New York Dick by Galen Smith
My rating: 3/5 cats
okay, quick float of an old review because i need to add something very important to it.
so, connor is on these subway ads all over the city,
and i mean really – he is basically just begging to have a dick drawn on him, right?
and yet i haven’t seen a single one defaced in that way. i keep threatening to do it myself, but he’s all whiny with “nooooo, don’t draw a dick on my face!!” for someone in the business of comedy, he is very little fun. but i did this, at least, when he wasn’t around.
it was partially satisfying, but new york, i am disappoint in you.
okay, back to old review.
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why did i pick this book up?? because it is a collection of photographs of subway advertisements upon which people have drawn dicks. have we just met?
and i flipped through it, assessing the quality of phallus-depiction, observing the highly detailed
and the very lazy
the insulting
and the annotated
and those that should have been annotated
some that are clearly asking for it
and some that seem unfairly singled-out:
some that make you stop and ponder the impulse and then slowly and appreciatively nod, like you are in a museum
some that are straight-up perplexing:
some that seem reasonable
some that use a clever mode of defacement
some that are not even dicks, but you really have to admire the pure creativity
and some that are serial victims
i chuckled, and muttered the word “dick,” and then i made the mistake of reading the introduction.
it is hard for me to judge its tone. this has to be intended as humorous, right?? because it is humorous to elevate dick doodles to consumer protest?? right??
In the modern America (sic) media-scape no one can avoid the daily bombardment of one-way conversations with brash corporate campaigns that seek to define our perception of pop culture. Shamelessly populating their branded communications with superstars, sexy models, and minor TV personalities, advertisers attempt to influence our consciousness to increase profits. Occasionally beguiling, or even clever, they are for the most part annoying, and the advertisers are often just too sure of themselves and their manipulative tactics…Fortunately – and not surprisingly – New Yorkers have found a way to talk back. The NYC subway system, like the city it serves, runs 24/7. Always available but not always reliable, this sometimes bustling and sometimes desolate world hosts an endless turnover of pushy branding and hyped-up superstars. This underground advertising labyrinth provides an (sic) unique opportunity for corporate giants to get close – dangerously close – to the captive audience they hope to persuade. Only a few feet off the ground and easily accessible, these four foot high by five foot wide posters are large, close and loud – much like New Yorkers themselves. Coupled with the hurry-up-and-wait aspect of subway riding, both sides of the consumerist dialogue have the time and the proximity to engage and develop something of a relationship, a relationship that can turn ugly….when imposed on a blank slate of private property, vandalistic graffiti carries the whiff of generalized nihilistic destruction. But when the substrate actually originates the conversation (and/or confrontation) the situation is shifted from simple defacement to a form of graphic dialog. Would the mini-penis torpedo be as meaningful if it were not flying into the butt of Ed Murphy’s transgender fat suit? Probably not. In this perverse symbiotic relationship between writer and substrate, audience and ad, suddenly we can all identify. We can all share in the collective push back to our over saturated, over marketed landscape
dude, what?? did you really just call a dick drawn on a yogurt ad a “pre-verbal gestalt?” i really hope mommy and daddy are pleased they paid for your undergrad degree so you could come out with… this book of inflated rhetoric about…dicks.
because i am not at all convinced that this dude isn’t 100% serious about his interpretation of dick doodles and his ascribing to it intellectual and social significance. especially when i saw this about the author: He lives in Brooklyn, New York
honestly, who is annoyed by subway ads? who finds them intrusive? they are the visual equivalent of white noise. and i am just now realizing that this author may have just read delillo’s white noise, which may account for his terror of media-overload and rampant consumerism gone awry, but still. let’s not kid ourselves. new yorkers, “fed-up consumers,” aren’t drawing dicks on signs because they are rebelling against advertisers “recklessly susceptible to their own hype and thinking themselves invincible,” they are drawing dicks on signs because dicks are fun to draw.
i can personally attest to this. when greg and i used to work at the store together, and we had the same schedule, i would frequently grab a village voice or some other free paper and spend the subway ride home amusing him by drawing dicks all over the pages, trying to be creative in both placement, speed, and level of detail. some were hastily-scrawled squiggles coming from a celebrity’s pocket “oops, how did that end up in there ?? how embarrassing!” some were tiny and highly detailed cocks peppering the comics section. was i sticking it to the wizard of id? (heh) no, i was drawing them because they made greg laugh. they made me laugh. penises are super funny-looking. sorry, fellas, but they are. you guys are so weird and inelegantly-designed. but fun to draw, no argument there.
but i’m so gobsmacked by anyone even attempting to give the drunk urban youth waiting on the platform at 3 am any other motivation than “heh. dick”
in the larger context of the history of graffiti art, dick-sketches are the absolute bottom of the totem pole of artistic or political expression. they are lazy jr. high math class doodles.
cuz nyfc isn’t like this anymore:
where the remarkable “howdydodat?” element is gone, and all the adventure and turk 182! romantic rebellion of it is gone.
although this little piece really takes the wind out of the sails of that false nostalgia:
http://www.nyc-pics.com/2012/09/the-t…
so, sir, if you intended this to be ironic – and since you are from brooklyn, i am willing to believe this might be the case, i apologize for my inflamed reaction. but if you are serious, then please feel free to drift into a peaceful pabst-fueled slumber and allow me to come over and draw sharpie-dicks all over your face. as a protest against your intolerable, insufferable existence.
