— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Larry Jones spotted this beast of a wheatpasting underneath the freeway on 4th. And while I know this is probably just religious commentary—or perhaps the artist was merely amused by the concept—I cannot help but feel this has something to do with all the Pirate Cat Radio drama going down right now.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
I've developed an unhealthy obsession with reading NIMBY blogs lately. Not that they are captivating read or anything, but I too will be 40 one day and I'm hoping to get some pointers for how to most effectively waste City Hall's time by having them deal with my petty troubles.
One such blog is Old Dirty Alley, a blog dedicated to a small stretch in SOMA's Minna Street, where every single day is full of shocking monstrosities such as having to call the police on people with their pants around their quads, a completely naked recycler laying in the street with a wine bottle shoved up his ass, pooping on Toyotas, and being forced to scold people for not peeing in a portapottie. Just awful!
But the photo above shines the brightest. What could possibly be going on here? Hemming pants? Fun with silly string? ODA has the answer:
weird of the day: a woman getting the bandage on her buttock changed. pants ankle-high. on the street. in public. and not in the most sanitary place in town. said damage was probably caused in the first place by shooting up, or is something meth-related. i did have a moment of guilt where i wasn’t going to put up these photos. but that vanished as soon as i saw the lighter in her hand and realized she was high as hell. i know, i know, gross assumptions. but i’ll bet dollars to donuts …
420 graffiti, a sewing machine, a buttock wound and a poo stain running down the wall all conspired to create this weird of the day.
Weird indeed! Almost as weird as posting a 23-picture deep slideshow of the occassion. But I understand, outraged requires evidence. A single picture can be misleading, but an entire photoset is damning. If you're swirling that glass of merlot while scribbling an email to your supervisor, you better be sure to have an incriminating shot that will convince them to clean up the bandage-changing epidemic that is choking the life out of our city.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Local artist JDK recently went on a street abandoned-harbor art spree, nailing up 25 8-foot tall spacemen and one big-ass polar bear in Mission Bay. It's generally just art for the sake of art, but he tells us that “the spacemen is my tip-of-the-hat to all the construction in Mission Bay, which feels somewhat like a land-grab colonization.”
Apparently the polar bear was quickly taken down by some killjoys/ursaphobics (thanks google) and thrown on the side of the road to be brought to the dump, but an Old Navy employee rescued it and it now lives on in their otherwise hella boring corporate HQ.
(First photo by Jon Rendell, Second by JDK himself)
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
“Jim”, the man responsible for hanging all the yellow birdhouses around the Mission and SOMA, emailed us to tell us about his project:
I come from a long line of birdwatchers and enjoy following birds myself, so I thought why not cater to local species and make birdhouses for them? I started out making houses for the California Towhee which migrates through Northern California, then branched out and started just free styling them.
Some friends caught wind and I started making more for them, and eventually I was asked to show 50 of my birdhouses at a pop-up gallery show in SOMA at Unspeakable Projects. I then sold those birdhouses, and the deal was I would install them in the location of the buyer's choosing.
I've made a bunch of birdhouses made of wood from local recycled pallets, sold a few at an art show and now am just continuing to make them and put them up around town. Feel free to track their progress on the website. I'll be updating as I go.
If you want to sponsor the project, $50 bucks will get you a birdhouse and installation at your choice of location. You can order one by sending an email to jimewing3@hotmail.com
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Apparently the entire staff was forced to tweeted it out. (pic by RNO)
Getting a job at a tech company sounds like a quick way to make your life boring, but Twitter apparently held it down today. Troy Holden reports that “The entire @twoffice smells like sticky-icky bubonic chronic. @SnoopDogg is smoking Tweets!” He also posted a photo of Snoop Dogg smoking a blunt in their DJ booth, which he already deleted (I can't imagine why). Another employee, @manuel, claims he was “burning a joint” and also snapped a photo of the action, although you can't see him hotboxing the place in his pic.
I'm sure this is some sort of viral recruiting campaign for Twitter since smoking weed with rappers sounds way more fun than writing Ruby. Besides, the only other jobs in which you can hotbox your place of employment is either being self-employed or working as a bike mechanic, and neither of those pay nearly as well as being an engineer. Well played, Twitter.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
I have no idea who is hanging all these yellow birdhouses around town, but it sure does strike me as a neat project. Just building birdhouses, climbing trees and telephone poles, and nailing 'em up. But, why? Just on a whim? To hang up some nice street art with an actual purpose? Get a master's degree? To give our tough winged S.O.B.s a little shelter? To get tweeted about?
Regardless of the reasons why, I've spotted a solid half-dozen of this birdhouses get hung up around the Mission and SOMA over the past few weeks. From the photo above, left to right, top to bottom:
Has anyone noticed these houses outside these areas? More importantly, anyone come across birds using them and/or feral cats hanging around?
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
I can't take this anymore. I first saw these ducks pasted up next to Philz and I exclaimed, “Whoa, this is neat!” Then I saw them somewhere in SOMA next to some Black Eyed Peas and Michael Jackson posters and mumbled, “Uhhhh….” Then again spotted on Valencia and realized I was freaking people by talking to myself as I clutched a camera. Anyway, I think you get the point. I like the fact that these ducks are being pasted up around town. After all, ducks are rad because the quack, eat bread, and they're ducks. BUT I KNOW THEY ARE TRYING TO SELL ME SOMETHING and it's driving me FUCKING NUTS.
Please, someone end THIS FUCKING TORTURE and fill me in.
Also, the “Be Nice SF” hearts? FUCKING RAD.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
I've done some foolish things to save money in my day, such as dumpster diving for food and taking the Muni to get somewhere, but this is just silly.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
If you walked past the lovely intersection of Seventh and Market last night, you might have stumbled across opening night of Paul Notzold's video poetry installation, “Storylines.” The videos feature observational poetry written by students of the San Francisco Writers Corp. overlaid onto short clips magnifying the highlights of various locations in the city, especially in the mid-Market area.
An interview posted on the Arts Commission's blog gives insight as to the origins of the installation's title:
It’s a play on the term songlines—the native Australian practice of mapping paths by creating songs about observing natural landmarks so you can remember them and pass them down to direct others. In this piece, the writer’s content is about observing the paths that a person’s life may take.
The videos are 60ft tall and will be shown for 6 months, so I doubt you'll have a difficult time finding it. But if you do have trouble, just follow the mumbling man down Market. In the meantime, here's some video:
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Last night I attended Winterfest, which is the Bike Coalition's annual shindig to celebrate cycling and raise some cash for the organization. Of course, before I even had a chance to dismount from my bike as I arrived, one of the people staffing the bike valet actually made fun of the bike I was riding. I guess that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the inclusiveness of the SF bike industry.
Anyway, despite being made felt unwelcome, they had some really rad art up for auction. It was all too rich for my blood, but let's take a look regardless:
Untitled by Jamie Vasta, who makes a ton of glitter artwork.
ABCyclopedia: An Incomplete Guide to Cycling by Adrian Cotter.
They Know Our Streets Better Than We Do by Allison Kendall. The guy who happened to win this piece was hovering over it for a while prior to closing. Even when I went to take a picture of it he started talking about how it was soon to be hanging up on his wall. He really wanted this.
Finally, continuing our coverage of SF art with lazer eyes is Return of the Scorcher. Unfortunately I didn't note this artist's last name (first name Hugh), so feel free to clue me in.