Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Perhaps it's my week for...

profound abstractions but this morning I was in a Salford tower block on the way down. Stopping on a mid floor the lift doors opened to reveal these words on the wall opposite, 'It's me, where R U?' Seems there's a lot of connections not being made out there. Something needs to be done about it. Either that or these people should get a grip, find some friends, stop hassling me. Tomorrow I'm going to buy a can of black paint, spray a few walls myself. 'Hi, was a bit early, got bored, met someone, we're off on holiday together, they're really fun, make me laugh, buy me drinks, no it's not serious, oh the big car? Hey, it may seem shallow to you, how dare you accuse me of, I never did, you were asleep, you're always asleep, I'm off, fuck you, no and fuck you as well, leave him Wayne he's not worth it.'

That should do the trick.

7 comments:

neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

Dan, I love graffiti, yes, yes, I know, they make a mess. But oh, such wit, such nonsense, such...

I got me a book of graffiti collections by Nigel Rees.

Ya just can't stop them graffiti writers:
"This wall has now been reopened."
[chiselled on a wall newly pebbledashed to prevent graffiti writing].

They've even influenced other writers: "Who's afraid of Virginia Wade" became...

Then there's "Stop the world I want to get off."

Some graffiti you might like:

BRING BACK THE BIRCH
-please!
London NW1

BLACK POWER
-is it cheaper than gas?
Brixton

EARN CASH IN YOUR SPARE TIME
-blackmail your friends
Manhattan

OH VERY WITTY, VERY CLEVER ALL YOU GRAFFITI WRITERS, SOME REALLY GREAT MATERIAL, BUT HAVE YOU EVER STOPPED TO THINK WHO HAS TO CLEAN THIS MESS UP? NO, OF COURSE, YOU HAVEN'T BUT LET ME TELL YOU IT'S VERY HARD WORK AND TAKES A HELL OF A LONG TIME. SIGNED, an overworked council worker.
[written among much other graffiti on a wall in Bootle].

Dan Flynn said...

Gyal,

Yeah I really like graffiti, especially the strange stuff. There used to be a regular bit outside churches where their penant was 'Jesus Saves' and some wit always added, 'At the Coop', corny I know but it still makes me laugh. It's the brevity I like. So 'We never met' has brevity and a strangeness that I find attractive. I also liked the idea of a train with 500 passengers reading it and thinking, 'what the fuck is that about?' Intelligent graffiti, it's hard to knock.

xx

Do Guyanese grafit?

x

Mimi NY said...

there was some weird graffiti in the girl's toilets in the english lecture hall: can you hear the scream of the butterfly.

Some anorexic plath reader methinks.

Dan Flynn said...

Quite.

Dan Flynn said...

No doubt some thin girl with a faraway look and an unlit oven. Sigh.

neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

I'm thin but I'm most decidedly not Plath :-)

There was a time, in the '70's, when Guyanese tried their hand at graffiti, on the seawall. Most of it was political slogans. Nothing clever.

The most remembered was one written by someone crying for "Academic Fredom." [Missing 'e' and all]. This was when the govt. then had taken complete control of the University.

The seawall is now covered with boring, staid ads.

I think if there ever was a graffiti to describe us here it's 'Sock it to me with apathy'. [Thank you Nigel Reese].

Dan Flynn said...

I wish I lived next to a sea wall. Lyme Regis in Dorset on the south coast has a wonderful quay that meanders out to sea and then curves left to protect the harbour. It's called The Cobb and became famous through John Fowles' brilliant novel 'The French Lieutenant's Woman'. Whenever I'm down there I like to walk its length, to be honest I just like being beside the sea. No graffiti on the Cobb tho, oh no, even I would disapprove.