i think i'm finally on to something...

Honestly, the opening quote is powerful. The only reason I kept watching was in hopes that it would be realized by those carrying out the acts it inspired....

it never happened

I was watching a film documenting the various Reclaim the Streets movements around the world. Watching these people, full of anarchy, shut down the streets for a day just to throw a rave and then go back to their lives, I felt betrayed. Both by the name, and these hoards of people that swore by it, had planned to retake the public spaces they pass through each day; spaces whored out by corporate thirst. It was a shame. They take an idea, a beautiful idea, and then burn it to the ground. Degenerates, anarchists, luddites and melon munchers, these people have no directive. I think that is what I found most disenchanting was that there was this awesome power of cooperation, of love and of freedom turned into an acid trip for lame duck hippies and white collars looking for an afternoon of escape. There was something there, but all of this degeneration amounted to nothing. There is definitely something to be said for deconstruction, but only when it is married with constructive ambition. To tear apart alone is to create unnecessary chaos.

-shutting down the street, garbage not beauty

They shut down a street in London, which in writing, or at least in the way it was relayed in the voice over, sounded beautiful. They would cast out all that which was trapped indoors out into the streets creating a lasting outdoor livingroom. This of course quickly deteriorated into a garbage laden lane filled with vagrants an unsafe obstructions, not exactly the place you'd want to bring the kids for a getaway. It was a horrible miscarriage of a wonderful idea. How quickly things can fall apart when those in charge aren't.

-cars crashed in streets, mindless destruction and who will clean that up when we all lose our jobs?

To start of many of the street-raves individuals would junk vehicles by crashing them into one another and then lighting on fire, painting and outright destroying them to be left in an 'unmoveable' (but fully moveable) roadblock. Awesome. There was actually footage of children pulling away doors and, again, vagrants doing their business right up in there along side. After all, who can ask for better role models than a group of car-crashing, indecent-exposing, daylight drunks? Anyone? People with jobs maybe?

I'm not anti, and I don't feel that menial tasks are healthy rewards for anyone. But this anarchy did not amount to Martin-Luther-change, nor did it really change anyone's mind-- except maybe mine in that I was so disgusted with what I saw that I immediately was inspired to distance myself from anything 'reclaiming the streets.' Still, this IS a good mantra and perhaps it needs to be RECLAIMED by the not-so-lame doers from all these unrighteous ravers.

-lame music

Bad music doesn't inspire change, and pounding bass just gets your neighbours pissed. It's true, my neighbour hates me, but then I wasn't trying to incite public revolt with my late night Silent Shout-a-thon.

-"I want to be here to end money, so I don't have to work, and so I don't have to use my car to drive to work for the money that will no longer exist" (paraphrased) WOW. the straw man lights a match. awesome.

Honestly, the problem here is obvious - good ideas mixed with stupid people. As I watched this film, trying to pull away some parallels between what I had assumed to be the 'reclaim the streets' movement and the graffiti that I've been searching for, I realized how futile the whole attempt was. Perhaps more unsettling was the fact that there were strong parallels between what I was watching and the unsightly neograff I encounter on a daily basis. The commonality is that rape of a beautiful idealism thrown into the gutter by some strange idiots. the ideology seems to float above the acts themselves and it is never firmly rooted. They build from the ideology down, rather than planting it in the ground an letting it flourish. They strangle the life from a good idea and pollute it with quick, half-assed follow through. It's a damn shame. Who are they? Why do they seem to prevail?

"Isn't this true of photography, of art, of everything?" she says.

"Probably.."

"But that doesn't mean they win, they don't succeed and the idea is still there waiting to be acted on"

"Yeah, but time is running out and I'm left asking... when?"

I have begun to frame this failed search. There are no politics in graffiti beyond should and shouldn't, yes and no. The sphere is collapsing in the real and this world of established letters and formulaic postings is being balkaned off like hot chips at an auction stand for people on Atkins. I am lost. Please find me a way out.