Everyone's a critic

Last Wednesday I posted about the new tag on the American Dream Way bridge.

Thursday morning it had been removed.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Ephemera

Some time ago I posted about a grafitto in the gap under the bridge over the W&OD Trail near me. Since Dominion Power razed all the shrubbery along the trail there, a new tag showed up on the abutment:

On that stretch of trail, I almost exclusively walk from East to West, so after I noticed that art, I checked the abutment on the western side, which I never see. No tag, but signs that something had been erased.

Yesterday morning I noticed that the original work has now been sanded away:

Artists get so little respect.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

New civic art

In all the years (nine, to be precise) that I’ve been walking this stretch of the W&OD Trail, this is a first:

Someone has tagged the wall under the American Dream Way* bridge.

*That street was the drive up to the headquarters of Fannie Mae, the government-backed corporation founded in 1938 to help Americans finance house purchases. It is now the site of a butt-ugly development of 82 three- and four-story townhouses costing more than $1M, crammed onto five acres of what used to be a parklike setting. The developers are currently razing the actual Fannie Mae building and parking garage to make way for a zillion more townhouses. So the street name has become ironic in the extreme.

Wonder how long it’ll stay up?

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

 

Gratitude Monday: unexpected art

We have a central green—a village “common”, as it were—in our cluster. There’s a tot lot, with slides and a jungle gym, swings, a swathe of lawn and, of course poison ivy. (We’re three months out from the first acknowledgment of the pest and still waiting for the cluster board/management company/contracted landscaping company to actually, you know, do something about it.)

There’s also a metal picnic table/benches jobber, where I’ve seen parents sit while watching their kids play.

Early last week, however, I noticed someone had ornamented the table with pinecones. They so closely matched the color of the surface that their protrusion looked almost organic.

When it was still there the next day, I augmented the arrangement, just because it made me feel happy.

(Took me a while to get the pine sap off my fingers and mobile phone case.)

I don’t know what it was about those slender cones poking up from the holes in the table, but it evoked something magical, whimsical and even promising. Considering everything that’s going on in the world, I’m perhaps overly grateful for things like this. But gratitude is gratitude.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

 

So it is

After the shitstorm of last week, I think we could use some beauty. So here’s the latest sidewalk art in my ‘hood.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Moar art

Some new sidewalk artists have entered the ‘hood.

They’re a family from Afghanistan (via California); they’re renting from my friend of Das Auto fame.

I’m looking forward to more of this.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Art appreciation

More sidewalk art:

(The attention to detail on the Tic-Tac box is really quite good.)

This time, I met the artists, possibly brother and sister; maybe six and eight. (They were climbing on the jungle gym and wearing full-on face-covering mosquito masks.)

I told them I appreciate their work, and they thanked me.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Vita brevis

The neighborhood sidewalk artists were at work last week—a rather complex narrative.

And then, after a couple of days of rain, this is what remained.

Sometimes not ars longa.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Dorian Gray and 100% OPSEC

So, Sunday we learned—in a lengthy screed on his inaptly named social media platform—that the Kleptocrat is extremely unhappy with a portrait of him that Colorado has hanging in the state capitol gallery. Evidently many imaginary people are angry about how (no doubt coming to him with tears in their big-man eyes to complain) awful it is. And he wants the (Democratic) governor to take it down because it offends his artistic sensibilities!

Not sure why this has only now come to the attention of the man with the nuclear codes; according to a story in Time, the portrait has been in situ since 2019, and was donated by Republicans. (I’m not posting it in my blog, but if you want to see it, here it is.)

Also—you’d think he would have bigger things on his mind than a portrait in a state that didn’t vote for him.

But you’d be wrong.

And then yesterday, we learned that before the United States struck several Houthi targets in Yemen earlier this month, national security officials not only initiated the plans over Signal, an encrypted but still not secure chat platform, but included Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic, in their discussion.

Those involved in the chat included Michael Waltz, national security adviser (who initiated it); VP J.D. Vance; Director of Central Intelligence John Ratcliffe; Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense; White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles; discount Goebbels Stephen Miller; and Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence.

In Goldberg’s account, when he was first invited to the group chat, he considered the possibility that it was some kind of influence operation; both foreign and domestic actors have interests in catching journalists in compromising situations. So he just stood by and observed. Throughout his account, he refers to each participant with their name in quotation marks, because their purported identity could not be confirmed.

