Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Happy Snow Weekend!
We’re digging out from a ‘Nor’easter’ today in New York, a swirling blizzard of snow and strong winds that created such astonishing contrasts of bare ground and high-pointed drifts that kids and adults were playing together on these ledges, falling to the ground laughing.
It brings to mind the masses of Americans whose prospects and futures have been completely blown away, leaving nothing but bare soil – while bankers and corporate criminals have drifted all the wealth upwards to new stylish heights during the economic storm of the last 40 years. Feel like you are walking through two feet of snow and can never get ahead? Some would like you to think that it’s because of uncontrollable forces like the weather.
Meanwhile, it’s the calm after the storm now and we’re heading out to play in the snow this morning before it all gets dirty. It’s nice to see New York like a clean slate, full of possibility and promise. Let’s go for a walk!
And here’s our weekly interview with the streets in NYC, Miami, and Berlin; featuring ATOMS. Billy Barnacles, Boxer, Case Maclaim, Cupid, Dark Clouds, Jamie Hef, Joe Iurato, Kaynor, Klass, Modus. Smells, Ten! Tom Bob, Tony, and Wane.
Nomadland won the Oscar for the best movie this year, a fact that you may not know because A. The Oscars are nearly completely irrelevant, and B. Covid era-awards programs have been the equivalent of watching your dad unclogging the kitchen drain. An unvarnished story about a growing ecosystem of Americans living in cars, trucks, and RVs in parking lots across the country, Nomadland toes a line between blaming neo-liberal vulture capitalism/ de-industrialization of the last 40 years and dipping into the American myths of people who just want to live their life free and unencumbered.
Meanwhile, in New York more people are finding the rent to be too high and are moving into RVs, according to The Daily News this week. In the article they speak with Giovanni, a first responder whom we were probably clapping for last year when he was saving lives from Covid.
In the article Giovanni says, “I was an EMT… you want to talk struggling‚ that was really rough,” he explained. “I had to have somebody rent out my living room just to be able to cover the rent. That’s how hard it was. After doing that for three, four years, I was like, I’m done with this. I quit. I’m over it.”
“I went to college, I did pretty much everything that I was told I was supposed to do in order to have a good life. And it didn’t turn out that way,” he explained.
As the moneyed Real Estate kingpins are fighting against extending a rent moratorium in the city to August 31 and to end moratoriums across the country, you have to wonder where everyone will go once the stimulus checks have dried up, inflation kicks in, and landlords evict people.
Meanwhile, we’re following the street art in a number of neighborhoods in New York this week – and wondering where the topical or political works are. The current generation who are putting work on the streets may venture into politics, but only identity politics. BLM, trans rights, that sort of thing.
New York is headed toward 70% vaccinated soon and the city is actually talking about offering to vaccinate tourists! Soon you can go to the Met, see a Broadway show, eat dinner in Little Italy, get cursed out by a homeless guy, and get a stab in the arm from Pfizer! New York, New York! It’s a wonderful town!
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring: 2 Much, Armyan, Cautious5, Cekis, City Kitty, Cramcept, Denton Burrows, GIZ, Healer, Homesick, Leviticus, LNE Crew, Lunge Box, MalincheArt, MeresOne, MrBbaby, No Sleep, Paul Richard, Ponzi, Ramiro Davaro-Comas, Smart, and Stikki Peaches.
Hooray Hooray, first of May!” chanted your cousin Felix, “outdoor fucking starts today!”
You both broke out in peals of laughter while your mom was walking out from the kitchen with a basket of garlic bread for your Saturday night spaghetti dinner. “What did you just say??”
It’s hard to believe it’s May already, and the smell of lilacs and aerosol paint and pot smoke is in the air in New York again. Ahhhhhhh. Duck between the skateboards and the hellions delivering Chinese on electric bikes, and you’ll see the chess players are setting up again in the park.
For the 12th week in a row, the President of the United States hasn’t tweeted something glorifying violence or attacking faith in public institutions, and people are beginning to mention the “H” word in reference to the rate of Covid-19 vaccinations in New York.
Keep squeezing your silver and keep your eyes open and don’t get hit by any NFTs. They seem to be dropping everywhere
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring: 2 Much, Andrea Carlson, Banksy, Bastard Bot, Bueno, Free Britney, Homsick, Marcos De La Fuente, Myles, Posterboy, Resop, Same PPP, Tom Bob, Vanessa Alvarez, WGE, and ZigZag.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
