Stickers, street art, political posters and ephemera, and anything else
WordPress is acting up. Two minutes ago, I can’t type. Now I can.
I’m overwhelmed by how much work I need to do with the Posse database and Stickerkitty blog. Lately, I’ve been wondering what will be my Life’s Oeuvre (har-de-har) and alas, it sure won’t be Guernica. Aside from my super-fantastic job at SLU, which I L-O-V-E, it will be the Posse digital collection. As far as I can tell, it is unique. Yay.
I’ve got hundreds of photos the last couple of weeks from walking around and gathering stickers in Manhattan, including this one. The blog picture doesn’t do justice to this rodent’s majesty.
Yesterday, Caveboy and I (and Caveboy, Jr.) walked around the lower East Side liberating stickers in 90-degree weather. At one point, near Rutherford Park, as “we” were climbing a walk sign, two guys in a furniture truck called out and threw a razor blade in our direction. It was slightly unnerving, until another guy nearby picked it up and said we should use it to cut the stickers off the pole.
Oh wow. I am going to meet Matt Siren next week for an interview/chat. La la la!!!!
After Kevin’s new sticker scans are loaded, I’ll need to figure out how to identify these sticker pranksters without repeating what others have done. Others have done a lot. A catalogue raisonne’ might do the trick.
I can’t do a catalogue raisonne’. There are way too many out there, though everything I’ve seen is online.
Cedar Lewisohn’s STREET ART book is unparalled. Check him out on Facebook.
Techknowledge-e is running amok today.
This may sound obvious, but I’ve been trying to figure out how to improve Stickerkitty more substantively. I’ve wanted to offer more sophisticated commentary regarding the stickers I’ve found in NYC and Berlin, but I’m also nervous about posting “scholarship” that might subsequently be appropriated by others. But you know? Smart blogging is more engaging than fluffy blogging, and so far, this blog has been pretty fluffy. I’ll begin to identify aspects of my favorite blogs and work through this challenge.
For example, I’ve long admired Joe Duemer’s blog Sharp Sand. As a poet and teacher, he brings a sophisticated (that word again) and thoughtful perspective to writing and literature.
Likewise, Mira’s List provides a tangible service to readers, and I applied for an Artists Writers grant after reading about the program on her blog.
(Side note: My use of the term “sophisticated” turns off some people because it sounds elitist, from what they say. I don’t agree, but maybe I need to find a different term. The term “informed” may work better in certain circumstances.)
There are several fantastic artists’ blogs (that I’ll post soon), and I hope to bring a similar level of creativity to Stickerkitty that isn’t here yet. Now that it’s summer, I can spend time developing a blogging “voice” and doing more research on NYC and Berlin stickers.
In any case, it’s time to ramp it up.
My blog stats are jumping. I think I had 8-10 hits this past week.
Anyway, I am finally starting to buckle down and work on the Stickerkitty has a Posse database, with help from Kevin, Tsewang, and Nathan–the crack team from last summer. May drag Caleb into this, too. I have a few hundred new stickers from Berlin to add.
Here is a photo of the entrance to the Anne Frank Zentrum in Berlin. Right next door is an amazing bookstore and gallery called Neurotitan. I bought one of the We Dream of Meat plushes there. Turns out they are more difficult to find than I expected.
Jay and Conan performed the same basic act on TV tonight. Woo hoo, it is sooo much fun to make fun of others, especially if they are dumb blondes, rednecks, and other n’er do wells. I guess these comedians feel sooo smart. Why aren’t they prancing around the Harvard Library quad making fun of the brilliant, the rich, and the gifted?
Am I missing something?
Hey, if you get this joke (below), I’ll send you $50!!!!
I just typed in obay for a Google search and came across this Wikipedia entry:
“Obay is a fictional mind control medication at the centre of a viral marketing campaign begun in February 2008 by Colleges Ontario, the advocacy group for colleges and institutes of applied arts and technology in the province of Ontario, Canada, and developed by the Smith Roberts advertising agency. The campaign seeks to eliminate what the group calls “academic snobbery”[1] on the part of parents, who often see colleges as inferior to universities,[2][3] and who may push their children towards the latter option against their wishes.”
Also:
As a result speculation immediately arose as to whether the campaign was a form of viral marketing, anti-commercial culture jamming (potentially linked to the “Obey Giant” street art campaign), or possibly anti-pharmaceutical activism by the Church of Scientology.
BRILLIANT! ANTI-COMMERCIALISM. CULTURE JAMMING. Stickerkitty hearts culture jamming.
|
