Who is Bansky? Bansky is an urban semiotic enigma. Nobody really knows his name or who he is and none of that matters because his urban art speaks in the whole.
Continue reading The Bansky Semiotic.
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Is this ridiculous thing -- reeking of foppish desperation and geek fantasia -- the new Urban Chariot? Is our future so doomed by the economy that we'll be coerced into actually traveling the streets of Manhattan and rolling along the suburban wilds in a P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) from Segway and General Motors? We know the future is round, but must it also be ugly as well as silly?
Continue reading Urban Chariot.
We know half the world is urban -- but what will our world look like in the year 2100? We will be compressed even further up and away from each other in skyscrapers? Or will we begin to winnow out and find room to stretch the horizon?
Continue reading Urbanization in the Year 2100.
I was raised on the belief that the United States Postal Service delivered your mail anytime and anywhere you needed it.
Nothing could stop the delivery of the mail.
Continue reading Neither Rain Nor Snow Nor Email.
Are you familiar with the term "redlining?" It's a dangerous concept because it leads to worker apathy and a lack of motivation in the workplace. Redlining is a stone in the union arsenal. A headstone.
Continue reading The Redlining Headstone.
As technology progresses, so too, must the criminal element. In a previous article -- Shoes on a Wire -- we learned that in the urban core, shoes hanging on a wire can indicate the house below sells drugs. As cities "urbanize" neighborhoods, and the "wire utilities" are taken underground instead of up in the air, the "Shoes on a Wire" semiotic is rendered memeingless. The new semiotic for selling drugs, according the Vice Cops on Spike TVHD, is "a single shoe" tossed on a roof as exampled in the generic image below.
Continue reading Semiotic Shoe on a Roof.
Meet Denise Albright, Michael McKie, and Khalid Nelson. They ran the Rikers Island Fight Club, known as "The Program" -- where certain inmates were beaten by other inmates on "The Team" -- but these three were not inmates. They were Rikers Island officers.
Continue reading Compressing Concentricities: The Rikers Island Fight Club.
The Times Leader of Pennsylvania ran an interesting article -- citing an unnamed research study -- arguing poor children in the urban core are more likely than their richer peers to grow up obese, yet malnourished.
Continue reading Are Food Stamps Making Poor Children Fat?.
We know a Scarlet Letter is the historical, puritanical, mark of an adulterer. Do you find the modern day Maryland "Scarlet Pumpkin" below to be enough of a warning against pedophiles and violent sex offenders to be effective on Halloween eve?
Continue reading Do You Believe in the Scarlet Pumpkin?.
Gordon Davidescu wrote this article.
One day last week as I was waiting to go to the synagogue where I regularly go to services. I noticed a young woman standing across 96th street holding a cup of, what I assumed to be, coffee. I remember thinking to myself that because it was a Jewish holiday on that day, I was not able to buy myself my own cup of coffee and would have to accept a cup of instant coffee instead. I briefly looked at the cup of coffee cup and then looked back down at the street.
One day last week as I was waiting to go to the synagogue where I regularly go to services. I noticed a young woman standing across 96th street holding a cup of, what I assumed to be, coffee. I remember thinking to myself that because it was a Jewish holiday on that day, I was not able to buy myself my own cup of coffee and would have to accept a cup of instant coffee instead. I briefly looked at the cup of coffee cup and then looked back down at the street.
Continue reading Sorry, But Thanks.
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