west by northwest (by midwest)

If exposed pipes are “oxen guts,” then the city itself is (an? a singular plural?) “oxen.” Which, considering the importance of oxen carts to Brigham Young’s city design (every street wide enough for oxen carts to u-turn with ease), makes sense. It makes even more sense when I think about how the city makes me feel: a pilgrim against my will, always measuring my steps by their distance from the temple, always seeking or straying. I sometimes feel like a piece on a game board, pushed down this street or that alley, driven by an objective or purpose not my own. Every walk through the downtown feels like starting over, the first step toward figuring out this city, this game. It feels like a baptism of sorts, and for the Mormons, baptism and oxen are intertwined. In the temple downtown, believers descend into the basement as if into a tomb. There, they baptize the dead, give them a second chance. A living person stands in for the dead person, and is submerged in a tub balanced on the backs of twelve bronze oxen, each one representing a tribe of Israel. In this metaphor, “oxen,” are we the stand-ins, the walking dead?

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.

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.

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?

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?

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

Sometime over the weekend, “Most Oxen” appeared on the front stair entrance to the Scientology building on East 400 South in downtown Salt Lake City.

Most Oxen. Does this mean the Scientology building contains the most oxen? Or does the vandal mean “oxen” as an adjective? “Oxen” evokes heavy loads, submission, hard labor for a master. Most burdened? Most submissive? Perhaps the vandal means a critique of Scientology.

Or perhaps, a compliment: hardest working, most willing.

Maybe this wall just seemed like a convenient billboard for bustling traffic on E 400 S, and “Most Oxen” has nothing to with Scientology at all.

I am starting to feel overwhelmed by “Oxen.” Maybe because it appears on many of my frequent walking routes, I feel as though it is taunting me. Following me. Wooing me. Attempting a conversion.

Will you be oxen’s Valentine?

oxen strikes again