There's a ground-floor apartment close by that has fantastically gaudy lawn ornaments on the small two-foot wide strip of garden that runs along the building. Flamingos, spinning red and green fans, and leering garden gnomes keep each other company alongside fake flowers "planted" in the garden.
Shining white Christmas lights are strung loosely from all of the windows, and they remain there the whole year. Lit every night. Everything else in the street is grey and brown. And I smile every time I pass it.

It's kinda beautiful-ugly-vulnerable-bold in its garishness.

It reminds me of the early personal websites with their winking cherubs, cringe-worthy midi files and wildly coloured backgrounds with illegible red and green text. Somehow despite the dubious (a personal judgement) quality of their web design and my limited appreciation for "Uncle Art's collection of mold, fungus, and spores," it is pretty cool that Uncle Art taught himself how to to create a page. (Uncle Art is 72. He is arthritic and types with the index finger of his left hand, his knuckles gnarled. He was a biologist and teacher for many years. He has a story to tell.)

(I just have to mention this, cause there is someone out there who has a collection of "old pictures" of Jesus. I wasn't quite sure what to make of this. I thought that maybe they were joking, but they were very serious and earnest in quite a sweet way. I wonder if they have the shroud yet. Maybe that doesn't classify as a picture?)

Or the chain of signatures spraypainted along the walls of the Amsterdam metro in the dark tunnels where the trains whiz by, people leave their mark in complex artistic or simple scrawling graffiti. I wonder when they do it, since I look for them but have never seen anyone there. Maybe they do it after the metro stops running for the night. They're pretty brave really, there in the dark. I feel sorry for the guys who seem to run out of paint or get caught, since what is left is a half filled in bubble letter at the very end of a word, just short of complete. The disappointment.

Somehow, I've suddenly started to see all of these things as something really fantastic. It's a surprising enlightenment.

Labels: a little bit of blah blah, beauty in unexpected places, being alive, interpreting and reinterpreting