Honk If You Love Cheeses

W'ith bubbleshare going defunct, I am going to experiment migrating some of the pictures here, along with the accompanying text.

The title of this photo spread is apropos of nothing. I just like it. Yesterday I passed by some amazing graffiti while traveling to Flushing on the #7 train. I decided to approach the area on foot and investigate. My first thought was that there had been a recent Hippy invasion, “Quick, get out the Flit Gun,” was my thought. A couple taking pictures there though told me that this was the site of a graffiti museum. Is there anything that we don’t have a museum for in the city? We have a museum of sex, the Maidenform Museum of Brassieres, etc. So let us travel back in the Wayback Machine, to the recent past of graffiti. “No, no,” you idiot. “You went back too far. You took us all the way back to the notorious “Jesus of the Garlic Breath.” Take us back to the more recent past, to the apartment of Bob Whalen on Sullivan Street in The Village in the mid 1960’s. Bob Whalen always had the strangest visitors. I don’t know if Bob just attracted them or if The Village is just so full of strange people that a Rotary Club type would seem like a freak here. This time it was a rock musician who had had a string of bad luck. His cash was low. He was even running out of pot (horrors). In his depression, he went up to the Cloisters Museum. He was so enthralled by the unicorn tapestries that he began scribbling “Unicorn Tapestries”, over every available surface in the city. This came to the attention of the media who began speculating what this unicorn tapestry business was all about? He then decided to cash in on his notoriety by forming a rock band called Unicorn Tapestry. I don’t know how he made out. He was just starting on this venture. Anyway, the UnicornTapestry guy started this modern avalanche of graffiti because before this time there was very little to be seen anywhere in the city. Now you know how it all began. Aren’t you glad you asked?

As long as I was at it, I decided to take some pictures of Long Island City. It has not all been yuppyfied. Much of it still conforms to its gritty industrial past.

Honk if You Love Cheeses Aug 2009