Graffiti can be more than destruction

Although I’m not into destruction, sometimes graffiti can be interesting as is this drawing on the service box next to the vineyards on the way to the post.

Years ago, Friday night was family night, and we would all end up in Harvard Square where we would eat, catch up on whatever we didn’t have time to share during the week and load up on books. That was when Harvard Square used to be Harvard Square. The last time I was there, it was more like a shopping mall with a number of chains. However, a dogpile.com search revealed that Casablanca www.harvardsquare.com/Home/Restaurants/Casablanca.aspx is still there.

The restaurant is near the Brattle Street theatre and there hot chocolate with mint or their almond drink was wonderful, and although it was wonderful to sit there and watch people play Othello or chess, it was the graffiti that I loved. None of this Sue loves Bob. Their graffiti might say Vita Sackville-West loves Virginia Wolfe, or their would be a debate about different aspects of Stendhal. Even the opening line of The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere was found once as if Longfellow was still alive and had walked from his corner around the house to lady’s room to pen his poem.

When I first arrived in Switzerland and was living in another tiny village, my landlord came to see me to tell me of a meeting at the school because of the increased delinquency. Coming from Boston, I thought drugs, metal detectors in schools, but no…the villagers were upset by two examples of graffiti on the school walls. Sadly, the graffiti has mushroomed since 1990, and not all is as clever as the example, which I am sure will be swept away by the village public words department, amusing or not.