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jamesqBeen seeing a lot of odd graffiti lately.
Near work, on 40th avenue just west of Crowchild Trail, someone has written this little gem:
Your child is the canary in the gold mine.
I've been assuming this is a political statement about the typical provincial government's attitude towards anyone who isn't from the Fraser Institute. Of course, it could also refer to the proximity of sour-gas wells to the city limits. My only complaint with this oddly literate and thought provoking quip is that they got the quote wrong. It's "Canary in a coal mine" not "gold mine".
The public school board has a bizarre triangular warehouse in Sunnyside (the C-train goes by it, just south of Sunnyside station). The wall of this warehouse is a nice big canvas that has proven irresistible to the vandal set - it is both highly visible (to the train) and somewhat secluded (to patrolling police cruisers). This means that budding young spray-paint artists can indulge their muse to a greater extent than normal. Others remain short and sweet in their slogans, for example:
Overgrow the Government
Cute. It's says "I'm a stoner AND an anarchist". Doubly funny since I read in the paper the other day that the governments own weed-growing operation was producing marijuana that was not uniform enough to be used for medicine. Seems their going to have to do some selective breeding for a few years to make their own strain.
In downtown Calgary a lot of the graffiti seems to be unimaginative swearing, gang tags and arguments between the militant queers and the redneck good-ole-boys. But a new unique form of graffiti has invaded downtown. The I-Hate-Jane-Doe graffiti (I've changed her name because she has trouble's enough without having this page come up when Googling her name). Here's one of the tamer examples:
Jane Doe is an infected slut
They get much much worse. Among other things, they outline what she is infected with. They also point out where she works. Clearly, the unfortunate Ms. Doe has her own stalker. I suspect she lives nearby as the IHJD graffiti seems to get denser (in many senses of the word) the closer you get to Ggothic towers (except for the work-related graffiti which was naturally close to her work).
It's hard to have sympathy for this fellow. Sure, he obviously caught something from Ms. Doe, but come-on, announcing the fact to half the city isn't going to change anything, and Jane Doe's real name is probably common enough that the girl has some plausible deniability. And let's not forget it takes two to tango - you wouldn't have caught anything if you hadn't slept with her, or if you had learned about a miracle material we call "latex".
As an addendum, some wag has printed up "We Love Jane Doe" address labels, and is pasting them over the graffiti. A somewhat more humorous solution than the one I was considering - spray-painting "Grow the hell up" below each occurrence.
Of course, people would be shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that in my colorful youth I had occasionally used spray-paint for less than noble purposes.
Near work, on 40th avenue just west of Crowchild Trail, someone has written this little gem:
I've been assuming this is a political statement about the typical provincial government's attitude towards anyone who isn't from the Fraser Institute. Of course, it could also refer to the proximity of sour-gas wells to the city limits. My only complaint with this oddly literate and thought provoking quip is that they got the quote wrong. It's "Canary in a coal mine" not "gold mine".
The public school board has a bizarre triangular warehouse in Sunnyside (the C-train goes by it, just south of Sunnyside station). The wall of this warehouse is a nice big canvas that has proven irresistible to the vandal set - it is both highly visible (to the train) and somewhat secluded (to patrolling police cruisers). This means that budding young spray-paint artists can indulge their muse to a greater extent than normal. Others remain short and sweet in their slogans, for example:
Cute. It's says "I'm a stoner AND an anarchist". Doubly funny since I read in the paper the other day that the governments own weed-growing operation was producing marijuana that was not uniform enough to be used for medicine. Seems their going to have to do some selective breeding for a few years to make their own strain.
In downtown Calgary a lot of the graffiti seems to be unimaginative swearing, gang tags and arguments between the militant queers and the redneck good-ole-boys. But a new unique form of graffiti has invaded downtown. The I-Hate-Jane-Doe graffiti (I've changed her name because she has trouble's enough without having this page come up when Googling her name). Here's one of the tamer examples:
They get much much worse. Among other things, they outline what she is infected with. They also point out where she works. Clearly, the unfortunate Ms. Doe has her own stalker. I suspect she lives nearby as the IHJD graffiti seems to get denser (in many senses of the word) the closer you get to Ggothic towers (except for the work-related graffiti which was naturally close to her work).
It's hard to have sympathy for this fellow. Sure, he obviously caught something from Ms. Doe, but come-on, announcing the fact to half the city isn't going to change anything, and Jane Doe's real name is probably common enough that the girl has some plausible deniability. And let's not forget it takes two to tango - you wouldn't have caught anything if you hadn't slept with her, or if you had learned about a miracle material we call "latex".
As an addendum, some wag has printed up "We Love Jane Doe" address labels, and is pasting them over the graffiti. A somewhat more humorous solution than the one I was considering - spray-painting "Grow the hell up" below each occurrence.
Of course, people would be shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that in my colorful youth I had occasionally used spray-paint for less than noble purposes.
