Bushwick BK: the hot new slum of NY Hollywood

I walked out of my subway station last night and there was a movie being filmed. This in a place that only several years ago was a dank and scary place - no joke. One time someone leaving the secondary subway access of our stop was pistol-whipped and had his jaw broken; a few weekends ago there were hipsters having a sidewalk sale ajacent to this very site, blissfully unaware of the attrocities of yesteryear. Times really are a-changin'. Anyway, this wasn't just some kids with a camera; it was the whole Hollywood treatment. There were actors' trailers, tents with craft-services underneath, grips with lights and cables, a huge light deflector next to the car where the camera crew was shooting from a camera on a dolly...I guess Bushwick is the new choice for slum portrayal. A place that is still ghetto looking but at least your craft-services won't be raided by gangstas.

direct objects DO serve a purpose

I saw a man handing out pamphlets of a religious nature in the subway yesterday. Obviously a believer of his message, he wore a sweatshirt that was airbrushed with his message about allowing Jesus to save your soul from eternal damnation. Of course, "Jesus: Believe in Him and he will save your soul from the fiery depths of Hell" was too long a message for a sweatshirt front, and besides, you have maybe 3 seconds with which to get your general message across to busy commuters who won't even take your leaflet and probably don't want to be saved by you or your savior's message anyway. So, editing occurred, direct objects were omitted and the meaning was obsured. I wish I had taken a picture but there was just no way to do it, plus: what if I missed my train? Yes, commuting has taken precedence over photographing weird things. This is a major difference I've noted between my life here and my life in Tokyo. ANYWAY, the shirt read:

Jesus Saves
from
HELL

Of course the words were engulfed in flames. FLAMES!! It was the most hilarious thing, and I kept thinking how metal it would have been if there had been a vengeful looking Jesus with hand curled into a claw emerging from the flames as well. Oh, hell. Photoshop is my friend. I'll just take a few moments to show you what is in my imagination. Happy Wednesday to you.

Things from the street

Here's another installment of brilliance I encountered over the weekend.
First at PS270:

Then in defaced ads in the subway (some of which I thought were great re-appropriation of materials):


Of course it all degraded into mustache drawing eventually, as everything does:
Though the last mustache barely made an impression on me simply because it was just so right.

don't use this art handler

Doesn't he know that white canvas will scuff?I'll file this memory away labeled "uncommon scenes in the NY subway." A story I heard second hand that would fit in this category: A man was eating a tuna sandwich on the train, messy (I imagine similar to the guy with the everything bagel in Eric's rant), dropped a little bit of tuna on the ground, picked it up and ate it. Now, I am a strong believer in the 5 second rule, but there needs to be some statute of limitations. For example: A potato chip that fell while you were watching sports at home: Fine - even if you have cats; A lollypop that dropped out of your mouth into the sand at the playground: Okay - if you rinse it first; tuna salad that you picked up off of a train floor that literally sees the bottom of millions of shoes that walk miles through dirt, dog poo and city grime everyday: Totally unacceptable - no matter what the scenario. That's my two cents.