Off on a Tangent
23 July 2008
Some days you are bogged down in work or other duties, some days the muse just isn’t with you, and some days events arise that take your notice elsewhere. I will be continuing with part 3 of Sewers & Psych hospitals, but two recent events that merit brief notice.
First news item, yesterday (22nd July) what were described as “ancient” human bones were discovered at Maitland Street, just north off the CPR rail road tracks. The current CPR line runs either on top of or beside the old English Creek in this specific area. I am on record as speculating about a lost Neutral Indian village I once heard about in this area. Regardless of wether my guess proves right or wrong, the story is a long one, and deserves it a better treatment than I can give at this moment.
The second item was the take down and seizure of the Hell’s Angels (or is it Hells Angel’s?) Clubhouse just north off Brydges Street. The fact that this clubhouse was not only around the corner from the old Outlaw’s clubhouse (Egerton Street, just south of Florence), and that it was just across the street a bit to the east of the London Police automobile reporting centre always made me think it was there in that location for a purpose. Can I prove this? No. I suspect the reason for where it was had something to do with an “in your face” attitude, but again, nothing I can prove.
What specifically grabs my attention is the issue of graffiti. Recently there were well publicized arrests of young men whom the police think responsible for much of the graffiti in the city. Now much of the graffiti in this city is gawd awful horrible, unoriginal and just plain sad. There are some exceptions, and the photograph in the post “graffiti” just before this one shows one of the few examples of what I think is incredible street art. I took this photograph in April of 2008, and last I looked, it was still there, down near the south branch of the Thames River. If all graffiti were of this calibre, I wonder if there would be such opposition to it as we see now. Sadly, most graffiti is usually ugly, or incredibly dangerous. Just look at my two smokestack pictures as one such example.
The City does paint over graffiti seen under bridges and on blank walls with white or grey paint, only I have seen, with my own experience, new graffiti painted over top, sometimes in less than a 48 hour period. Perhaps the comment made today by modern day graffiti is not so much an underground exploration of the state of our affairs (which I think our robotic man does so well), but is just another “in your face” statement.
Whatever the purpose, my main point is this - despite seeing graffiti all over the city, in sometimes the oddest and most difficult locations, since it’s closure in 2002 after a Police raid, the former Outlaws clubhouse had remained remarkably free of any graffiti whatsoever. Some may argue by pointing out that the words “Welcome home” were spray painted on one wall a couple years ago, but this event happened the day one of the Outlaws arrested at the time of this raid and similar raids across the Province was released from jail. So this is not so much graffiti as a message I think.
So obviously even graffiti “artists” have their “danger limit.” It is also interesting to note that nobody else from any quarter of society has made much fuss about the graffiti free zone that exists on this dilapidated building. Perhaps the solution the Outlaws have come to in dealing with graffiti is not quite acceptable to the rest of society, so everyone just ignores the fact.
For myself, I’ll be keeping an eye on the now defunct Hell’s Angels clubhouse, to see how long graffiti stays off there.
Sometimes when dealing with history, it’s not the major earth shaking events that defines who and what we are as a people and a culture, but the little idiosyncracies that nobody ever wants to talk about.
:)
23 July 2008
Some days you are bogged down in work or other duties, some days the muse just isn’t with you, and some days events arise that take your notice elsewhere. I will be continuing with part 3 of Sewers & Psych hospitals, but two recent events that merit brief notice.
First news item, yesterday (22nd July) what were described as “ancient” human bones were discovered at Maitland Street, just north off the CPR rail road tracks. The current CPR line runs either on top of or beside the old English Creek in this specific area. I am on record as speculating about a lost Neutral Indian village I once heard about in this area. Regardless of wether my guess proves right or wrong, the story is a long one, and deserves it a better treatment than I can give at this moment.
The second item was the take down and seizure of the Hell’s Angels (or is it Hells Angel’s?) Clubhouse just north off Brydges Street. The fact that this clubhouse was not only around the corner from the old Outlaw’s clubhouse (Egerton Street, just south of Florence), and that it was just across the street a bit to the east of the London Police automobile reporting centre always made me think it was there in that location for a purpose. Can I prove this? No. I suspect the reason for where it was had something to do with an “in your face” attitude, but again, nothing I can prove.
What specifically grabs my attention is the issue of graffiti. Recently there were well publicized arrests of young men whom the police think responsible for much of the graffiti in the city. Now much of the graffiti in this city is gawd awful horrible, unoriginal and just plain sad. There are some exceptions, and the photograph in the post “graffiti” just before this one shows one of the few examples of what I think is incredible street art. I took this photograph in April of 2008, and last I looked, it was still there, down near the south branch of the Thames River. If all graffiti were of this calibre, I wonder if there would be such opposition to it as we see now. Sadly, most graffiti is usually ugly, or incredibly dangerous. Just look at my two smokestack pictures as one such example.
The City does paint over graffiti seen under bridges and on blank walls with white or grey paint, only I have seen, with my own experience, new graffiti painted over top, sometimes in less than a 48 hour period. Perhaps the comment made today by modern day graffiti is not so much an underground exploration of the state of our affairs (which I think our robotic man does so well), but is just another “in your face” statement.
Whatever the purpose, my main point is this - despite seeing graffiti all over the city, in sometimes the oddest and most difficult locations, since it’s closure in 2002 after a Police raid, the former Outlaws clubhouse had remained remarkably free of any graffiti whatsoever. Some may argue by pointing out that the words “Welcome home” were spray painted on one wall a couple years ago, but this event happened the day one of the Outlaws arrested at the time of this raid and similar raids across the Province was released from jail. So this is not so much graffiti as a message I think.
So obviously even graffiti “artists” have their “danger limit.” It is also interesting to note that nobody else from any quarter of society has made much fuss about the graffiti free zone that exists on this dilapidated building. Perhaps the solution the Outlaws have come to in dealing with graffiti is not quite acceptable to the rest of society, so everyone just ignores the fact.
For myself, I’ll be keeping an eye on the now defunct Hell’s Angels clubhouse, to see how long graffiti stays off there.
Sometimes when dealing with history, it’s not the major earth shaking events that defines who and what we are as a people and a culture, but the little idiosyncracies that nobody ever wants to talk about.
:)
No comments:
Post a Comment