“in the middle of things…transparent.”

20Oct10

Just back this morning…talk about wide, saucer-eyed Aliens!

By 3 am, Chelsea Nicole swung her last round the pole, and from there I was next stuck with her in the middle of her body, quivering under the bright lights of the 24-hour CVS as she vacillated between Maybelline Great Lash and Revlon Luxurious Lengths. My four pounding Alien hearts just wanted to get outa there and on her leopard and Def Leopard decal decored Dell and bang out this post, cos I just heard through the telepathic waves that one of my favorite street artists, J R, won the TED prize for 2011.

How is it that the Human “Aliens” aka the “elderly, displaced, poor and inconsequential, untouchables and powerless” are often stuck in middle of cities or far-flung where other humans can’t see them or else scrambling to get in and over borders, fences, walls, check points…?  Inner cities, ghettoes, grottoes, shtetls, sheds. Outer edges, outer highways, the other side of the tracks, the low-lying floodplains, and in the middle of the disaster. Always right near the nuclear, food, waste, offal and processing-we-don’t-want-know-what places?

J R’s eyes on slum buildings in Kenya to inner-city Paris quays allow Oversight in a better way, in a “We’re Watching You” crop circle way.

Though a bit less than a football player’s annual salary, TED’s $100,000 award has gone in the past to the likes of Bill Clinton, Bono and Jamie Oliver, and actually is seed money towards the winner’s charity or cause of choice. The still anonymous street gleamer is in Shanghai and told the New York Times how he was able to parkour scale buildings and towers to paste and post his photograffeur envisionings giving sight to the “unsightly.”

“It’s crazy. This city is so huge and overgrown, the more you’re in the middle of things, the more you feel transparent.”

The Alien smiled at that. His anonymous eyes give sight to what’s been blinded and unseen.  Another smile for the slowly waking-up Humans.  It’s been a Long Night. Batting lashes against the Bright Truth. Good Morning Earth!

YOU! J R.!…YOU! T E D! …YOU! A R T!…YOU! …Hidden Souls and Artists! …YOU! Wheatpasters Everywhere !…will forever make an Alien stuck in the body of a stripper named Chelsea Nicole…smile a “pasted-on-long-lash-blinking-We’re-Heeeeere-and Phoning-Home”…smile.

Filed under: THE DAILY ALIEN: LOVE SMILES   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: Banksy, daily love smiles, et phone home, global street art, Iti, Iti phone home, J R, Paris eye art, Shanghai art, slums, street art, street artists, TED, TED prize