Council Monday: "If what I write is literature, I guess you'd better emphasize the 'litter.'"

Title quote by Lydia Lunch.

It's been almost exactly four years (February 2013) since the 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps led the fight against porch furniture and appliances.

Panhandling in the middle of the street about to be abolished. That and porch furniture.

As for the ordinance ridding the city of "indoor" furniture and various appliances arranged tastefully (although usually otherwise) on porches, I'm mostly down with the notion, although (a) it's yet another aesthetic Band-Aid that addresses symptoms, rather than the fundamental rot of slumlordism, and (b) if there's any one thing we've learned during the past decade, such a Band-Aid is meaningless without concrete enforcement plans.

Don't ask me why this nearly forgotten memory occurred to me just now while reading tonight's anti-littering ordinance.

Insert your own weary sigh in this space.

Public Art Scene Upholstered Bucket List.

Say that again?

If we start removing upholstery and appliances from our porches, then what's to distinguish us from all the other cities our size?

Well, that's a good point. In fact, by doing so, we may be threatening the very basis of artistic expression.

You'll be happy to know that the NAC staff has collaborated for all of 45 seconds to produce this exciting public art proposal, one aimed at celebrating the bicentennial by honoring a long and purely artistic porch-front sofa display tradition. We've chosen the category of "Congenital Civic Dysfunction," and will submit this idea:

Placement at the intersection of Silver and Spring guarantees maximum visibility for visitors and prospective home buyers.

It also slows down traffic.

But lest anyone come away with the mistaken notion that we are leaving intersection solicitors for charity without any alternative, just relax, Scott.

Diane, have no more than two, and stay tuned for my creative response to the bucket list issue.

Panhandling in the middle of the street about to be abolished. That and porch furniture.

And that's fine by me, with a caveat or two.

Actually, there's no second-guessing the panhandling ordinance. No matter how worthy the cause, empowering people to wade into streets filled with distracted drivers on their iPhones is a profoundly unwelcome clash of the outdated with the post-apocalyptic.

As for the ordinance ridding the city of "indoor" furniture and various appliances arranged tastefully (although usually otherwise) on porches, I'm mostly down with the notion, although (a) it's yet another aesthetic Band-Aid that addresses symptoms, rather than the fundamental rot of slumlordism, and (b) if there's any one thing we've learned during the past decade, such a Band-Aid is meaningless without concrete enforcement plans. I'm told the council discussed enforcement at its work session last week, and that's a positive sign.

I might add (c) that Steve Price won't like it, but then again, that's one impediment we actually did address directly -- with votes. 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps, who handily defeated Price in 2011, is presenting both these measures.

In 2012, Phipps was instrumental in pushing for a reconstituted Human Rights Commission, and he also made a valuable, if largely and intentionally ignored, point that government rushing Caesar-lemming-like to fund church steeple repairs for an active congregation is a genuine church-state separation issue.

The muddy medieval pall of the Price Error is lifting in the 3rd. The council meeting is tonight. The newspaper article is here: New Albany City Council may abolish collections at intersections