Thursday, February 20, 2025

Greetings

Today I was at a bus stop and I saw a bit of graffiti on the transparent covering they put on advertising sheets. It was just "Happy Valentine" in black magic marker. The final "s" was either missing or too small to read.

Now Valentines Day doesn't quite have the same level of general goodwill as, say, Christmas. And seeing it enshrined on a bus stop is a little puzzling six days later. Still, if taggers want to spread good cheer around it feels churlish to complain.

2 comments:

susan said...

It must have given you a good feeling to see that tag at the bus stop. I know it would have made me smile. People are often nicer than we give them credit for being even if they do occasionally leave out the final 's'. Maybe whoever it was saw a transit inspector or a policeman coming and
ran away.

I imagine everybody's favourite graffiti artist is Banksy. We saw the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop a few years ago. Among many ingenious projects he also invented a real (not)amusement park called Dismaland.

Ben said...

RIPTA doesn't really have much in the way of postal inspectors, and certainly doesn't have them patrolling all the bus shelters for signs of wrongdoers. A policeperson approaching is a credible idea. Really the whole sequence of events is mysterious to me. Which might be why I remembered it and felt like writing about it.

Banksy doesn't really wow me as an artist, although the way he's managed to stay anonymous is impressive. Dismaland looks kind of amusing. I see he got one of the KLF guys involved with it.