SMALL CHARACTER POSTERS

A relatively new phenomenon is the Lennon Wall (連儂牆 'lin nung cheung') concept as has sprung up in Hong Kong near the Central Government complex. Poems, songs, squawks, and personal messages, ranging from a few words to long texts, all within the format of stickie notes. Named after the John Lennon wall in Prague in during the late eighties.
It's a means of expressing opinions and disagreeing with the authorities.
More high-minded than just rude graffiti, more literate too.

Imagine what would happen here in San Francisco if we did the same. For one thing, it would be filled with mis-spellings, and for another, every point made would be side-tracked by some dweezil writing about gluten, veganism, or the evils of vaccination. For a third, there would be obscenity everywhere.



遍遍地開花
[Canto: 'pin pin dei hoi faa']

It would be both a frightful eye-sore and an exercise in offensive ego-mania.
Largely because the e-commerce yuppies that have taken over the city are superficial, mostly ignorant and uninformable, and staggeringly immature.


Anonymous public text has a better tradition overseas.
Fewer emoticons or private parts.


There is a version of the Lennon Wall near where I live. That wall used to be the mural along the north side of the building that housed Big Apple Discount Market, which in parts still exists underneath the bizarre flyers now posted all over, for the bafflement of passers-by and folks waiting for a bus. I've met the man responsible for much of the content there, who refers to it as his 'shrine', although other than his own diminished sanity it is quite unclear what he is commemorating.

Any conversation with him, or the dysfunctionals and winos sitting in the bus shelter alongside, is predictable and uncomfortable. This is San Francisco, we have people wandering around in public who require different medication than what they actually consume.

I can walk over to the intersection, and more often than not, day or night, the sounds of emotional unbalance and alternative interpretations of reality will be clearly audible, not necessarily from intoxicated people outside of bars.



DON'T MIND ME, I'M JUST HERE

What I miss, from not that long ago, are the raccoons who would sometimes lurk in branches of the trees near that bus stop, or wander past further up. Several years ago late at night I passed a raccoon licking its privates in a driveway one block over. He raised his head and looked at me, I looked at him, and when he had made certain that I had no interest in his balls, he resumed his pleasurable task. Just a short neighborhood resident with fur, minding his own business.

I do not object to people like that.
There should be more of them.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================