I’ve always found urban decay beautiful, or I guess specifically I’ve found it hauntingly beautiful. Walking around the scenes from Henk van Rensbergen’s abandoned places photography really puts perspective (“Too much fucking perspective” I can hear David St. Hubbins say) on what we think of as major achievements. Shelley’s “Ozymandias” comes to mind.

I think we can agree that the ruins of modern advertising, while perhaps a worthy monument to a substantial victory in reclaiming our own mental environment, are a bit depressing. Fortunately, there are a great number of things with which we can replace these former monstrosities. Some of them might even be useful.

Solar panels are an obvious choice. I’ve been to Brazil before (they call it “Brasil” there… don’t they know how to spell their own country?) and I recall it being quite sunny and smelling like gasoline. I believe the term I used was, “like a wildlife preserve where the zebras drive Hummers”. Even putting aside any mock and/or pathological jingoism, solar would seem to be an excellent decision.

Art is another viable option. Why should big multi-national corporations get all the fun? Local communities should get a chance to decide how to decorate their own neighborhood. People are already doing this, just not entirely legally, which leaves a lot of people with important things to say—but who won’t jump a fence to say them—silenced.

Finally, call me crazy here but we could just take them down.^* Leaving them up as skeletons suggests that they need to be filled, whereas taking them down would leave our next generation with an impression that they never belonged there in the first place. Then, if advertisers ever wanted to put up billboards again it would represent a change in the status quo, both physically and mentally—much more difficult to accomplish. We’re never any farther than one generation away from an entirely different world.

There are other things we could do, certainly. Windowbox-style local gardens, windmills, dynamic information (temperature, traffic conditions, etc.), or even painting each one a different bright color could all satisfy the need to turn commerical chaotic into populist pretty. What would you do with your own billboard?

* Actually, this hadn’t even occurred to me until I asked someone else what they would do in the situation.

Beantown (named after Boston Baked Beans, no doubt) was shut down on a scale that San Francisco only reserves for peace protests, labor protests, gay rights protests, anti-immigration prote—you know what, let’s just move on. Anyway, Boston flipped out today at the discovery of “suspicious” devices placed all over the city by terrorists.

These “terrorists” turned out to be an advertising firm doing guerilla marketing for the upcoming Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. In case that last sentence made no sense to you, let me put it another way. Boston went apeshit over Lite Brites giving people the finger. No seriously, here’s what they looked like:

You can’t see the finger, because FoxNews at least has the decency to blur out a cartoon bird-flip. Don’t want our kids to pick up any nasty pixelated habits.

As much fun as it may be to watch Boston freak out, this is not a victimless crime. I speak not of the poor people who were late for work (gasp!) but the creator of the devices who was arrested on “a recently enacted statute making it a crime to place a hoax device that results in panic“. I’m curious to know what the definition of a “hoax device” is, as these devices were clearly not hoaxes, but Throwies.

Webster defines “hoax” as “an act intended to trick or dupe”. In a world were we are constantly inundated by “hoax devices” trying to trick us into buying clothes by duping us into thinking we’ll be loved/feared/respected or trick us into buying cigarettes by duping us into thinking they’re not going to give us cancer/emphysema/stinkiness or trick us into driving cars by duping us into thinking that global warming isn’t real/dangerous/our fault, I think these devices do not qualify as threats.

The Anti-Advertising Agency correctly states that “advertising is the graffiti of the Fortune 500” and arresting someone for throwing light on a building, much less using such brash words as “terrorism” to describe it, leave me feeling very afraid for both our values and our collective Spidey Sense in this country. I place the blame squarely on the people who think LED lights are somehow dangerous (they don’t even get hot, clearly ranking them below Xmas lights on the Threat Level).

Adult Swim got some serious bang for their buck though. Hire these guys again!

Update (2/1/07): Following their arraignment, the two guys arrested for putting up the devices agreed to only answer reporters’ questions if they were about haircuts in the ’70s. It’s great to see that they’re treating this issue with exactly the amount of respect it deserves. Here they are laughing in court:

He set down a case—his surgeon’s black bag—and pulled two trashcans out from an alley to form a makeshift barrier from passersby on the sidewalk. The surgeon’s bag opened and out came a simple Krylon spraycan. One of many. He stepped back and surveyed the three flats of particle board. Shaking the spraycan sounded a rattle that may have evoked a ball bearing stirring up gas-compressed paint to you or me; to him it was power, energy, excitement… art.

Three puffs into the air, to clear the nozzle, and a deep breath. He pulled a gas mask over his mouth and nose. Suddenly, any doubt vanished and with a samurai’s deft strokes his arm sliced through the air and paint met particle board. Thick black scribbles dashed across the wood. Grain yielded to gloss. Canvas yielded to creation. Bold shapes began to emerge from the barrage, he doubled back to fill them in. Chunky letters materialized.

Across the street eating in my favorite breakfast spot, I was unable to see exactly what was being written. I am notoriously bad at deciphering graffiti and, had a tree not partially obstructed my view, I would still have a hard time with a translation. My best guess was “DIE, PLAYGROUND, DIE!” which would make sense as the storefront belongs to Upper Playground and, as mentioned above, it had recently received the business end of an entire car.

Nor could I hear the conversations with pedestrians, but body language betrayed most of the subject matter if not the details. The young girl in a pink jacket and matching pink boots wanted desperately to touch the bubbly letters—probably unaware that they they said “DIE!”—but her father kept her reined in. A group of high schoolers, themselves neither skinny nor white, seemed to be searching for the right balance of “nice piece, man” and “fuck you whitey, that’s our subculture”. They watched for a while, passing a joint back and forth. Two hipster girls, replete with all the necessary two-tone bangs and cheap-looking expensive accessories, gathered and pointed.

The artist’s friend joined him. The first stepped back—looking much older now, white flecks of paint salting his hair—and the second stepped up, grabbing a blue spraycan from the array of colors. Shapes gained outlines. Lines gained depth. The audience nodded. Where ten minutes ago destruction had rendered a city block derelict and depressing, now there was life, color, and culture. They were still going as the rain started and I headed home.

When I left Indiana years ago, one of the reasons I cited was Hoosiers’ general disdain for marginally il/legal activities such as street art, underground music events, and controlled substances. Having my morning coffee and watching my neighborhood come together over exactly that, I realized that whatever I was searching for in a community, I had found a long time ago.