The Best Gallery in Town

When people talk about art in Sioux City, two things come immediately to mind. The first thought is, “You’re new here, aren’t you?” The second is the city’s most active art gallery, conveniently located on bridges and brick walls throughout the neighborhood.

Let me walk you through some of the better pieces and the styles they represent.

Understated

As you can see by the piece above, the main emphasis is on clarity. Simple lines and simple, clean strokes make this easy to take in at a glance. The use of a single color gives the impression of being rushed, of lurking in abandon parking lots in the middle of the night. The point of this piece is immediately apparent and cannot be mistaken — the Gangster Disciples have marked this abandoned building as their territory, and evidently see value in it. The way the piece is situated on the back wall of the building facing an abandoned parking lot expresses fearlessness — the artist obviously wasn’t afraid of the dark and chose to do his work away from the spotlight and glare of the street.

The Humorously Rich

This example has several elements working for it. Obviously the artist had a keen sense of humor expressed by his redefining the word “stop” as “don’t go.” I laughed the whole time I watched the city crew replace the sign at taxpayer expense. It’s worth it, though. The government needs to support art through subsidies such as giving artists fresh canvases to work with. I really don’t mind my taxes being raised to support art such as this.

Early Stylism


Things start to get interesting with this piece. Note how the color was specifically chosen to contrast with the background? The first thing one might notice is the angularity of the letters, rendering the piece barely legible. This was done on purpose by the artist (obviously a fan of the West Side Locos), and should be considered as an artistic choice made to represent anger — obviously directed at Record Printing Company. One imagines the artist receiving blurry business cards from the printing company and plotting this intricate form of expressing his or her displeasure. Sublimity elegantly rendered.

Sophomore Stylisim

Found prominently hung under a bridge over a drainage canal, this piece represents the next step in stylism. Note the three-dimensional aspect of the letters, giving the impression of solidity. Also pay attention to the subtle shading of the letters. This artist, who is most likely a fan of MS 13, chose to utilize a simple black motif, eschewing any complimentary colors in the pursuit of simplicity. (You’ll notice a common thread of simplicity through ALL the exhibits. It seems being simple is a theme all these particular artists strive to emulate.)

Classic Stylism

This fine piece is notable for two things. The first is the artist’s choice of location. The artist chose to place this piece under a railroad bridge, directly over a foot path where no vehicles can go. This was done not out of fear but rather from the confidence that the audience would go to the work. The second notable aspect of this piece is the classical representation of the letters, carefully and painstakingly drawn. The artist is telling us that for one reason or another, he obviously has time on his hands to complete such a piece. He’s probably wealthy from selling other pieces, I imagine.

The Commentary

This piece, while exhibiting signs of Early Stylism, also offers us another aspect to art. While the fan of the West Side Locos chose white paint to contrast with the bridge the artist chose as a canvas, the fan of MS 13 chose BLACK paint in their comment to the piece. (Note — this is the first example of Commentary, but this is actually the most common subgenre in town. You’ll often see a piece crossed out and redesigned by another artist.) Another aspect of this particular piece is that it’s found on the outside girder of a bridge where it remains unseen by the casual motorist crossing the bridge, but can be seen and enjoyed by neighbors of the bridge for miles around.

The Story

This is the least common style in town, but is impressive when seen, though considered elitist by other artists. The artist is obviously flaunting his or her education by utilizing full words rather than initials. Again, this is rare, and is a difficult thing to accomplish.

All in all, Sioux City has a well-rounded stable of up-and-coming artists, and should be considered one of the midwest’s “hotspots” for this particular genre.

An open letter:

Dear Ms. Clinton,

You lost. Please go away now. You’re making a fool of yourself.

Thank you,
Us

The NASA Approach to Alternate Fuels and How That’s Bad

There are several ways to approach the energy crisis, and I believe we’re going about this the wrong way. I’m a color-blind guy with a degree in history who has worked as a graphic designer for the last couple decades, so I’m not real qualified to talk about engineering. But I’m gonna.

It seems to me that the way to design something (an electric motorcycle, for example) would be to build a couple scale models of the motorcycle, then build three or four prototypes with the full expectation of destroying most of them in testing. You build a full-scale model, then you run it until it fails so you know where the weak point in the design is — might be the new motor, might be the engine mounting, you’ll never know until you try it.

From what I understand from my three minutes of diligent research, this has been the way people have been engineering and designing things for quite some time, and the system works.

Until… Until the United States decided to build a space shuttle, lo those many years ago. Such a big project, such high stakes, but yet did we built prototypes? No… There were NO tests. When we sent the first shuttle up, it was truly the first shuttle, and there were real people in there.

In the 1950s and 60s, when we were in the midst of the Apollo project, we sent up smaller rockets first and watched how they worked. Then we built bigger rockets. Then we put a man in orbit. Then we built yet bigger rockets. The point being that we went one step at a time — we did NOT decide one day to send a man to the moon and immediately start building the finished rocket.

But in the 70s when we decided to scrap the rocket system in favor of the space shuttle, we simply built a shuttle and threw it into the air. No unmanned missions, no shuttles tested to destruction to find the weak point… The result? Through rigorous mathematics, computer modeling, and all the diligence NASA can put towards a project, the shuttle did, indeed work! It worked until the O-rings failed on takeoff one day in the 80s and blew a shuttle to bits, killing the entire crew. This failure probably would have come out in testing, had they tested actual designs to failure. They fixed it and went on with the project, which worked fine until a shuttle disintegrated on reentry over Texas, killing the entire crew.

The shuttle is as safe as they can make it, and does have a good safety record in light of how incredibly complicated the shuttle is and how dangerous space flight is. The problem is that they went about it wrong. They should have built shuttles and tested them to failure. Rather they went through incredible pains to get it perfect the first time, and were under enormous pressure to get it right without testing.

Okay… so what’s my point?

It seems that many engineering projects have been stuck in the “shuttle mode” ever since then.

I saw a show on television yesterday that mentioned putting undersea turbines off the Florida coast. The theory is simple — put some turbines in the gulf coast and let the ocean currents do the work, creating electricity. Why hasn’t this already been done? No one wants to go small-scale with the project… Instead of building a few of these undersea turbines at 1/5th scale and putting them beside the dock and seeing how they work, they’re hoping to develop an entire grid of turbines, anchored to the sea floor 150 miles below (or however deep the ocean is… a hundred miles? Fifteen yards? I dunno, I’m from Iowa), already fully developed and ready to go on the grid. The problem with that is that it’s horribly expensive to build a full-blown system like that from scratch, so no one’s done it yet, even though Florida sucks an inordinate amount of energy from the nation’s resources to run their air conditioners AND they have an unlimited amount of energy sitting just offshore…

Another example is with wind turbines. The big power companies have spent zillions of dollars building huge wind turbines to put in the midwest (where the wind comes sweeping down the plains). They started with commercial-grade turbines. Big honkin’ things. Huge. And they’ve gotten bigger. It’s hard to wrap your head around how huge these turbines are…

Okay, this is fine and dandy. But wind power is still only contributing a small fraction of the nation’s energy.

Here’s an idea. Instead of trying to build a big system of underwater turbines and continuing with the huge corporate wind farms, why not let us individual people have these things?

Release the technology to the public. Give some incentive to a couple companies to start making small wind turbines that a person can put on their house.* Make small undersea turbines that a marina operator (for example) can put in an out-of-the-way place to create some energy for his operation. Get a couple hundred thousand of these out into the public and let US test the technology. Tweak the system as it works on a small scale. Let people tinker with the system. See what happens.

Once people see that underwater generators really do work, you’ll be able to get more investors to buy into your dream of building a big huge system to power the entire state. Don’t try to create an infrastructure out of thin air.

Alternative fuels is too important for us to do it wrong.

*I know, there are companies like PacWind making small wind turbines that can go on someone’s house. The problem is that there aren’t enough of these companies, and the technology is too expensive. Incentives, anyone?

If I Were Magically In Charge of Things Around Here

1. If I were in charge of things here in Sioux City, I’d make it a rule that every new structure built in the city with a flat roof be “greenified.” Regular ol’ tar roofs can get up to 140+ degrees in the summer, which makes it miserably expensive to air-condition the building. Instead, put three or four inches of good soil up there on the roof and plant native prairie grasses. This will decrease the temperature of the roof, make heating and cooling much easier, will aid enormously in water control (let the plants and soil hold the water for a few days after a rain, gradually letting the moisture evaporate rather than depending on storm sewers sending the water straight into the river), will give some ecosystem back to the native birds ‘n bugs, and the plants will help filter some of the pollution out of the air. This costs a little more as you need to make sure your roof can handle the weight, but the benefits far outweigh the costs.

2. I’d make the city engineer go through every existing building with a flat room to see how they can put a garden on the existing roof. You have, oh, six years to retrofit your flat room to accommodate a garden covering, oh, sixty percent of the area of your roof. Extra tax credits if you make your roof entirely green.

3. Sell the city buses. Buy new buses that are environmentally friendly (hybrids or biodiesel at the least). Instead of having, for example, twenty big buses, buy thirty smaller buses and add some new routes. Build secure areas on some of the routes where people can safely leave their bicycles or cars when they get on the bus.

4. Make the downtown area more foot and bicycle friendly and less car friendly. Oddly, the bicycle paths in the city do NOT go to the downtown district, and it’s miserable trying to cross a downtown street on foot. The city is, as we speak, planning to tear out a pedestrian park to build a street, hoping to lure more people downtown by making the area easier to navigate by car. This is backwards to me… Instead, make it easier to park your car and walk.

5. Tax vehicles by mileage. If your car gets 20 miles per gallon you pay more for your car than the guy with a 50 mpg hybrid. If you own a 5 mpg truck, you get taxed quite a bit, but that’s okay as if you own a truck you’re obviously using it for business purposes and are making money with the vehicle so you can afford to pay more. (Here’s something to consider as you’re shooting this one down: Gas prices are rising due to supply and demand. The more gas we demand, the more we pay. Okay, fine… The problem is that if you drive a huge ol’ SUV to work every day, you demand more gas than I do in my little bitty car — which drives MY fuel prices up. In effect, those who use more gas pay the same price per gallon as those who use less, so there’s no penalty for using more gas if you can afford it. This proposed tax would even out the playing field a bit. If you demand more fuel you pay higher taxes.)

6. City bikes. Put some butt-ugly bicycles out there that are free for everyone to use. Make ’em ugly so no one will steal them… Put a small tracker on it so you can tell if someone’s taking a bike home with them at night or is keeping a bike. Keep them by the parking ramps so people can park their cars and ride the bikes through the downtown area.

7. Truck and SUV free zones. If you have a truck or SUV, park it in one of the parking ramps and walk the rest of the way, ride a bike or catch a bus. It’s hard to see around you in traffic, it’s hard to see around you when you’re parked, its hard to see through the fog behind you… You’re free to own whatever vehicle you want, but you’re a menace to public safety. Please consider leaving your guzzler in the parking ramp where it won’t bother anyone and walk the last two blocks to the bank.

8. The energy company shall NOT have a monopoly. If I want to make my own energy, the government shall reward me for doing so, and the energy company can NOT punish me for that. Currently it’s actually illegal around here to have your own wind turbine. The power company has actually made a farmer take his turbine down, forcing him to buy electricity from them. Now I want to know just where in the Constitution it guarantees a corporation a profit… If the power companies find themselves obsolete in a few years, that’s THEIR problem. They’re the ones who should be making personal turbines and selling them to us, NOT trying to stop the technology.

I fully realize that there are holes in each and every one of these proposals. I haven’t thought ANY of them through to their logical conclusion. My point is that we need to start thinking this way…

Bunnies

We have a rabbit in our yard. She’s bravely sitting on the hole she dug a day or two ago… She won’t move. I’m sure she has kits under there, little babies. She dug the hole in a strange place, right out in the open, near the chain-link fence by the sidewalk. If she’d chosen her hole on the other side of our yard she’d have two bolt-holes nearby (we have a rickety wooden fence on that side) and more privacy. But I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.

Dagmar put a few carrots out for her. It’ll be interesting to see if the carrots are gone in the morning. I’m a bit worried about the black kitty that’s been prowling around, too. With luck Mama Bunny can handle herself…

Fruitloop

Home from the vet, the little kitty Fruitloop, and recovering. He doesn’t seem to mind getting the insulin shots… This may sound cruel, but I really wish he’d squawk or squirm a little when the needle pokes him — he takes it so calmly it makes both Dagmar and I wonder if the shot is actually getting under his skin or if we’re just squirting insulin on his fur.

He’s really angry about his new diet. He gets a quarter-cup of food in the morning and a quarter-cup at night, which is considerably less than he’s used to having. We always just filled his food bowl to the top and kept it more or less full constantly so he could eat at his leisure. The poor little guy’s not adjusting well. He sat by his food dish for three straight hours today, looking miserable, occasionally licking the side of the dish. He’ll come to the computer room, bite my pantleg and try to lead me to his food bowl…

Vacation

I’m on vacation through Wednesday night. The original plan was for me to go fishing with Pops in Minnesota, but with the vet bill and Dagmar’s impending surgery (June 19th) I’ve opted to stay home for my spring vacation and try to get as much freelance work done as I can… With luck I can get both my vacation pay and earn some money on the side and “double up” as much as I can.

I might be working, but I’m still gonna count this as a vacation. I’ll be home for three days where I can choose to ignore the phone if I want, I can sip on a beer in the afternoon whilst working, and I can go for a bike ride at lunch time if I want. As long as I get the work done I’m free to enjoy the day.

Mat d and the Profane Saints

Yesterday I was kinda bummed. I was hoping to go on a poker-style run* a friend of mine was sponsoring, but circumstances dictated I’d miss the beginning and end of the ride. (It was for a good cause. A lady my friend knows was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her insurance company pre-approved treatment, so she started on the chemotherapy and whatnot. After several treatments her insurance company was taken over in a hostile takeover. The new owners denied her coverage, AFTER she’d already started the life-saving treatment. So she thought she was covered, but corporate greed and deregulation effectively ruined her life. To add insult to injury, she lost her job too. So the poor lady has a life-threatening disease, horribly expensive payments, and no job. Hence the fundraiser.

Anyway, I couldn’t make the beginning of the ride, so I thought I’d hook up with the run as it went through the neighboring town of Akron and follow the guys for a stop or two. I tootled down the road to Akron, enjoying the beautiful day. Once there I realized I was ahead of the herd, so I sat in the local Legion Hall and had a nice beverage whilst I awaited the thunder of motorcycles. A beautiful day, a nice ride on the bike, a cold beverage, how could this get better?

A guy at the end of the bar stood up. “Well, I’m outta here,” he told the barmaid. “That Dry Creek Music Festival in Hawarden is gonna start in an hour. I gotta go home and get cleaned up before I go see the bands play…”

Music Festival? In an hour? Ten miles away? I’m there! I dropped off a donation for the poker run with instructions to give the dough to Beek and ran out the door, hopped on my bike and roared off to Hawarden.

I only got to see two bands, the Matt Hittle Blues Band and Mat d and the Profane Saints. The Matt Hittle Blues Band played well; I’d recommend going to see them if you get a chance, but I was really excited to see the Profane Saints. I’m pals with most of the guys, and I used to be in a band with the drummer a couple years ago. They’re a helluva band! Go see ’em play. Go to their website. Listen to their stuff. It’s worth it… (Here are some pictures.)

*A poker run, for those of you who might not know, is a fundraiser where bikers all sign in at a starting point (usually a bar) where they toss in some money (usually $20 or so) and are given a score sheet and a map. There are generally five stops on a poker run spanning a distance of 100 to 125 miles or so. The biker heads off to the next location on the map (usually a watering hole of some sort), where the bartender will certify that the biker was, indeed, there. Then the biker will draw a card from a deck and the bartender will write the card on the scoresheet (two of clubs, six of spades, etc.). After five stops, the biker has a scoresheet with five cards. At the end of the run the motorcycle enthusiast with the highest poker hand wins a percentage of the entry fee money, and the rest of the moolah goes to the charity agreed upon. Most winners will keep five or ten bucks to buy a celebratory drink or two with and donate the rest back to the cause. It’s a good deal, so of course the government has tried to stop it… According to Iowa law a poker run is the moral equivalent of gambling, so people have come up with inventive variations to keep the spirit of the traditional poker run alive without having to pay for a gambling license and pay a tax on moneys taken in.

Parkersburg, Iowa

A friend of mine has been helping in Parkersburg, IA after the tornadoes last weekend. He sent me some photos… It’s amazing to see little lumps of debris and realize each little lump used to be a home.