Thursday, April 28, 2016

iT'S STreeTarT THurSDay iN eaST HoLLyWooD! with Malibu AM pic of the day - Thursday, April 28, 2016

Dear Street Art Lovers and all you other lovely and loving people,

Today I present a somber work from East Hollywood. As I have mentioned before, one of the other names for East Hollywood is Little Armenia, because it has long been an neighborhood where many Armenian people have migrated to, liked living here, and settled. We have a mural off of Hollywood Blvd. just east of Normandie Avenue done in commemoration of the 1.5 million Armenians who perished at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. Around this time of year I see many cars in the neighborhood flying the small car-window flags of Armenia.

Artist AVA Artoon, We Are Still Here, paint on wall (2015), central detail.



























This last weekend was a time of remembrance of the Armenian Genocide (which if you've read the news, the Turkish government has never owned up to), so I thought this was probably the best week to present this mural. I've been waiting for months (I drive by it on my way to work) for the combination of good morning light and no cars parked in front of it to get a good picture, but this has never happened.

This obviously went up last year in the 100th anniversary year 2015, but I've been waiting and watching for a good day. Yesterday morning the light was good, but there were vehicles in front so I figured it's as good as I'll get. But it's no less powerful and disturbing because of those cars.

It has been said that Hitler felt that he could get away with engineering the Jewish Holocaust because he took the lesson that the Turks exterminated the Armenians and the world remained silent.

It's a very atmospheric and emotional image. An old woman is gagged and made silent, holding out her chained hands pleading with us. Vapors representing the troubled spirits of the slain eerily winds from a monument through the woman's hands and eventually file through the gates of Heaven. Trees burn on the left and are transformed into crucifixes, indicating that the Armenians died not because of anything they did, but simply for who they were, followers of Christ. But, as the headline says, they are still here.

Here's the whole thing:


When a snapped a picture a few months ago, there were no cars in front, but the early sun was casting shadows of trees on it. Here it is from then:


The artist has indicated four flags on the left. He/she has chosen to not commit the same sin as the world did on the part of the Armenians, and has recognized additional peoples against whom the Turks acted. The top flag (red, blue, orange) is the Armenian flag.

The Turks also waged exterminations against people of Greece (represented by the blue and white striped flag) and Assyria (the flag with the wavy X pattern). The number were less, but the brutality was the same. The flag of Israel is included in solidarity. I have to admit I knew nothing about these events, so this artist has definitely raised my consciousness about the horrors that started the 20th century on its bloody path of dehumanizing people, making them valueless and disposable.



AND NOW, BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED SEASCAPE




























Another predominantly blue sky this morning.

Took the bus this morning. In LA there are these double-long buses and in the middle they have these really high seats facing the middle. They're uncomfortable to sit in as they are made for people with long legs, but I grab one when there's nothing else. You DO get a view over everyone else which is interesting. It makes you think what it's like to be a person over six feet tall. I decided to whip out the phone and do a PANO shot just because.


When one is out taking random street shots like I do or shooting a mural, it's always interesting to see who, if any, cover their face. In this age of Twitter, there are a lot of citizen journalists and muckrakers out there, so I suppose anything is possible.

I was reading an Australian's blog post on race in his home country versus the U.S. He reports that they have a third category that we do not (we have the binary system of white/nonwhite) called wog. The folks who would fit into this are Armenians, Middle Easterners, Balkans, Greeks, Italians, dark-skinned French and Spaniards, etc. whereas in American we'd just lump them in with the whites. I was thinking about that this morning and decided with the exception of 2-3 blacks, I was on the "wog bus." Since Latinos are hybrid Mediterranean Iberians-Indians, I figured they belong in the "wog" category too. Only one "Australian-denoted-white" male ever go on the 704 line, no such females; there were only a handful of Asians.

When I transferred to the Malibu-bound 534 bus it became exclusively "wog" or "Latino" except for me. Come to think of it, most of the time, I am the only Asian on the 534.  I take that back. A bunch of black kids from the initial stops in Culver City are on the 534, but they ALL get off on Sunset where they transfer to the bus that takes them to Palisades High School. So I guess the 534 is also "the Palisades High Black School Bus" as well.

After that, it's the "wogs" and me. The writer said never call a wog a wog unless you are one yourself, so I assume it a perjorative that has been reclaimed, much like the sacred NWRD.

It's funny that even as I sat there thinking about a 3-tier race system, a certain kind of reality of graduated privilege seem to start to materialize in my thoughts. A friend who has a very Italian-looking name (think Petru vs. Petrocelli) figures he has to send out 15% more resumes looking for work than the guys named Peterson. So, do we have wogs in the U.S. and don't know it? It's an interesting thing to consider, but by and large I'd say East Holly is a wog enclave by default and it certainly starts to make some descriptive sense.

That's all for today. Have a great Thursday people.

Love,
Pops









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