Olympia is a mural town, but not every place has the fortuitous combination of big walls, owned by tolerant types, painted by an abundance of artists. Anacortes, for example, places cut-outs of citizens from various eras all around town. More organized and uniform than Oly's plurality of muralities, but then again, not exactly sterile and unimaginative, either.
The photo here illustrates this pretty well, plopping a hippie in the midst of a bunch of prohibition signs. Groovy. Makes that 70's song start running in my mind.
Indulging in my on-again, off-again obsession with visual anthropology, I offer these observations:
- The juxtaposition of a hippie and his sign with the other signs suggests that the building's owner can take a joke (or is un-aware of it)
- The "Sorry" preceding each prohibition perhaps reflects Anacortes' proximity to Canada's polite culture.
- The hippie-among-signs motif causes an association with the song "Signs" for citizens of a certain generation. This song was by the Five Man Electric Band, which is Canadian. Most people won't know this, but that's just the sort of cultural imperialism--humble, subdued to the point of subliminality--that you'd expect from Canadians.
- Wait a minute,...the hippie is holding a sign, suggesting a deeper irony or hypocrisy (or he is un-aware of it). And his shirt is neatly tucked in. Maybe he's a narc, man.
No comments:
Post a Comment