“Vance” appeared to be the only member reluctant to start bombing; his concern seems to have revolved around getting “messaging” in place. Americans don’t know Houthis from a hole in the ground, so we’d need to be spun on why our forces are doing it. Also—as “Miller” chimed in, really, the Houthi threat to international shipping in the Suez region affects Europeans more than the US, so if we’re going to pull their chestnuts out of the fire, what do we get from it? We need that quid for that quo.

(Not his precise words, but we all know that the Kleptocrat is transactional and he has to get some vig off of everything.)

Goldberg finally believed what he was seeing on 15 March, when at 1145 EDT Waltz announced that the attacks would commence in two hours. And then, on the dot, they happened. He removed himself from the chat, which would have generated a notification to Waltz, but no one reached out to ask him why he left or, indeed, who he was.

Yesterday he sent emails to several of the participants asking for comments. He got a couple of fluffers from a Vance spokes and someone repping the National Security Council. Read the article—it will raise the hair on the back of your neck.

Not only were the highest NATSEC officials in the country (including the vice president) plotting military operations over an unclassified platform (evidently the government has bespoke systems for this purpose—well, they did before Elno and his DOGiEs appeared on the scene), but they also (presumably inadvertently) included a reporter on their group chat. High schoolers planning a TP party could do better at security.

How do we know that Waltz didn’t include SVR (Russian foreign security) agents on that Signal group?

Aside from Ratcliffe and Gabbard, I mean.

Naturally, Klepto replied to a question yesterday afternoon about the massive security breach, went all Sergeant Schultz. Really: "I know nothing about it." 

This is why we can’t have nice things.

Like that presidential portrait.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Family scene?

The sidewalk artist is back at work. Here’s the landscape I encountered last week; lotta things going on there:

What interested me was the cat, tho—is that a bed of kittens next to it?

 

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: stepping out of an evening

A few weeks ago I received notification from Eventbrite congratulating me on registering for an event at the Embassy of Italy’s cultural center. I was contemplating this wonder when an email from a friend hit my inbox announcing that she’d registered me for an event at the Embassy of Italy’s cultural institute.

Well, why not?

First of all, I have to say that getting me out of the house in the evening practically takes an act of God. This one involved me putting on trousers with a zipper (I’ve worn nothing but sweat pants for almost a year, with the exception of the two weeks I was in Europe six months ago), riding Metro for more than an hour and then walking more than a mile from Woodley Park Metro station to the embassy. I arrived with sweat soaking my face, hair and non-tee-shirt cotton top; amidst the perfectly put-together Italian ladies and the typical embassy event crowd, I looked like trailer trash just back from Walmart.

It turned out to be a promotion of this summer’s Arena di Verona’s 101^st Opera Festival, about which I knew nothing. 

The ambassador introduced the program, which was two sopranos and a tenor, accompanied by the music director on the piano, singing a number of arias. Since they’re celebrating the centenary of the death of Giacomo Puccini, most of the pieces were from him.

Well, I gotta say—it was worth every step and drop of sweat; even the zipper. (If you get the opportunity to hear Yeajin Jeon, go. She’ll be appearing in Turandot in Verona starting next month.) But it was more than the performances. Also more than the quite presentable Italian wines and nibbles served afterward. It was getting out of my comfort zone, doing something different, engaging in acts of civil sociability and stepping away from the screen, for more than six hours all told.

So I’m grateful indeed that my friend thought of me for this particular event.

 

 

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

Royal blood

Well, alrighty then—King Charles III’s first official monarchical portrait since his coronation (which cost the British public way too much money) has been unveiled and it’s quite the statement.

Although Camilla has told the artist, Jonathan Yeo, “Yes, you’ve got him right,” the folks on the Interwebz beg to differ. I mean—they get the statement part, but it’s unlikely to be one the House of Windsor likes. Mostly around whether the surfeit of red is indicative of Charles being in Hell, or symbolic of the blood of empire.

(¿Por qué no los dos?)

And then there's the butterfly.

Me—I’m thinking that Yeo might just have found a lot of red paint on sale down to the local Michael’s. And climate protestors will have to find something besides tomato soup to throw on it to make their statement.

 

 

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

Going to the dogs

The sidewalk artists are back, and this time their subjects are canine:

I was a little confused by this one, though—six paws?

Upon reflection, I think there are four paws and two jowls with whiskers.

 

 

 

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

Seen on the street

On my walks last week I discovered that the Sidewalk Chalk Artist has returned, with expanded coverage.

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

Walking the artists' way

The sidewalk chalk artists have been at work in the ‘hood again. I think this may be a Sandworm:

Not sure about this one:

A lot of hand- and foot-prints:

A little misogyny:

Some appreciation:

A…mousebunny?

And this: