Reading

A history of D.C. graffiti writers and Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord Small Beer Press).  I've been reading the latter on the train, but nights have been crazy and packed lately, so it's slow going.  But it's very funny and metafictional yet true to fantasy as a genre, i.e. not mocking, just aware of modern psychology and stuff that makes it hard to suspend disbelief 100% in reading classic-style folk tales.  And though it's based on a Senegalese folk tale, quantum physics helps drive the plot, a factor that's always welcome in my book...  Time to finish it, since it's due...

The graffiti book is kind of sad because most of the original Go-Go scene writers died when crack hit the city and everybody was shooting each other, getting locked up, and AIDS killed many others.  (Go-Go is DC's own music thang, constant heavy beats all night long with scratching, rapping freestyle, chanting, and lots of getting down.  It is the sound of school dances, to me.)  So basically the white suburban and private school kids and college kids are doctors and artists and teachers now and most of the original black crews are gone.  That's DC for ya.  As noted in the book, our own mayor was supporting the crack economy instead of doing anything about it...

I have to say that as intrigued as I always have been about graffiti art, I have serious reservations about its impact on cities, neighborhoods,and don't you dare paint garages, small local businesses, mausoleums, and the inside of public transit with your gang signs and scrawled initials that have no "art" or "self-expression" to them but ego and intimidation.  It's like throwing trash on the street in your NH- who do you think picks up after you, since it clearly ain't yo mama?  The justifications many of.me fellow lefties and Gen Xers have of some antisocial behaviors that cross that line...  make me feel ok about being labeled conservative - communities and neighborhoods are worth conserving, or building back up if that's what's neede... 

When I doorknocked for comm organizations in poor neighborhoods in the South and West, it was the little, QOL, irritating costly, time-wasting things like vandalism and petty crime that really wore down folks as much as that big ole system -getting from above and both sides makes it hard to focus on the core issues...  Of course, jobs programs were the answer they usually provided, but our fearless leaders seem determined never to fund...  We had a great one in DC back in the time that book covers, where teens could get paid to do art and play in Go-Go, funk, pop, jazz, rock, and punk bands all summer and then do shows in some public places like the Post Office Pavilion downtown.  Of course, it was an early budget cut.

I got some writing done this week, and finally figured out how to use page styles in the Ubuntu word processing program.  I thought I had it before but no.  Oooo, a winter weather advisory and three inches of snow on the way.  I better get my errands done.  The old truck is slidey in new snow.  I should get more writing in on snowbound nights and weekends.  Fall is always the crazy time to get everything done.