January « 2010 « Spots Unknown

The Often-Missed Beauty of Graffiti Tags

Even folks who think of themselves as open-minded urbanoids who can appreciate a good "mural" - unlike these wankers - will often mutter about tags as being mere marking of territory - simple, unimaginative, unskilled fuck-you-ism.

The above visualization of the motion of tagging, however, seems to challenge this notion. Anyone who's ever paid attention to the kids on Muni as they swipe their markers and fill the bus with dizzying fumes has had a chance to see this, on some level. And yet most cannot get past the criminality (or the smell).

Now they can. (There is, of course, an iPhone app.)

Tagged as: Art, graffiti 2 Comments

Name That Spot

From the Spots Unknown Flickr pool. (Thanks, Generik11!)

UPDATE: Named by catester - Supremo Pizza.

Tagged as: business, photo, pizza 2 Comments

1983 Snowy Winter Scene from a Tokyo Neighborhood

I spent Christmas this year with my fiance's family in Southampton, PA. Her dad pulled out a DVD of some footage he took on one of the earliest VHS vidcams (a Hitachi) that chronicled a trip around Japan in 1983 when they lived there. This clip is from the small neighborhood in Tokyo - Hatsudai - where they were living.

The 27-year-old footage of snowman-building kids, lanterns, tight quarters, and a thick collection of snow, really evoke the feeling of Winter and Christmas for me. I also love the ambient sound.

Below is the same street today with images grabbed off Google Streetview: