Stretched Thin: Loose Limos

January 1, 20252 Comments

white stretch limousine parked against corrugated metal industrial wall, Millvale, PA — Industrial limo, Millvale

Riding in a limousine—or perhaps arriving in a limousine—is the height of elegance. At least, that’s the sales pitch. In car- and celebrity-obsessed America, renting a limousine is an affordable splurge for people on their special day. Put down a couple hundred bucks (I’m guessing?) and you too can be a Kardashian from Carnegie or a Kennedy from, uh, Kennedy.

With but a single phone call—and valid credit card—a very long automobile will ferry you from the church wedding to the reception at the airport Ramada. What happens in the six to twenty-four passenger seats stays in the back, but I’m sure the entire party can pump up the jams, watch a tiny television, or drink champagne—among other activities—in the faux-leather interior all the way to and fro.

limousine parked in gravel lot by simple frame houses — That’s a (gravel) lot of limo, Neville Island

Forty-nine different businesses show up in Google’s listings for Pittsburgh limousine services. Who are the people taking all these fancy trips? Your author is in his mid-fifties and never had the opportunity to ride in a limousine or an occasion that warranted renting one. Despite the sour grapes tone of that statement, he also really feels no need or desire to do so. When I blow money it’ll be at the record store, thank you very much.

1980s-era Lincoln Continental limousine, Conway, PA — Ex-urban limo, Conway

While riding in a limousine may be posh—if only for a brief journey across town—driving one is still very much a working-class job done by real people. All those businesses and independent operators need a place to store the boat-sized vehicles that pay the bills when they’re not idling outside Heinz Chapel or bumping to the club.

These aren’t the kind of cars that fit two-wheels-up-on-the-sidewalk in city neighborhoods or tucked neatly into suburban garages. No, you need some serious real estate to park a 46-foot stretch SUV. People seem to find that room wherever they can—outside industrial buildings and in vacant lots, in alleys and fenced-in compounds.

black limousine by blue picket fence in city neighborhood — Community garden limo, Spring Garden

The Orbit was there to take pictures of them, every time we got the chance. That seems like a fitting theme for this post-New Year’s Eve day when we were at least supposed to have partied like it was 1999 last night.

Whether you were hooping it up in a totally-torqued black Lincoln Town Car or working a jigsaw puzzle with some goofballs from down the block (ahem) let’s cruise into this new year in style … whatever that may mean to you.

limosine parked in overgrown grass with cat on hood — Cat limo, Garfield

silver stretch limousine parked by row houses, Blawnox, PA — Row house limo, Blawnox

black stretch SUV limousine parked outside farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania — Farmhouse limo, Middlesex Township

white stretch limousine with windows broken parked on grassy hillside, Millvale, PA — Limousine graveyard, Millvale

limousine parked by graffiti-covered wall — Made in the shade, Strip District

former limousine van parked on sidewalk — Party bus with a view. Dream’s Luxury Experience, Polish Hill

limousine van parked in alley — What’s “Mine” can be yours. Adonis Limousines, Ambridge

limousine parked inside storage yard surrounded by chain link fence — Chain link limo, Etna

weathered garage for limousine service — A Limousine Service, Sharpsburg

brick wall painted with the word "Limousine" — A Silver Fox Limousine, Neville Island

weathered limousine parked in weeds with window smashed out — Note to self: Limousine Graveyard is a pretty good band name

Can’t Sit Down: The Inevitable Parking Chair Post

May 21, 20231 Comment

single chair from dinette set on street, acting as a "parking chair", Pittsburgh, PA — The classic! A single chair from a dinette set, orphaned and alone, reserving an on-street parking spot. Garfield

Alone in the rain, playing dangerously in the street, a lone chair stands sentry over his master’s cherished sixteen feet of curbside frontage. The seat was once a member of a family—four, perhaps six, identical siblings joined around a matching dining table where the rest of the household would eat and cajole, argue and play. Now though, with that Camelot lost, just one chair is banished to the loneliest, last role of its life—standing on the street, waiting for a car to come home, holding a parking place.

plastic lawn chair holding parking spot in front of small house — Parking chair with backup cone, just in case. Lawrenceville

It’s strange to think of the omnipresent Pittsburgh parking chair as an endangered species or dying phenomenon—it is not, by any means—but the character of the object reserving that spot has changed significantly.

Twenty years ago, the parking scene was still dominated by chairs that once held keisters at the kitchen table. That image of the single chrome dinette chair, rusting and battered, dirty stuffing leaking through cracks in the upholstery, is indelible if you were lucky enough to see them in those salad days.

That time is past, though. Just look at this collection of photographs—the cheap, stackable, white plastic lawn chair has taken over the market and ex-dining chairs are few and far between. There’s still a lot of variety—folding chairs of every make and model and non-chair “chairs” (we’ll get to those)—but we still miss those diner-style seats that used to dot row house residential streets like birds on a wire.

For the last eight years The Orbit has resisted the urge to park our behind in this most predictable of subjects d’Burgh—it seemed too easy and too obvious.

Parking chairs are also really difficult to photograph well. I know, I know—boo hoo to this guy living the dream making fat stacks taking pictures of street chairs in Pittsburgh—do your job, amirite? It ain’t that easy, buddy. You want to see the chair, sure, but it’s (usually) only interesting in the context of a much larger thing—an entire house or a row of them—that it’s related to. So you’ve got to get this little thing in front of really big thing and then houses have all this visual noise distracting you, blah, blah, blah—it ain’t easy.

Anyway, the oddly routine experience of seeing single chairs randomly in the street is also right up our, ahem, alley. So that ultimately won out, even if these aren’t our finest photos.

Finally, if you’ve got a great parking chair, a photo of one, or a story about them, we’d love to hear about it or get tagged on it.

folding chair painted in Steelers black-and-gold — Steelers parking chair! Lawrenceville

metal folding chair on street in front of row house in Pittsburgh, PA — Lawrenceville

plastic chair holding parking spot on street — Parking spot au naturale, Greenfield

brick row house with folding chair in street marking parking place, Pittsburgh, PA — Lawrenceville

folding chair on street in front of row house, Pittsburgh, PA — Lawrenceville

folding chair used to save parking place in front of row houses — Lawrenceville

plastic chair with weight attached to seat by tape — No parking AND no sitting. Polish Hill

plastic lawn chair on street in front of small house — Out front and proud. Hazelwood

stacked lawn furniture in front of row house — Parked parking chairs, ready to deploy. Bloomfield

two high-backed wooden chairs left on street in front of row houses — Parking chair twins! Lawrenceville

wooden chair holding parking spot on street — Chair’s eye view. Lawrenceville

Just in Case You Didn’t Get the Hint …

chair painted with "No Parking" message — “No Parking.” Lawrenceville

metal folding chair with hand-written sign reading "Please do not move chair. Therapist coming." — “Please do not move chair—therapist coming.” Lawrenceville

plastic lawn chair with "No parking" message — “No Parking! You will be towed away.” Bloomfield

Parking Non-Chairs

custom built parking spot holder created from stools and "No Parking" signs — “The Thing” (our term), Bloomfield

traffic cone with Halloween decoration in front of row house — Park here and you’ll get hexed! Parking witch, Southside

stacked milk crates holding parking spot — Parking milk crates, Bloomfield

Traffic cone covered in stickers — The cone of toxic masculinity, Bloomfield

restaurant tray holder used to save parking space — Parking tray holder and 4×4, Lawrenceville

chair and traffic bollard left in front of row houses — The “Anything Goes!” Parking bollard, parking chair with 2x4s, Lawrenceville

In De Stijl of De Night: The Return of the House of Hades “Toynbee Tiles”

April 2, 20233 Comments

abstract street art made from cut linoleum tiles — “HOH 22—Verticoll” (sic.), Downtown. One of many similar tile-based artworks installed on Pittsburgh streets over the last year

Appearing like alien inscriptions burned into city streets, they just seemed to arrive out of nowhere, in the still of the night. The images are cryptic—they could be designs for astral exploration or tools to cure conditions we can only imagine. These coded hieroglyphics seem as if they’ve been very intentionally left for only the most sentient of earth’s creatures who may be able to comprehend their true meanings.

When last we encountered the House of Hades, six years ago, it was in the form of a series of similar artworks that could be fairly described as tributes or homage to Toynbee Tiles. [Newcomers to this topic: click those links for background.] The pieces used the same graphic language as the Toynbee originals: big block letters with clear—if bizarre—messaging that reads like paranoid prophesy of dystopia.

One man vs. American media in society, reads a tile; Media must be reduced to ash, another. One even goes as far as to name its inspiration: The resurrection of Toynbee’s idea in society.

Those pieces, all including the date 2012 were installed on and around Blvd. of the Allies, Downtown, in 2017. A cursory look around the Internet shows The House of Hades deploying similar pieces in a raft of American cities: Philadelphia, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Richmond, to name a few.

Unless your author is slipping—and that is entirely likely—The House of Hades left Pittsburgh’s streets alone for the next five years.

Starting in the summer of 2022, though, new Toybee-like tiles began appearing throughout the city—Bloomfield, Oakland, Lawrenceville, and especially Downtown. These new cut-up mosaic street pieces are in the same medium as House of Hades’ 2017 deployment, but with an entirely different visual style. We don’t know these are from the same person or people—heck, we don’t know anything about these folks!—but the correlation and HOH attribution suggest our old friend is back in town.

I don’t know what you did with your pandemic, but it feels like The House of Hades spent the last couple years working on a brand new bag. These pieces avoid any scorn of American media by abandoning text entirely (aside each tile’s HOH inscription). Instead, the tiles are more pure art: constructivist assemblages of colored blocks and metric lines, maze-like interlocking shapes and jumbled forms like tall stacks of books on a shaky table. They may be read as floor plans to space housing or profile views of history, mid-excavation. Rorschach-like, one can probably read just about anything into these designs depending on where the mind is inclined to wander.

And wander it shall as we stare deeply into these fascinating artifacts and dream of the next contact from beyond.

Special thanks to Orbit reader Ivan Russell for his tips on a couple of the Downtown tiles.

The Party’s Over: Sad Balloons

January 1, 2023Leave a comment

deflated balloon on leaf-strewn sidewalk — “L” is for Lying face down in the gutter under a bridge on the South Side. A sad balloon in its natural habitat.

Is it lying or laying? I’ve read and re-read the grammar definition a dozen times—my dear, sainted mother was an English professor, for goodness sake—and I still can’t figure out whether there’s a direct object there or not.

Fooey. A large gold letter L, turned upside-down so it looks more like a lazy J, lies (lays?) in the thick sidewalk mud that has collected late autumn’s last fallen leaves upon its gooey surface. On this chilly Sunday morning one can’t help but feel the sadness as the air has quite literally gone out of what we hope was a joyous moment, now gone by.

pink number balloons left by grave marker — Pretty (sad) in pink. Allegheny Cemetery

Someone (Lori? Linda? Lenny?) was celebrated in the near past—a birthday, maybe? perhaps an engagement, job promotion, or baby shower—and her or his friends ordered up a golden capital L balloon to commemorate the occasion. The party may have been terrific—drinks all around, goofy stories from the past, novelty gifts from friends that embarrassed family members—but that’s all over now. The big helium-filled letter balloon floated out of a car window or the venue’s service entrance, had some dying adventures in the low atmosphere, and landed here, in the muck under a bridge on the South Side.

deflated red balloons caught in tree limbs — Lofty ambitions, caught in the treetop. Grandview Park, Mt. Washington

This day—of all days—New Year’s happens to fall on a Sunday and like Kris Kristofferson, we’re all comin’ down, one way or another. Maybe you reveled last night; maybe you stayed in with a book or a movie; maybe you were working or taking a care of a sick kid. Either way—any way—New Year’s Day resets the table, tells us that last year, whether it was a party or not, is definitively over and we’re on to new things.

Your author is not one for resolutions, but he did make a plan to learn Vladimir Cosma’s “Sentimental Walk” on the piano. It’s simple enough that these amateur-level hands should be able to grasp it and heartbreakingly beautiful in a way that will reward the time commitment.

Whatever your plans for the new year—inspired by a resolution or not—hopefully they’ll include new adventures, plans realized, and the wonderful happenstance that leads you up into the treetops and down in the muck. Life exists on both planes and we’re fools to fantasize that it can occur in only the more lofty of them.

Happy New Year, y’all!

"1" and "4"-shaped balloons outside of a small dumpster in a garage — 14 or 41, what’s the difference at this point? Hill District

deflated balloon hanging from tree limb — Hang in there! Hill District

deflated balloons in dead leaves — Game over. Allegheny Cemetery

celebratory balloons left in tall grass — Not so sad … yet. Hazelwood

deflated balloons hanging from an electrical line — Sad bundle. Lawrenceville

deflated balloons hanging from utility wires — Wire mess, Lawrenceville

City Chicken: Requiem For an Almost Rooster

December 18, 20221 Comment

image of red rooster wheat pasted to mailbox — Li’l Red, rockin’ the flock. One of a slew of city chickens that roosted in Polish Hill throughout 2022.

Something was brooding this year. Perhaps we were all scratching and clawing for a chance to get back to the real world. There was a fox in our collective hen house, but when we tried to fly we couldn’t get off the ground. Cocksure at our place in the pecking order, we waddled out of the frying pan straight into the fryer. In a plot most fowl, feathers were ruffled and eggs were cracked in the great omelet that is a year in the life of America. Yes, in 2022 the chickens came home to roost.

image of red rooster wheat pasted to masonry wall — Around-the-corner rooster

Seemingly overnight—quite possibly literally overnight—an entire flock of bright red roosters appeared in Polish Hill. The big birds’ super-saturated color glowed from the drab surfaces they played against. The roosters’ look was both comical and earnest—wholesome, even—but with a keen, knowing wisdom beyond their years.

At first—especially when wandering around Polish Hill, randomly finding the fowl on different morning constitutionals—one assumed the roosters are all of a common breed—identical in size, scope, and marking. Each has the same brilliant crimson, the same general shape, and their images have certainly been applied to United States Post Office equipment and city infrastructure with the same wheat-pasted method.

image of red rooster wheat pasted to large recycling bin — Recycled rooster

image of red rooster wheat pasted to plywood garage window covering — Garage rooster

But given this opportunity to see each member of the flock right up against the others, we have the advantage of understanding they’re no mere cookie-cutout duplicates. Some of the roosters face left; most face right. There are clear differences in beak shape and hind feather arrangement.

The widest variance, though, is in each bird’s detailing. Some include a fully-formed leg and claw, but others remain gestural—or nearly free of definition altogether. Chickens may have cartoonish humanoid eyes or concentric circular rings like those of a hypnotist, mid-induction process.

negative image of rooster removed from wheat paste street art — Ghost mailbox rooster

Full disclosure: your author is a rooster booster who loves chicken-pickin’, so the arrival of these fine creatures last April was a welcome surprise as winter’s gloom ceded to glorious spring rebirth. They’ve lived a lifetime since then with many of these specimens no longer present or left in wounded, half-torn-off states of decay. Perhaps many of us—certainly those blunted by seasonal affective disorder or the holiday blues—feel in their own states of decay this time of year.

How the non-denominational bunny rabbit and egg came to be so closely associated with Christianity’s highest, holiest holiday is a matter for historians and/or Wikipedia. We’ll not trouble ourselves with all that, but the roosters of Polish Hill walked out of our dreams and into our lives right around Easter. The timing may be coincidental, but it couldn’t have been more perfect.

Maybe that’s what the chickens were trying to tell us all along … if we’d only listened.

Send In The Crones

September 18, 20223 Comments

street art sticker in shape of heart with word "Crone" — Love is for us old people, too. A “Crone” heart, Lawrenceville

Aging, your author’s bluntly-honest, not-entirely-tactful, and dearly-missed father-in-law used to say, ain’t for sissies. As someone with more yesterdays than tomorrows, I can attest to this firsthand. The body starts breaking down in all sorts of unexpected ways; the mind wanders off to Lulu land more frequently than we’d like to admit; young whippersnappers run rings around us in all ways that whippersnappers may run.

large hand-created sticker with words "Aging is Sexy" — Read the news: aging is sexy. Lawrenceville

… but I’m a dude—and that means it’s just easier for me. Older men are granted a kind of societal clout simply by virtue of their gender that women don’t enjoy. Graying men are often described as wise, established, and “silver fox” handsome. (Still crossing my fingers for that last one.) Women of the same age share no such common, stereotypical positives.

Far from it. American society is youth-obsessed, for sure, but it’s mainly obsessed with young women. Ms. Orbit—she of my same vintage—often describes the experience as one of “becoming invisible” and feeling “no longer relevant” to the outside world.

large hand-created sticker with word "Crone" — Crone crystal, Oakland

Just about one year ago, we spotted a small hand-written sticker attached to a residential parking sign post in Lawrenceville. The text was a simple double-entendre: Menopause is HOT. That got a snort-laugh out of yours truly and I bagged it for the road.

That little teaser was quickly followed by an array of more elaborate, hand-colored stickers spread on lamp posts and electrical boxes. They all contained simple messages proudly addressing the very uncommon subject—either in wider culture or here at the street level—of middle-aged women as real, present beings: Aging is Sexy; Crone; Menopause.

sticker on post reading "Menopause is hot" — Menopause is HOT, Lawrenceville

We don’t know who created these subtle, gently-subversive little works. None of the pieces we’ve found have any attribution and the Orbit hive mind was unable (or unwilling) to name names. We’re also left to interpret the artists’ message.

We do know the statements are attention-grabbing and hilariously out-of-context—seeing the word menopause bedazzled and glorified in the leftover spaces where taggers dwell is objectively funny.

Ms. Orbit and I have discussed the matter much in the course of our relationship, crossing into deep middle-age, and specifically with her experiences as a woman and an artist. For these reasons, I wanted to turn the rest of the story over to her:

Middle-aged women become invisible to a degree. But, rather than lamenting that fact, I’m enjoying the hell out of the invisibility, because it means a certain kind of freedom. It means the freedom of not having to matter to men, not worrying about being pretty, sexy, feminine enough, thin enough, demure enough, not too loud, not too opinionated. Men no longer care what I look like, sound like, say, etc. When I was younger, I often stepped outside the lines by being too loud, too bold, too feisty and was admonished by men and sometimes by other women. Now, those folks no longer care what I have to say or how I look and I feel the freedom to be fully myself, on my own terms.

large heart-shaped hand-created sticker with word "Crone" — Crone, Bloomfield

There are a lot of younger women now who are proudly and publicly themselves in a “give no fucks” way and I love it, admire it fully—Lizzo comes to mind. Of course, I have had my moments of feeling the negative side of aging and have grappled with thoughts that “I’m no longer relevant,” but the flip side is you can choose to matter to yourself and the important folks in your life. It’s beautiful to live without needing external validation. I wholeheartedly praise the artist or artists behind these stickers because it’s a way of shouting “We’re here! We exist! We matter!” and being proud of that. Ageism is real—just like racism and homophobia and sexism—but you counter that ugliness by fully owning and celebrating who you are.

large hand-created sticker with word "Menopause" — Menopause, Bloomfield

When Suzanne Werder and I did the Drawn Together: A Coming of Middle Age Story in 62 Portraits show this past April, the reaction from women over 50 who came to see the show was intensely positive, almost incredulous—they felt seen. “You showed your wrinkles, and bags under your eyes!” Now, we didn’t set out to make a point of our flaws, but in just drawing each other everyday, we can’t escape our truth: that we are getting older and we are not supermodels, and we’re okay with that.

That show did a lot to make me more comfortable in my own skin. There’s a lot of push back culturally against the notion that people are supposed to look or act a certain way, that our world is supposed to mirror the narrow scope of idealized bodies in traditional advertising. Now, it’s more common to see images of people of all sizes, colors, ages, abilities, and sexualities represented, and the power of that is huge. It makes us realize that we are all relevant and beautiful and always were.

Maybe It’s a Sign? Considering Mystery Signs

July 17, 2022Leave a comment

sign nailed to tree reading "Barber School?" — Pretty sure that’s *not* a barber school, but now we have to question everything. A mystery sign in Kilbuck Township

So many questions! One chunk of wood nailed to another is attached to the outside of a residential garage. Next to the wood hangs a length of braided twine with a sharp nail at the end. The wood is painted with a cryptic message: Its for my bac but by a man’s hand.

Bac may or may not have been cut off—or misspelled. Is it for the back? What is it—the nail on the string? Does this serve a real purpose—that’s hard to imagine—or is it entirely symbolic? Assuming the latter, the message is lost on me. Maybe it’s a Biblical or cultural reference your heathen author just doesn’t get?

It’s the very definition of a mystery sign—a public notice set out for the world to consume but not entirely clear what the message is or who it’s meant for.

small sign on cinderblock wall reading "It's for my bac... but by a man's hand." — “Its for my bac… but by a man’s hand.” The Run

large roadside sign saying "No quid pro quo" — “No quid pro quo.” Duquesne

With some signs the mystery may not be that great but they’re still worth review and inclusion. We may assume the No quid pro quo sign [photo above]—photographed in Duquesne during some of the former guy’s obvious quid pro quo activity—is the work of one of the ex-president’s supporters expressing an opinion … but it still looks way goofy absent any other context.

Anyone who travels Babcock Blvd. in the summer knows the corn guys by Hastings Hardware, but still, seeing a lone day-glow CORN SOON sign [below] just feels like a cruel taunt. Found glasses [below] suggests someone did exactly that … but not any way to return the lost item to its rightful owner.

Handmade sign on utility pole reading "Corn Soon" — But when will there be corn NOW? “CORN SOON.” North Hills

hand-written sign with drawing of eyeglasses and text "Found glasses" — “Found glasses.” Lawrenceville

sign in front yard with spray-painted message "Who is John Galt?" — I don’t know—you tell me! “Who is John Galt?” Stanton Heights

Others aren’t so obvious. Who is John Galt? [above] has an easily Googleable explanation, but it doesn’t explain why a Stanton Heights homeowner feels the need to decorate their front yard with this message.

A chain link fence in a Bloomfield alley hosts an odd specimen. No violins, the sign declares, along with a fine folksy painting of the instrument, no crying, no crying [below]. We like to think violins are purely metaphor here—that crying is the only real objection—but where’s that coming from? Not a creature was stirring when the picture was snapped, but perhaps it rains with teardrops of a thousand tortured toddlers at other times of day.

hand-painted sign with violin and text "No violins, no crying" — Cellos only. “No violins. No crying. No crying.” Bloomfield

hand-written sign in barber shop window reading "See you Tuesday Guess Why"" — You don’t want me guessing why. “See you Tuesday Guess ? Why.” Millvale

Every one of these gems has a story and it’s likely we won’t find out the explanations to any of them—and that’s OK. With the number of messages we humans push out to the world every single day, I’ll take mystery over hate, exploitation, cruelty, or narcissism any time. Wondering ain’t such a bad thing. Plus, like the sign says, … And that’s life … right?

Sign on utility pole reading "Street continues around corner." — Perhaps the most Pittsburgh sign ever. “Street continues around corner.” Troy Hill

hand-painted sign on utility pole reading "Slow kid playin" — “Slow kid playin.” Millvale

wooden board with cryptic symbols painted on it nailed to utility poles — Runes, Oakland

wooden sign nailed to utility pole with hand-painted message "CJ's Spot" — “CJ’s Spot.” Hill District

cardboard sign in window of home reading "Someone else removed the stop work order." — Sure they did. “Someone else removed the stop work order.” Spring Garden

hand-written sign in Zip-Loc bad stapled to utility pole — “Psalm 91 over this neighborhood.” North Side

mirror in front yard of home with message "Please do turn around here." — Vampires, you’re on your own. “Please do turn around here.” The Run

hand-written sign in barber shop window reading "Closed until Tuesday for court stuff" — “Closed until Tuesday for court stuff.” Millvale

handwritten sign in hot dog shop window reading "We are completely out of chili ... sorry." — If only every restaurant was as up front about their chili status. “We are completely out of chili … sorry.” Frankie’s, Lawrenceville

empty aluminum serving trays in deli display case with Post-It note reading "Not for consumption. Only for religion purpose." — “Not for consumption. Only for religion purpose.” Scranton

Handmade sign reading "JACK" — You don’t know Jack. “JACK.” Lawrenceville

color printout of cat stapled to utility pole — Cat, just a cat. Spring Garden

pair of doors in brick building, one of which has handmade sign reading "ACES" — “ACES.” Vandergrift

hand-painted sign on utility pole reading "NO OUTLET" — “NO OUT LET.” Millvale

white paper taped to cinderblock wall with no text remaining — A mystery [blank/sunbleached] sign among mystery signs! Lawrenceville

hand-written sign left by highway — “Sun Ra / Alice Coltrane. I miss my friends …” Millvale

handmade wooden sign with section missing attached to utility pole — What was here before the middle went missing? Polish Hill/Strip District

plastic butterfly and small sign reading "... and that's life" on cinderblock wall — It sure is. “… and that’s life.” The Run

Attend Me: Collage Dropout in Deutschtown

March 13, 2022March 19, 2022Leave a comment

colorful collage of printed paper images layered on plywood covering vacant storefront — Detail from large collage installation on East Ohio Street, Deutschtown

Attend me, hold me in your muscular flowering arms,
protect me from throwing any part of myself away.

These words, from self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” Audre Lorde, are printed and duplicated—silk-screened, most likely—in an ornate, curlicue typeface and accented by fronds of unknown origin.

The cut-out text is layered atop a riot of dozens, hundreds maybe, of other screen-printed elements. Torn paper with the same couplet printed over and over again; images of skulls and boxers, eyeballs and ghostly figures; photographs cut from magazines bedazzled with after-market patterns and paint jobs.

They’re all part of a new(ish) installation on the North Side that, by its very nature, won’t be around for too long. Just like Ms. Lorde, attend it while you can.

The 400 block of East Ohio Street has seen its fair share of change, even in just the last few years. Google Streetview reminds us the retail storefront at 404 E. Ohio was Ike’s Barber Shop and then Mosley’s Barber Shop until going vacant in 2015. The larger building at the corner was the old Peanutz Bar & Grill, which closed by 2016. In between the two, Alex’s Ice Cream held on longer, but seems to have become a victim of the pandemic lockdown just two years ago.

The most recent time Google documented the street, in August, 2021, it included another interesting detail. 408-410 E. Ohio hosted a large, double-door-sized collage piece on the temporary plywood covering the entrance. This is unmistakably the work of the same artist(s).

two vacant retail storefronts in disrepair — 406-410 East Ohio Street, most recently Alex’s Ice Cream and Peanutz, in August, 2021 [photo: Google Streetview]

As observers, curiosity-seekers, speculators, we naturally look for meaning and theme when a piece this elaborate is exhibited—and there is plenty to work with here, if that’s your bag. Black icons Jack Johnson and Audre Lorde are an obvious entry point as are reverent photos of everyday folks and revolutionaries, updated with kente cloth, polka dots, and leopard skin patterns.

There’s also plenty of grim, foreboding imagery here. The repeated use of skulls, a menacing monster-like figure with its giant jaw agape, what may or may not be a nuclear blast, and the Virgin Mary in a hostage-taker’s ski mask.

We’ll not make the mistake of assigning any specific message to the collection. The artist (or artists)—there is no attribution on any of the pieces that I could find—kept themselves anonymous (although, we have our suspicions). So there’s no one to go to for clarification, which is fine.

Update (March 19, 2022): Following initial publication of this story, Pittsburgh Orbit was informed that the artists involved are Quaishawn Whitlock, Bekezela Mguni, and Darrell Kinsel. The three have a current show called Alchemical, created as part of their residency at AIR: Artists Image Resource on nearby Foreland Street.

Whether we’re supposed to think anything at all about a stirring work, heavy on the iconography, or just enjoy the blast of layered color from a voracious screen-printer cleaning out his or her workspace is missing the point.

Someone created this, and it’s beautiful. It’s also unexpected, fun, head-scratching and gets us out of our heads and into the world. It’ll also be gone before you know it. The wheatpasted paper is already peeling at the corners and between unpredictable Pittsburgh weather and a property manager trying to rent the spaces, the whole thing will disappear before you know it.

Protect me from throwing any part of myself away feels like it might be a way of life for whoever did this. Embrace the piece by holding its visage in your muscular flowering arms, err … thoughts, dreams, and travels.

Love Anarchically: Valentine’s Day Hearts, 2022

February 13, 20221 Comment

Halloween jack-o-lantern carved with large heart — Love: you can’t always see your way through it, but sometimes there’s a fire that burns bright. Lawrenceville

Love, noted relationship counselor Patricia Benatar once informed us, is a battlefield. It’s a powerful metaphor whose cuts-to-the-bone directness is no doubt part of her 1983 chart-topping song’s lasting appeal. Other pop music pseudo-therapists have broken the news that Love Hurts and Love Scars, Love Bites and yes, Love Stinks.

These sentiments may or may not reflect each of our individual experiences but we know it can get wilder than even this. Sometimes love is pure anarchy.

graffiti heart with large letter "A" painted on concrete steps — Love isn’t always a battlefield—sometimes it’s anarchy. Polish Hill

The red heart spans three concrete treads of the Downing Street steps in Polish Hill. Its black outline is pretzel-curved into the verticals of a capital letter A. Sure, this may be a vigilante Valentine left for (or from?) an Anna or André, Alex or Audrey, but it sure resembles the circle-A symbol would-be anarchists leave all over the place. Perhaps not coincidentally, that call-to-arms also often shows up spray-painted on public infrastructure.

The anarchy heart image is not alone. Looking through this year’s street Valentines, a certain theme emerges—not of the joy and perhaps unrealistic Hallmark special expectations of love—but rather, as a certain Bunnyman called it, The Back of Love.

Valentine's Day heart decoration on front porch with caution tape — Love: proceed with caution. Etna

Big red hearts aglow against caution tape; hearts chaotically strewn across back alley walls; crumpled hearts in derelict windows. These—and plenty more where they came from—all seem to say, Yeah, love is out there, but be careful, buddy. Here, that advice is gifted to us from Pittsburgh’s Krylon Cupids, available wherever people take out the trash and tack tin cans to telephone poles. This year it’s more true than ever.

wall with much graffiti including large red heart — Sometimes love doesn’t quite know what’s going on. Bloomfield

That said, even without the pressures of a global coronavirus pandemic it’s always that kind of year when it comes to affaires d’amour. (That’s French for the love thing.)

So whether you’re in love, all out of love, or you’ve lost that lovin’ feeling, whether love is like oxygen or love is the drug—heck, even if you give love a bad name—this Valentine’s Day, know that you’re not alone. There are lots of folks out there who are experiencing the same exact thing and it cut them deep enough to spray paint that feeling on some city steps.

