Street Art: Entropy, Deconstruction, Abe Lincoln and a Classical Rat

Graffiti, like everything else in the universe, goes from order to disorder. Here is an example I went back and photographed over a few weeks. We see a pasted up image of Honest Abe Lincoln. By the time I found it, someone had attacked it from the sides, on one eye, and another, kinder, lighterhearted soul put lipstick on him.

Here, summer rains and hot days had taken their toll. You can see the paper picking up. Those at the edge will hold water, accelerating the natural demise of this poster. On the left center edge, a Twilight fan seems to have written to ID the image, and tell us he, too, was a vampire killer.

A few more days go by, and Abe is evaporating in time. The water facilitated finger holds but the tears only serve to partially deconstruct the image. We still know exactly who he is. The earlier Vampire Killer ID now has lost its meaning and has been unwittingly transformed into confirmation of his identity, as if the hat and bits of hair weren't enough. This is like snatching words out of a poem and watching it morph at every turn.

This rat, I was told, fell out of a nearby building and glued himself onto a traffic light box. It was severely ripped by the time I found it, but with a little help from a friend (those are graceful fingers, no?), he was momentarily reconstructed back to the way he looked on the night he was born (and all these things are born at night). This is not just any rat, but an Ed Roth Rat Fink type (Google it), a Classic with History behind it. I love the plus and minus signs in his eyes.