Spotted on the subway platform at Union Square:

Dear Kara,
There’s no rain
there’s no me
I’m tellin ya man
sure as shit.

Tate

My self-promotion-averse co-blogger D.Billy has been colossally busy as of late. He was responsible for having to help prep Cooper Union for Obama’s visit this week, a task that I’m sure glad I didn’t have to perform. I can barely remember to put out a fresh roll of toilet paper when people come over to my place.

D.Billy’s also been slogging it up and down 95 on various buses to see his lady, a process that I am abundantly familiar with. That really, really sucks, because you can’t even complain about it properly. I mean, shit, you still got a girlfriend at the end of the bus ride, right, so who are you to fuss?

There is ALWAYS somebody who is either 1) freestyle rapping to their headphones 2) eating something deep-fried or 3) wearing huge sunglasses and an empire-waist dress and talking in a nasal whine about some guy they’re “just hanging out with, whatever,” on the four-hour slog out of New York on the bus on a Friday night, though. And lady at the end or not, that gets mighty old.

None of this is a valid excuse for not blogging much, though. The real reason this blog’s been fallow lately: we both just tired as hell.

I’m pleased to report that D.Billy has not been too busy or tired to throw up a new Site Intervention, though. Check this bad thing out:

You can see the rest of his Site Interventions here.

A while back, the folks at Gestalten included a few of my site intervention projects in a lovely book called Tangible: High Touch Visuals.
I highly recommend it, and its sister book Tactile. They’re both chock full of excellent artists and designers, and I break them out in a fit of “you-gotta-check-this-stuff-out” fever to anyone who comes anywhere near my bookshelves.

Anyway, the reason I’m bringing all of this bizness up again is that they have also been so kind as to include yours truly in their NEW book, Urban Interventions: Personal Projects in Public Places.

I am absolutely thrilled to share a volume with people like Mark Jenkins, Joshua Allen Harris, William Lamson and tons of other artists who endeavor to smack the urban landscape with the giant cartoon glove of whimsy, and I hope y’all will check it out.

Urban Interventions is 69 beans if you buy it direct, BUT, as of this posting, it’s 37% off if you buy it on Amazon!
Or you can just wait until it’s in the big bookstores and hunker down between the rows, all sprawled out taking up aisle space.
I know how you do, ’cause I do it too.

[DBILLY.COM]

I spotted this on my lunch break today:

A contemporary, street-level sequel to Robert Rauschenberg’s “Erased De Kooning Drawing“… or is tape just that much cheaper than paint?
Either way, I love it.

(And yes, I have already submitted this to There, I Fixed It.)

I was walking South on Seventh Avenue from Penn Station yesterday when I came across this great, rushed piece of Michael Jackson memorial graffiti:

It’s everything I like about folk art — public, not too fussy, and definitely puts passion over precision.

As the weather has gotten nicer and the day job has slowed down, I’ve been able to get out into the world with the bag o’ art materials here and there. Here are a couple of interventions that I slapped down recently:

ANT BATTLE – Central Park, Manhattan

FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH – Bushwick, Brooklyn

Spotted on the side of an ice cream truck cruising up Knickerbocker Ave in Bushwick.
(I could teach you, but I’d have to chorge.)

Latest post: D.Billy Site Interventions: Ant Battle and the Fountain of Youth

Spotted in SoHo:



Consider this an open call for people to illustrate that showdown. I’m talking anything from drawings on napkins to multi-million dollar blockbuster films. Make this happen, internet.

For additional inspiration, allow me to direct you to some awesome character illustrations by friend-of-a-friend Chris Bishop:



(more on Mr. Bishop’s Flickr page.)

I was walking through the Times Square subway station last night, on my way to see Watchmen with Jeff and a few of our fellow thirtysomething nerdboys, when I spotted three identical payphones, side-by-side on a clean tile wall, just begging for something to be tacked on.  So I pulled out a Sharpie and some manila tags that I’ve been carrying for just such an occasion, and designated one phone each for calls to the Past, Present, and Future.

More photos — including a couple with a test subject — after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Whether or not you cared for the Watchmen film, you’ve got to respect this: for the most part, people aren’t defacing Watchmen posters on the subway. It’s amazing. Every other poster, there’s teeth blacked out, toilet-stool poetry scrawled in Sharpie, or, most notably, 3-D genitalia sculpted out of chewing gum. But for some reason, the Watchmen posters get left alone.

Except for this one — which has been dramatically improved by replacing Billy-Crudup-as-Dr.-Manhattan’s CG head with Barack Obama’s wise and otherworldy dome-piece. Complete with hydrogen atom symbol on the forehead, too! You can see this for yourself at the A/C/E/B/D/F/V stop at West 4th street, NYC.

Here’s the total poster:

Here’s a closeup: