west by northwest (by midwest)

I slipped down a random street today and was rewarded with a new “oxen” message.

The same “oxen” tag a little closer up:

Seeing “oxen” lay claim to a brick, I cannot help but think of Temple Square–in particular, the museum exhibit of oxen carts used to carry stones from local quarries to the temple construction site. The very word “oxen” carries a religious connotation here in Salt Lake City–a connotation I am just now beginning to grasp. It took a visit to Temple Square to (start to) understand it.

Every time I see an “oxen” tag now, I picture the literal beast loaded up with stones on its back. Or the baptismal font in the temple basement, with twelve oxen arranged in a circle, backs facing in, a baptism pool held aloft on their backs. The oxen represent the twelve tribes of Israel.

But I suspect this vandal means something radically different: political critique instead of religious proselytizing.  No matter where I find a new “oxen” tag, it always feels like a confrontation. Am I one of the oxen? Am I a beast of burden? Whose burden do I carry? Why? It also feels like a stab at the LDS–using one of the faith’s own symbols to mock(?) its followers.

Maybe I am making an assumption based on the medium (graffiti), but the whole “oxen” project feels anarchistic to me. When I wake up to new tags in the neighborhood, I wonder when “oxen” creeps out from his underground hiding place. I wonder what burden he carries that drives him to spread this (the?) word.

Finally, a wheatpaste campaign I can get behind: Free rides on TRAX (SLC light rail) during dreaded “red air days.”

But the more I think about it, the more this campaign feels typical of the car-oriented culture here in Utah: public transportation as a last resort. If more residents rode TRAX (or biked, walked, took buses) in the first place, then SLC could reduce pollution before the air reaches red-alert levels. Why wait until a public health emergency to finally make public transport affordable, attractive and feasible?

That is not necessarily a critique—more an observation of how deeply ingrained car culture really is here. After all, knowing how far to push an issue is half the battle, and there is very little political will in Utah to sacrifice pickup trucks and SUVs for the public good.

I used to think of this as the only permanent oxen tag — not spray paint, not a sticker, not wheat paste, not stencil. Permanent.

Until snow buried it for days and days.

And slush melted and refroze, glazing over all but the “N.”

And black sludge in the wake of receding snow filled in the letters.

And then a toy wheelbarrow appeared, abandoned on the sidewalk after an unusually warm winter afternoon, covering oxen. Riding on oxen’s back. I could have pushed it away, but I sort of loved it there. Filled with rainwater, it would be like a miniature Mormon baptismal font—like the one in the Salt Lake temple basement. I imagined a child playing out the scene.

So much depends on this oxen.

I need it to mark distance. South: to alert myself that a certain dangerous street corner looms. North: to know I am almost safe, almost home.

One day, leaves covered most of the letters, and I kneeled down to brush them away. I needed to see it. My mind flashed on the time I helped brush snow from my grandmother’s grave marker. Here lies oxen.

Sometimes, I cannot help but hear songs in my head:

Step on a crack, break oxen’s back

Ollie Ollie Oxen Free

All’s out come in free.

Yes, that.

Of course, even the spray paint and wheat pastes never truly disappear. The city paints over sprayed tags, and ghost letters show through. Business owners blast tagged sidewalks with toxic chemical paint removers, but faint traces of letters still appear, sunken below the porous surface of the concrete. Wheat pastes simply reappear — sometimes in the exact same spot, sometimes across the street.

There is no “permanent” or “temporary” for oxen. Just seasons.

The Economy is Improving, Honest — The Mood on the Street Part II

I wrote about Salt Lake Antiques before, when new graffiti appeared almost daily on the exterior of the store.  At first, I thought the store was under assault from vandals. Since then, an SLC local told me the owners spray-painted the messages themselves, in protest against the economic meltdown that destroyed their family business.

Now when I walk past the cleaned-up storefront, I always look for the blob of blue spray paint left behind on the east wall. I stop and squint, searching for the outlines of words under the paint layers, any traces of the protests:

Where’s the Bailout Boys?

I Have Hope in America.

The Banks Don’t Lend The People Can’t Spend.

The Economy is Improving Honest.

Thanks for 30 Great Years.

I always found the graffiti depressing, and I wondered if it dragged down the mood of nearby businesses and neighbors. I worried it might inadvertently invite more vandalism—or worse. Mostly, though, I thought the street corner might feel a bit less demoralizing with the graffiti scrubbed away.

I was wrong.

The blank brick, the whitewash, the emptiness, is far worse.

No Posting Oxen Oxen Oxen Oxen Oxen

Dear Oxen:

As a kid, did you ever climb into storm drains? Did you peer out from behind the grate? Did you fantasize about the search party when your parents noticed you were missing? Did you tag the drain from the inside?

vacant lot

I love the idea of this couch facing a concrete wall, and beyond that wall, the wall of the mountains. I imagine projecting a photograph of Mt. Hood or a movie of waving fir branches. But then, I already am.

oxen literally making headlines

Does anyone else remember transparency projectors? Oxen’s latest shenanigans remind me of that: vandal as teacher; window of the newspaper box as transparent sheet; passersby as impromptu class. So who or what plays the projector in this scenario? Who is projecting? Is it oxen? Is it passersby? Both?

touch a nerve:

It takes nerve to cross the street in Salt Lake City. Every press of the crosswalk signal = a leap of faith.

The nerve! Daring to press the button after I tagged the crosswalk signal as mine.

Reach out. Tap into the electric nerve center of the city. Hack it, if you will. Make the city streets work for you.

You need the electricity of the city for this leap of faith.

Press the button. Wait. Look both ways. Breathe.

Whatever you do, do not take an orange flag of surrender. Push the button for nerve. And never lose it.

This “oxen” appeared on the same stretch of sidewalk as “Trust Jesus.”

Follow the arrow, and you’re on the path to Temple Square. Again with the geometry: 5 blocks north, 3 blocks west, and you find yourself at the “holy heart” of Salt Lake City. A perfect rectangle. Cobblestone. Your path shaped like the stones on which you travel.

Dear Oxen,

That single quotation mark confuses me. It feels little self-referential. Not Oxen but “Oxen [sic]. Not really a tag, but a quote of a tag. But not really a quote, either—not without that crucial second quotation mark. Do you only half claim it?  Half own it?

That arrow really gets to me, too, how it points at “oxen.” So many ways to read it. Pointing pedestrians (pilgrims?) to the “holy center” of the city. Marking the path to find you. Marking your territory (everything to the left belongs to oxen). Are those humps the mountains? Does the arrow descend into the valley? Wagons rolling over the mountains, Oxen as the logical end of the journey. Walk this way to see what “oxen” is all about.

Should I? Should I walk this path to its logical end? Finish the journey? Does that make me the “most oxen?” Does that make me oxen’s valentine?

-K