JF Ptak Science Books Post 173
Back in the days "when it was a long time ago" (in the words of my five-year old, Tessie) I found this artwork covering a Washington D.C. water department structure near the Whitehurst Freeway, down near the waterfront in Georgetown. It was a six-sided structure, brick, with boarded up windows; all of the windows and most of the brick in between had been used as a political/personal diary by one of the free-rangers who lived under the highway. It was very creative, with parenthetical statements, asides, and even one footnote (I've still not seen another footnoted work of graffiti).
Since I've made a few short posts about the Trinity Test and the coming of the use of the atomic bomb, I thought to include this, as I think the use of "atomic bomb" in outside/public diaries is still pretty rare.
The panel reads:
CRUDE//Drop/Atom/Bomb/Worldwide/If Necessary
The "if necessary" part I think was a stroke of pure genius.
The continued story:
Back in the 1980's I used to interview some of the people who were released too early (Reaganed) from care at federal/district/state psychiatric institutions as part of cost-benefit analysis and federal non-coddling procedures--in short, there were thousands of people who were literally shaken out of these places and dumped onto the streets of D.C. I used to go walking in uncommon areas of that part of D.C. (Georgetown) looking for odd bits of whatever, and this turned out to be the naturalized environment of these people who, although not able to take care of themselves in some sort of custodianship, were now expected to take care of themselves with virtually nothing aiding them, including money. It was to be expected that they would be there, in these hidey-hole, don't-wanna-go-there areas, so that they could hide or stay out of the sight-lines of the varied legions of police--D.C. cops, Secret Service, Executive Police, and so on. (Having had some experience with these other forces, I suspect that these homesteaders would've been anything but invisible to special cops. My experience: a Secretary of State moved into a townhouse a dozen doors down from my store, and with him came all manner of Secret Service, including a command center that monitored the entire street. I asked one of the officers ("agents", actually) who came into the store (they would sometimes come in to get warm/cool ) if I could expect to feel more secure now that all of these special forces were around. The guy was honestly taken aback--I was wrong, the Secretary was there charge and obligation, and that if they saw anything weird they would have to call the D.C. police to help me, just like anyone else. Its obvious, of course, in hindsight--they weren't there for folks, just one special folk.) In any event there wasn't any real need for hiding.
I believe I know who it was that recorded all of these thoughts and warnings. His illness created a spectacular imagination--his creativity with his surroundings, seeing far more deeply into the unexpected unknown unknowable and nonexistent natures of the things that were and weren't around us was absolutely breathtaking. He was not in control of the images that flooded through his brain, and it was it seems, it was all real, and not just in his mind. The only thing he ever wanted was cigarettes--he never asked for money. Finally one day he was just gone. His name was Ross.
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