Reminiscing

East Villagers love to speed headlong into the future, but sometimes they like to stop and reminisce.

That seems to be happening more frequently for one person, who has taken to scrawling 30-year-old slogans on lampposts and newspaper boxes:

Newspaper box.

…and hanging up signs that used to be hung up in the mid-1980s, like these that I saw this morning, on Avenue C and East 5th Street:

Mid-1980s signs.

Here is a horizontal close-up:

Horizontal close-up.

If you're wondering, it's no easier to read in person!

Here's a vertical close-up:

Vertical close-up.

The signs and the inverted martini glass with the line through the spilling contents were those of a band called Missing Foundation. You can find their songs on YouTube!

East Villagers know that change is cyclical — these cycles do not come back exactly to where they started; they don't make a perfect circle. Instead, change is evolutionary, moving in a spiral. Which is to say that it is not 1985 any more, and no one will respond to calls to mug yuppies, or not act "civilized".

But there's always reminiscing!

#eastvillage #5thstreet #avenuec #dialectics #missingfoundation #mugayuppie #negationofthenegation #signs #lampposts #thepartysover

Mug A Yuppie

Thirty years ago, before most people were even born, the East Village was a dangerous neighborhood! Almost no one lived here!

A few people who did live here were "anarchists". They lived in abandoned buildings, and made trouble for everyone else.

They used to graffiti on everything with their markers and spray paint. One thing they wrote was "Mug A Yuppie".

Of course, they didn't do the mugging themselves — they just endorsed the idea!

Recently, someone has been reminiscing about that time, and has taken to graffit-ing this slogan again. Yesterday, as I was walking up Avenue B, I saw this lamppost:

Graffitied lamppost.

They probably wrote "Free Kim Davis" too! She did defy the government, after all!

V for Vendetta!

#eastvillage #9thstreet #anarchists #avenueb #graffiti #mugayuppie #signs #lampposts

Anthony the Painter

I was walking along Avenue A the other day, when I passed by this collection of signs affixed to a traffic-light control box, at the corner of East 9th Street:

Don't stop… believing!

If you need any painting done, don't give up, call Anthony — no job is too small!

Does anyone say "mug" any more… in the East Village Today?!

#eastvillage #9thstreet #avenuea #mugayuppie #signs #trafficlightcontrolbox