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I love the idea of "urban art." Do I have to use quotes? Is that the acceptable term? We had a pretty busy railroad track where I live and I remember many days watching the graffiti on the trains. You'd see tons and tons of amateur stuff, single color, crappy font, then every now and then you'd get this fantastic stylized text or character. You just have to wonder about who painted it and how far it had traveled. I don't live in a large city. Hell, I've only been to a single large city and at the time I wasn't allowed off the "tourist path" which meant I missed probably all of the things that the people living there see every day. Personally I find industrial and technological things to be unattractive. The colors are dull, the edges are sharp, It's hard to look at after a while. I think to break the tedium we need surprise art like a 20ft spray painted mural popping up overnight, someone playing their guitar on a street corner and even little things like a clever sticker placed in just the right spot. It's decoration. Sure it fades after a while and becomes unattractive and looks like garbage, but for a few days, it's art. That's what I love about it. You just know it's not going to be around forever. Mona Lisa isn't going anywhere, There's the original, there's prints and pictures and copies. It's boring. The art you see spray painted on a rail car is something you're going to see once in your lifetime.
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“It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick” - Dave Barry
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