Toilet Warz

I have the privilege, not of my own accord, of living in a society, that even to this day, favors a man. There still is a wage gap between men and women, women still must fight to not have the government make choices for her medical and family decisions. Women have made significant gains in gaining equality. However, there is one place that women should not have the same rights, equal protection does not extend to pooping in the same bathroom.

There Goes The Neighborhood

I have lived and seen all things in Chicago. I have lived in, for lack of better descriptions, changing neighborhoods, stable neighborhood, and just the hood. I know these are loaded descriptions, but any Chicagoan at the ground level knows what I am talking about. A great book to check out is the book There Goes the Neighborhood: Racial, Ethnic, and Class Tensions in Four Chicago Neighborhoods and Their Meaning for America. The neighborhoods are all southwest side neighborhoods with given psuedonyms, they are essentially mirror images of the northwest side neighborhoods where I've lived. The voices of the people are voices of those I have grown up with or have lived with.
How do you deal with neighborhood change? What physical elements or characteristics of people make you feel uncomfortable in a place you have called home? How much change is your neighborhood willing to accept or accomodate before there is a tipping point racially or socio-economically?

Chew on this: You live on the corner of Narragansett and Addison, you are an elderly woman in a small ranch house that you have lived in for 30 years, you tend your garden and grass daily, your whole family lives in Arlington Hieghts. Then one day you wake up, the side of your house says King Killa, on top of that the Latin Kings have crossed off the message and put their symbol. Do you get the hell out or do you resist temptation and stay and work to promote understanding between gang members in your nieghborhood and your values and the values that have come to define your quiet and peaceful neighborhood for the past 30 years?

Street Art?

When I was in high school at Lane Tech, its seemed like graffiti art blew up. My freshman year everyone became a tagger, even the nerdiest or least artistically inclined kid would try out a tag name. I guess if you were good you would hook up with other taggers and start a crew or just get into one. I remember ones like J4F and X-Men.

I never hung out with legitimate taggers but I went out with a girl in high school and we did some volunteer work scraping down a wall that was to going to be used as a permission wall. Anyway, I asked one of the guys why they tag, he went on to say it was art for him and that he only tagged under the CTA and government buildings. From then on I realized that graffiti could be used for art and for protest against opressive elements in society. I also appreciate how tagging has morphed into though provoking street art including stencils, posters, stickers. I understand that there is an ethos or a shared set of beliefs these artists work under.

So, I have some questions whether it be a tagger, artist, design theorist, property owner etc. These are in no particular order.

Is there a heirerachy of value given to a piece of street art that is created?

Can one judge the intent of a piece based on it's form or medium? For example, if I'm just a dumb kid who wants to put my name on a couple of garages for the fun of it, is that legitimate?

What if I wanted to tag over a community mural?

Is gang graffti a legitimate form?

Is street art less about protest and politics and more of a selfish endevor?

Can graffiti ever be considered as a nuisance?

Detroit on My Mind

I first went to Detroit on a college debate team road trip in 1997. I was able realize my dream of going to see one of the old rest belt cities on its death bed. It was my first attempt at anthropological and urban planning tourism, not only seeing the downtown and touristy areas, but inhabiting the neighborhoods, being with residents and living as a true inhabitant would, feeling how the built environment affects locals.

I have an unhealthy attraction to order and disorder. There is beauty in order and poetry in chaos. I especially love the chaos of Detroit and its ruins. From 2 million inhabitants to less than 900,000 the city is now post apocolyptic. Detroit, today, perfectly inhabits the following writing by an unknown poet:



The Splendor of the Ruin

Ruins are a testament to human pride, the fragility of existence and the finite nature of the world.

Urban Tranquility or Anxiety

The combination of visual and music in this clip gives you insight of the feelings evoked in me when I visit a new city or how an urban space can affect one emotionally and psychologically.

koyaanisqatsi - Pruit Igoe

koyaanisqatsi music by philip glass