[dovate.com] » weird gets weirder
weird gets weirder
So it seems that the Beautiful Mary Posters aren’t just a Philly thing. Posters have been reported in Los Angeles and Pittsburgh and photographed in Philadelphia, Chicago and New Orleans. So it looks like we have a mystery. While not as captivating as the Toynbee tiles, it is no doubt fascinating. The posters are likely created by 1 person, but are they distributed through a network? Is it a prank? The author of this blog talks about his encounter with the mad poster-maker:
Getting the poster from Mr. Crazy was a nice little adventure. I was walking back to the office, chillin outside on a gorgeous day, and I see this bummy looking white dude, older, with classic, white Elmer’s glue bottle in hand, hobbling back from a green lightpost on Jackson and Franklin, now plastered in Lohan Mother Marys. I size up the situation, pause for a sec, and ask the guy kindly, sir, if I could have one of those. He gives me the requisite once over, suspecting me to be getting him in trouble somehow. No, badge, check; okay, mini-rant time. “Oh, so you want one of these? One of these will save one thousand people from going to hell and you want one all to yourself, huh?” Uh-oh, I somehow wasn’t expecting such crazy. “Uh, it’s cool. I don’t need one.” Walk away, avoid crazy. Nope. Dude changes his mind. “What the hell, there’s only so many good people in the world…have one.” Whoa, awesome: crazy thinks I’m good peoples. I feel warm inside, oddly singular, special; crazy people are great. “Me and my friend from [St. something, crazy church group presumably] we trying to hand these out earlier today and people wouldn’t take ‘em.” I say thanks–boy, were they missing out–and amble away, crossing the street with the rest of the office people of the midwest, scoping out my find. He forgave me of my sins on the way out.
If you’re interested, new posters were put up last week on Broad between Pine and Walnut. Keep your eyes out, they’re everywhere.
New Orleans:
Chicago:
5 Comments
1. Phillybits replies at 12th December 2007, 10:45 pm :
Good post, Steve. If I come across anymore, I’ll let you know.
2. Justin Duerr replies at 13th December 2007, 3:07 am :
I found another blog with a mention of these. It’s funny, because this isn’t the first time I’ve run across people doubting the “sincerity” of these posters, and speculating that they’re made by “some art school kids”. I guess maybe people’s brains melt down a little bit, like “too weird to be real”, ha ha! Anyways, here’s the link –
paper Girl blog
3. Justin Duerr replies at 13th December 2007, 3:09 am :
“They were too artfully dashed on those posters to be the work of a person who doesn’t have a student ID.”……….. yikes……
4. steve replies at 13th December 2007, 5:53 pm :
Yeah, the ’student ID’ thing is a pretty obnoxious statement.
When I first saw the posters, they were pretty badly damaged and just sort of fell into the background of street art here in Philly. At that point I assumed that they were part of a center city ’student’ campaign.
There was something about insomnia and sleep put up recently that more seemed to be the work of a student and I thought they might be part of that. Seeing them intact changed my mind. At this point I highly, highly, doubt that they’re the work of someone with a student ID.
5. Bonus Saves replies at 15th January 2008, 9:14 pm :
Hey, if any more flickr.heads stop by w/ Crazy Talk poster images, you can put them in www.flickr.com/groups/crazytalk/
Btw: i (and many others from Chicago) are quite jealous of your run-in… we’ve been speculating way to long over who was doing this! and to find out he travels? even better!
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