Flingers

Is that what they're called? Thos little magnetic grafiti plates with the lights and the batteries that brought Boston to a standstill? I think that's the name. Or is it tossers? They're named because they are magnatized and can be tossed up ont a metal surface and they'll stick there: instant non-destructive grafiti. Turner broadcasting ran some sort of guerilla marketing campaign where they put these things up in major cities all across the country to advertise Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network. There were a couple dozen here in New York City, and they've been there for a month. Then somebody in Boston noticed one, called the police, and they soon discovered they were on bridges all over town. Thinking there were terrorist bombs they shut the city down.

First of all I love this. I love the fact that CN came up iwth the idea. I love the fact that they did it. It was clever. It was artistic. It was a bit guerilla. It was great. But what I lvoe even more is that it was Boston that freaked out and shut the city down. Nobody else noticed. They freaked out. And now they want to put the clever artists who created this sort of thing in jail. I'm reminded of Andre Codrescu in "Road Scholar," which was made wile Romania was still under communist rule, saying "yes, they bulldoze art in my country too." This from the town that banned "Mony Mony" not because it said anything obscene but because they didn't understand it at all. (actually, it stood for Mutual of New York).

I hate puritans. I really hate 'em.

(note, lower case "p." I had some good freinds in high school who were Puritans with an upper case "P.").