Lately, the graffiti in my neighborhood has been getting very positive. I find that each day on another block I’m getting bombarded more and more with messages of Magic and Think of the Future. On good days I find it practically overwhelming how lovely it is, on bad days I take offense. But either way it reminds me of how many of us feel like we must write things down and then share them with other people. (Yes, I know there are many legal implications, and I’m not encouraging graffiti. I might add to that however, that some of my favorite artists started out making street art including Basquiat. And some of my favorite artists are still making street art, such as Shepard Fairy.) I like the urgency of it, the immediacy of having to write on the wall.

I stopped taking pictures on trips when I realized I could remember very little except what I took pictures of. But on our honeymoon in Rome in 2000, I had a couple of disposable cameras left over from our wedding. I took pictures of ragtop Fiat 500s:

Ape trucks:

And motorscooters with roofs, which I saw for the first time that trip:

It was Sunday, 40 degrees with a snowstorm on the way. What do people do in the suburbs? I put on some Elliott Smith and went down to the riverfront.

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL (YAB) is my favorite public art collective based in Chicago.

Cynthia Rowley store in Easthampton, 2005. Just imagine my delight when I stumbled by. In one of the most forbiddingly high-rent places in the nation, someone decided to display a pearl beyond price, to be had by anyone for free. (Click on this entry to see the close-up.)