Parting Shot: Striking!
Here’s what lighting striking NYC’s harbor looks like from from Jersey City during last night’s storm.
Photo by Steve Kelley
Despite the City’s much-hyped efforts to crackdown on parking placard abuse, getting away with illegal parking is still no problem thanks to the NYPD’s biased and broken enforcement policy. Traffic enforcement officers routinely ignore unlawfully parked cars if they have an official-looking parking permit, even a fake one for a nonexistent city agency. Transportation Alternatives put the agency’s enforcement to the test, “parking a car illegally in Manhattan last week with a fake permit bearing the name of a bogus agency, ‘Citizen Protection Administration.’” Though traffic agents ticketed surrounding cars, they were suckered by the fake permit and ignored the illegal parking job. |NYP|
The Japanese take their juvenile fetish of all objects to the construction industry with this new outdoor balloon light seen in Tokyo: “The LightBoy mascot doubles as a lamp, providing nighttime Japanese construction workers with a diffuse, non-glare light source.” |DVICE|
Instead of the usual anti-teenager noisemakers, one English town is dispersing loitering teens with some rather unconventional methods: classical music. The town of Dartford is reportedly seeing less graffiti in a pedestrian tunnel where they’ve piped in Gustav Mahler symphonies. According to one local leader, “Young people creating graffiti don’t find it cool to be surrounded by classical music.” |Telegraph|
FAILE Prayer Wheel Returns, Gets Baptized With Paint
Months after disappearing off the street without a trace, FAILE’s second spinning prayer wheel installation returns to Williamsburg. The sculpture is now bolted down on North 6th Street, blocks away from its original location on Bedford Avenue. It’s not clear what happened to the piece since it was last publicly seen, but it’s already been hit with paint and tags over the last few days. Meanwhile, ifoundfaile, the anonymous street art scavenger who swiped FAILE’s first prayer wheel in Williamsburg, still can’t sell the piece, telling prospective buyers, “Hurry ‘sale’ ends soon.”
On behalf of the Oklevueha Native American Church, Michael Rex “Raging Bear” Mooney filed a lawsuit (PDF doc) against the DEA, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Hawaii U.S. Attorney Edward H. Kubo for the right to use cannabis in religious ceremonies without fear of federal prosecution—it’s a total buzz kill. The group already fought and won the right to use Peyote, which makes the prohibition of the sacred weed highly irrational, especially since they’re not using it to get high, but to “enhance spiritual awareness or even to occasion direct experience of the divine.” The recognized tribe claims the government’s policy on cannabis violates the: the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Additionally, they have a major grievance with the Hawaii’s top prosecutor: Read more »
The Art Deco murals of 30 Rockefeller Plaza are getting cleaned off, albeit very slowly. Thanks to the green cleaning solution, carefully hand scraping the 70s varnish away, “it is going to take two years to get through all the murals, one inch at a time.” |NYT|
Deth Killers Tell T-Shirt Tales
After months of waiting, the first release from Des Kiraz Volume 1 is available. The collection of limited edition t-shirts from Brooklyn-based Deth Killers 2000 is designed in collaboration with some world renowned science fiction artists depicting the adventures of a 2019 New York City biker gang. Like any good story, this post-apocalyptic tale unfolds t-shirt by t-shirt, with two available now: “The Battle of Yankee Stadiums,” featuring gun-toting bikers battling Nazis, dinosaurs and Abe Lincoln in the ruins of the Bronx ballparks, and a cosmic collage for “Episode 2G: The Movie Poster!” The $125 tees are for sale online in a box set with a poster and trading cards.
The tributes to graffiti pioneer IZ THE WHIZ are popping up all over. From walls in the Bronx, murals in Manhattan and rollers in Queens, to pieces in London and other cities around the world. But what could be more fitting than honoring the legendary vandal by defacing a New York City subway car? Although the MTA’s official policy is to pull any trains with significant paint on the exterior, this IZ outline was spotted on a R train that was still in service.
Photo from HYB via WhatYouWrite
You know the art market is suffering when Forbes’ list of the ‘Top Billionaire Art Collectors’ includes lowly millionaires. Well, the ones with art assets worth $700 million or more, but still. |Forbes|
Editor-in-Chief:
