Spray art

Another Internet meme hit the global browsers when a University of California, Davis, campus cop was caught on video pepper-spraying Occupy protester, who were seated and not engaging in behavior any more threatening than planting butts on sidewalks.

Barely had the uploads made it to YouTube than Lt. John Pike started popping up in more images than Princess Beatrice’s Royal Wedding hat. Keep clicking through the pages of the Tumblr site to see Pike appear in Picasso’s Guernica, at various iterations of the Last Supper and Hopper’s Diner.

I find this absolutely fascinating—the instant commentary on art, society, protest, police overreaction; in fact, pretty much everything you got going.

A few weeks ago, when the Libyans were closing in on Gaddafi, I scoured the Web, sure I’d find the Colonel popping up in the White House Situation Room, the Republican debates, even the Royal Wedding. It seemed to me that Where’s Muammar? was a natural for this sort of visual witticism.

But evidently I was wrong.

I’m going to have to do this myself—Photoshop? Illustrator? It just looks like too much fun, and you don’t have to worry about coming up with le mot juste.