Others said the big white planters were an open invitation. “When I first saw those planters my first thought was, ‘They might as well leave cans of paint with them,’ ” said Eric Francis Coppolino, a local artist, journalist and astrologer. “You knew what was going to happen.”...A graffiti quandary.
Monica Snell, a property manager in Wellington, Fla., said... “Every town has this nonsense going on... The ruling class is a bunch of boneheads.”...
Diane Reeder, founder of a nonprofit soup kitchen, the Queens Gallery, said... it was striking how the goats ended up saying something profound without trying to. “It brought so many people together....”...
The Kingston Times, a local weekly, wrote... “The red goat is a great symbol — simple, striking, edgy, easy to remember and easier to associate with a sense of stubborn defiance... People get paid a lot of money to come up with stuff like this, and here Kingston is getting it for free.”
March 3, 2012
"[T]he police seemed oddly uninterested in the gang graffiti in the area, but were obsessed with the goats."
Said Ed Butler, "who runs a used-record store that was once an art gallery."
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27 comments:
There is nothing like the smell of stubborn defiance in the morning,
Incidentally, a goat is the symbol for satan in the wiccan world.
So what makes the red goat attractive?
I like it, and I like the woman who said the "ruling class was boneheaded". Far too long Americans have permitted these busy bodies to tell us what to do, what to think, what to eat. Cass Sunstein, "the most dangerous man in America", is a little tightass who has nightmares about the chaos American freedom causes. So to alleviate his tyrannical tendencies he couches his options to you in a Hobsen's Choice that would make Chris Angel's head spin ie)
Would you like apples slices or carrot sticks with your Happy Meal? I want effing french fries, fried in gallons of animal lard, but they ain't offered anymore you food nazi bastard. And where he hell's my toy?
And for you progressives who will say "You're exaggerating, you can still get fries at MickeyDees." I reply "Yes you can...for now."
Progressives have never cooked frogs.
Ps. I hope everyone came through the storms okay yesterday. We had people, especially in Indiana, that lost everything, including their town.
"Have you ever just spent five months living with a herd of goats as one of them? …That surprises me."
I read the blog post before following the link.
My approximate stream of consciousness:
Big white planters? Open invitation to what? Kingston? Where... Jamaica? I thought the white planter/black slave thing was over. Local artist, journalist and astrologer... Jeezus! Save me.
Only the NYT can sermonize with a straight face the right to vandalize.
"GOAT" graffiti on Buzludzha, video @3:29
"Viral" has jumped the shark.
The "nonsense" that's going on is govt-funded redevelopment. Developers bribe their way to loan guarantees and build expensive structures that nobody wants to live in--and that the artists they claim to want cannot afford.
Jerry Brown did one thing right so far: he got rid of redevelopment (and took the money to give to unions, but that's another story). At least we can stop the faux gentrification of every town in the US.
Occupation with goats.
Oy!
Occupy this!
Eric Francis Coppolino, a local artist, journalist and astrologer. Jesus f’ing Christ on a stick…
I suppose that was how Coppolino choose to describe himself the NY Times reporter. Why is it that fakes, charlatans and mountebanks always try to pad their resumés? Do they think they’ll impress anybody worth impressing? When I read stuff like that I think:
1)local artist = poseur with limited means
2)journalist = unpaid restaurant critic published in the neighborhood biweekly freebie, or more likely just an habitual and unpublished “letter to the editor” epistolist
3)astrologer = New Age con artist
Must be a safe town to live in, if their only worries are "spray painted" goats.
On the other hand? Maybe, they'll show up across America. QUICK ... identify this as your brand ... And, look at all the free advertising, ahead.
Like Nike's "check mark." Or is that not a "check mark?"
Gee, I thought it was a "red" cow?
After it was birthed, rumor has it that the Messiah is coming.
Have you ever seen a red goat?
The subversion is appealing. It fills the spot left blank by lack of imagination. City planners must look to other cities to see what is successful so there is a lot of copying. The blank spots created over and over by the big ugly planters really are invitations. What is amazing to me is that the creative expression that bursts through the floorboards is so mundane. Something so utterly accessible. Banal. That's my new favorite word that I intend to use every day. This story is multiple banalities. The banalities are piled.
clip art
goat as subject
stencil as expression
cities copying each other
stupid-ass public planters
Incidentally, for good help with CAPCHA consider enlarging the whole screen to have a better look then shrink it back. On the Mac I can touch CNTL key and do the expandy finger thing on the touchpad. Keystrokes work too, Command +++.
"Progressives have never cooked frogs." Explain the context please.
I'd like some expansion on that too KenK, because I think "Progressives" (scare quotes intentional) have shown themselves quite adept at cooking frogs.
Carnifex wrote:
Progressives have never cooked frogs.
I too am perplexed by this. Is cooking frogs (in the culinary sense as in this) the same as boiling frogs. Over the last few years I've increasingly felt that I am a frog on the boil.
Progressives are past masters of the art of boiling frogs.
Banal is an excellent word but it is usually mispronounced.
The only more annoyingly mispronounced word is shortlived/longlived.
Eric Francis Coppolino, didn't he direct The Godwhacker?
Ann Althouse said...
The only more annoyingly mispronounced word is shortlived/longlived.
Huzzah, Professor. I have been pronouncing it longlaived instead of longlivved for most of my long life, but I usually have to explain to my audience what I meant by that, which I do at length and with relish.
Ann,
Banal is an excellent word but it is usually mispronounced.
The only more annoyingly mispronounced word is shortlived/longlived.
Can a word really be "usually mispronounced"? I mean, not to go all Eugene Volokh descriptivist on your ass or anything, but eventually the way most people pronounce something is the default pronunciation.
Having heard both "BANE-al" and "buh-NAL," and both rarely (partly because, I suspect, people are scared to use the word in speech, precisely because they don't know which is "right"), I don't know which is, for you, the "annoying mispronunciation" and which the right one.
I use the long "i" in "short-lived," because I parse it as parallel to (say) "short-haired." Something short-haired has short hair, something short-lived a short life. But the other pronunciation is long-established.
There are legions of other conundrums. "Forte" (not in the musical sense, but as in someone's talent or strength): "Fort" or "For-tay"? "Fracas" -- there's a word I never uttered in my life (though I've used it in writing), just because I didn't know how to pronounce it. A few weeks ago my husband used it out loud, pronouncing it the French way, fra-KA. Aha, said I, I'm on firm ground now. Except that a couple of days later some TV pundit or other said "FRACK-us." Dammit.
Bah-nal or bay-nal,
'Tis a close call.
Choose one o'er the other
Is somewhat ā-nal.
White planters caused a lot of trouble here in South Carolina once too. They too ended up as goats.
You're right, Michelle. The common usage is always correct.
Always.
To think otherwise is to misunderstand the purpose of language.
tim maguire said...
You're right, Michelle. The common usage is always correct.
Always.
To think otherwise is to misunderstand the purpose of language.
You're correct that usage is the de facto test of language-- if people don't understand you, then your language is ineffective. The problem for me is that, the more language strays from traditional usage, the more the original meaning is lost. If you can sense the etymology of a word whenever you say it, you have the whole history of that word behind it.
Tyrone Slothrop,
The problem for me is that, the more language strays from traditional usage, the more the original meaning is lost. If you can sense the etymology of a word whenever you say it, you have the whole history of that word behind it.
I know. And with English, which is probably the most miscellaneously-assembled language in human history, any falling-off of etymological data or context is a real loss.
That said, Modern English would seem hideously mispronounced to a speaker of Middle English, and would appear to a speaker of Old English to be a completely unfamiliar language. Stuff happens.
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