Keep on, everyone, and happy Valentine’s Day.

homemade heart decoration in front window of house — Love ain’t always perfect, but we keep trying. Lincoln-Lemington

decorative skeleton wrapped in Christmas garland with Valentine's Day hearts — Love: it’s a killer. Etna

painting on abandoned building of woman with afro, green snake, and glowing yellow heart — If you’re falling in love, watch your asp. Garfield

side of house decorated with both Valentine's Day hearts and black bats — It’s great, but love is spooky too. Etna

mural of realistic human heart over stylized mountains — Your heart may float like a balloon, but watch out for those dangerous peaks. Lawrenceville

tin can lid painted with red hearts and figure on bicycle — Tin can pole (he)art. Garfield

large mural of many hands around a multicolored heart — Sometimes love takes a village and a helping hand. Strip District

heart painted on wooden fence slat — Good love can heal pain and peel paint. Uptown

sidewalk chalk drawing of a heart and a snail — Love can be slow … and messy. Sharpsburg

graffiti heart painted blue and red — There are no red hearts and there are no blue hearts—there are only American hearts! … and hearts from other places. Lawrenceville

fence with heart-shaped cutout in wooden slats — Sometimes we’ve got a heart-shaped hole in us. Lawrenceville

wheatpaste street art of heart-shaped face with Xs over eyes — Big heart, dead eyes, can’t lose. Greensburg

wheatpaste street art on dumpster of heart-shaped face with Xs over eyes — Sometimes love can get you down in the dumpster. Garfield

truck trailer with graffiti heart and word "Luv" — You can’t fabricate luv. Bloomfield

graffiti heart with name Paul painted on cinderblock wall — Paul may be gone, but he’s still in our heart. Lawrenceville

pair of cardboard hearts attached to utility pole — You can’t break a cardboard heart, but it may just get blown away. Garfield

shiny heart decoration attached to utility pole — Love may look great on the outside, but there’s often duct tape holding it together. Lawrenceville

cinderblock wall painted with many small hearts — Maybe there’s love right around the corner. Strip District

mural of flowers and words "with Love" — Happy Valentine’s Day, with Love, from us to you

No Dogs Wasted Here: Dog Police, Part Deux Deux

February 6, 20224 Comments

no dog poop message spray painted on wood covering garage door — Think of the children! *No dog poop. Kids walk to school here.* A warning message from The Dog Police, on patrol in Wilmerding

Stuck to the aluminum siding of a little house up the hill in Millvale, a set of peel-and-stick letters spells out a curious message: No dogs wasted here.

Is this a rehab clinic for hooched pooches? An embetterment program for down-on-their luck pups? A recycling center for man’s-best-friends at their wits-last-ends?

sticker letters on siding reading "no dogs wasted here" — *No dogs wasted here.* Millvale

Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous! Diligent Orbit staff know when The Dog Police are on patrol, keeping the streets, alleys, and—especially—residential trash receptacles safe from the terror of incoming canine caca. Foreign or domestic, but always unwanted, Fido’s doo-doo and Scout’s dishonor are a deeply divisive feature of the pedestrian experience.

Having neither a mutt to strut nor publicly-available trash can, your author—excuse the expression—doesn’t have a dog in this fight, so we’re but mere spectators from the cheap seats as the daily doggo drama plays itself out just about everywhere.

hand-written signs on garbage can to stop putting dog shit in cans — *Stop asshole no shit in my cans / Dont put your dogs *shit* in my* *cans.* Lawrenceville

What’s the right thing to do?

The responsible pet-owner takes their furry friends out for daily constitutionals, lets them sniff all the fire hydrants and boxwood hedges they care to, and picks up the droppings inevitably jettisoned from their mutts’ butts right there on the sidewalks and grassy patches along the way. Do we expect the human companions to carry the scat sachet all the way home? Or are public/city trash cans an acceptable end point for the excrement?

Alternately, the home owner doesn’t want to deal with that (quite literal) crap—either on the sidewalk or in their street-facing waste bins. It doesn’t make a lot of sense—it’s just trash, right?—but people feel a sense of violation when anyone uses their bins, and when that trash is dog shit—that’s where it gets ugly—and smelly.

hand-written sign on utility pole saying "Pick up after your pups poops" — *Pick up after your pups poops.* Dravosburg

Like certain other ages-old, inconsolable rifts, it’s unlikely the poop-scoop-and-scoot crowd will ever reach a peaceful accord with the all-volunteer dog police, but we can dream.

Until then, please curb your dog, no peeing on the plants, use the trash can across the street, and make sure none of your possessives or contractions include apostrophes.