Find the anchor in this mural. C'mon, you know it's there.

Look carefully.

The propaganda arm of INDOT's three-and-a-half-year-long bridge "renewal" project finds the city's eight-whole-years-belated interest in public art to be cute! That's mighty nice of the state, isn't it?

Now INDOT will proceed to collectively kneecap any businesses downtown that somehow manage to make it past the pandemic's first few waves still standing, by (in practical effect) closing the primary access bridge for a period LONGER than the pandemic's likely reign.

Thanks, INDOT. May we have another punch to the skull? Of course, there'll be plenty of time for fewer downtown visitors to gaze upon the artistic finery (which I personally like, by the way). 

Meanwhile, file the mural pictured here under "More Works by David Thrasher That Have Been Consigned to Oblivion" by the city.

Others include his literal painted forks in the road, as well as the sculpture of the same name, last year ingloriously displaced to the shadow of the parking garage because no one 'round here ever "got it" -- just visitors who flocked to take selfies with it.

Dave, my man; ya gotta run with the right crowd. Be internationally known, dude.

Couldn't you do one of these instead? It'd be a huge hit at the Roadhouse.

Politicians paint murals, but protesters make genuine change and real history.

Give 'em time, and we'll have statues of automobiles. I volunteer to be first in line when it comes to bringing those symbols down.

Go Ahead and Destroy That Racist Statue (and Then the System Too), by Jillian Steinhauer (The Nation)

While politicians are painting murals in lieu of undertaking real change, protesters are making history by pulling down symbols of white supremacy.

On June 9, after a week and a half of large, daily Black Lives Matter protests in New York City that began as part of a national uprising in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he was taking action: He would name a street in each of the five boroughs after Black Lives Matter and paint the name of the movement on those roads. The decision came days after Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser received widespread attention for turning a section of 16th Street NW across from the White House into Black Lives Matter Plaza, with the phrase painted in 50-foot yellow letters on the pavement. Meanwhile, a short way down the National Mall, Democratic members of Congress, most of them white, showed up at the Capitol on June 8 wearing kente stoles. They knelt for eight minutes and 46 seconds—the same amount of time that Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck—before entering their chambers to introduce the Justice in Policing Act of 2020.

Politicians around the country are performing. They’re trying to show their constituents that they’re working on the problem of white supremacy in ways big and small. They’re using gestures to attempt to broadcast a message—but one that is ultimately hollow. As Shannon Keating put it recently in BuzzFeed News, it amounts to “performative absurdity from powerful people who’ve long avoided real accountability for causing or excusing Black suffering” ...

A tale of two riverfront murals, and more. Or less.

They're so very telling. Both gaze out on rows of automobiles, but the similarities end there.

The graffiti wall actually encourages the viewer to think about artistic expression, while the other one is a vehicle (pun intended) for the "unofficial" civic anchor seal, which nonetheless now appears on every street sign and Gahan for Life mailer, and was shoved down a city's collective throat by barely literate time servers who believe dogs playing poker constitute the acme of artistic expression.

But what else do you see in these photos ... or not see?

From WCTU to Woody, some heroic murals.

Above is a template with information elements, which I've handed over to the NABC graphics wizard Tony Beard for incorporation into a banner or sign for a wall in the WCTU Reading Room at Bank Street Brewhouse. Since I'm no graphic designer, Tony is charged with making it into something clever and colorful. He excels at it. I really like what he did with the banner for the Culbertson Mansion Garden Party.

It is to be adapted for Reading Room use, too. Of course, if we can find a place for them, these following two images can be nicely combined into one expression of principle. There's a lot of outside wall space facing south, toward downtown.

Tony also will be painting the front of the building, in a variation of this mock-up.

I like images ... with beer. Yet to be determined is a marker for Lloyd's Landing, which I view as something to think about just a bit longer. It'll come.