could come right up the coast, which is bad news for Ocean City, alas! I'm hoping that it weakens substantially so that I don't have to worry too much. (SonnyeBoy, could you put the porch furniture inside the house, please? Kthxbai.)

At any rate, after the world stabilized, I kept going over to my manager's office for our meeting, but she was one of the folks who skedaddled out of the building. Then we got word that there was a gas leak in the building.

That was all I needed to know! So long, work!

Better

We spent the weekend at Joe's sister's house. It's such a beautiful drive out there, over the ridges through Frederick, Hagerstown, Hancock, Flintstone... into and out of Cumberland, down the driveway, through the woods and up the hill to the octagon house.

We didn't do anything in particular. We petted the critters and walked along the lane and listened to the wind in the trees. We drank coffee and ate cake and played games with the little kids and talked and talked and talked. We laughed a lot too.

It was just what we needed.

The weather this week has been pretty spectacular -- warm days, cool nights, low humidity, and (as the weather folks like to say) abundant sunshine. It's lovely! I feel like I can finally breathe again.

The Redskins beat Dallas! It wasn't the prettiest game in the world, but I don't care.

Even more, if football season has started, can hockey be far behind? I think not!

Tonight I got on the crowded subway train. A young woman was sitting on the aisle, the seat beside her empty, so I politely said, "Excuse me" to ask for the seat. She grimaced but slid over and I sat down, very happy to have a seat.

Then I noticed another woman, maybe a wee bit older than I, coming down the aisle. She was using a crutch; her foot encased in a big moon boot. I got up and offered her my seat and she gratefully took it. I resigned myself to stand, but then the young man in the next row asked if I would like to sit. He got up and I happily sat back down.

Nice!

So yeah. Everything balances out, I guess.