Seattle graffiti about coronavirus

February 27th, 2021 — COVID19, Graffiti, Seattle

Note: In 2021 I’ll publish at least one blog post per week, whichever day I get to it. Here’s entry 8 of 52.

Note: Still working on Biden Part 2 of 2. It’s taking longer than I expected! If you want to help, here’s something I haven’t figured out yet. In this 98-second video clip, can you hear what the then-vice president whispers to thirteen-year-old Maggie Coons shortly before trying to kiss her (on Jan 6, 2015)? He starts: “By the way, if you want to know how important it is, being thirteen” and then I can’t discern the rest clearly. If you can (maybe try headphones?), let me know: dal@riseup.net Or leave a comment on this post.

Just a quick entry this week: five photographs I took in Seattle’s Industrial District West area. The view is from one of the trails I frequently run on.

The first four pics show a graffiti battle, in which the original artist(s), disbelieving in the coronavirus news, painted “COVID is a lie!” as well as a sickly physician, named Dr Stupid on his shirt, saying vaccines are harmless while holding a needle. Another artist(s) sprayed graffiti atop that, correcting “COVID is a lie!” with “COVID is killing people!” The second artist(s) also wrote a comment on Dr Stupid: Enjoy your Darwin award. The United States has now topped half a million deaths from COVID-19; it has far more deaths from coronavirus than any other country on the globe.

The final image I photographed from the same area. It shows, through chain link fence, multiple train tracks, what I believe is a port terminal, plus in the distance across Elliott Bay, the Space Needle.

Alt

A frontal view of all the graffiti

A close-up of Dr Stupid, cash in his pocket, preparing to vaccinate someone’s butt

The graffiti, edited by another artist(s)

A view of the graffiti, with some of the trail shown

Through the chain link fence

Recently I read (forgot where) that people who live in this area of Seattle, like me, cut a decade or so off their life due to air and other pollution. I presume from the Ash Grove cement plant nearby, among other sources. The area is apparently also an EPA superfund site: extra money allocated from the feds in hopes of cleaning up an especially toxic area.

But back when I lived in Texas, prior to 2016, I always wanted to move to an industrial portion of Seattle. It just seemed right; I don’t really pay much heed to left-brain lists of reasons when choosing big life decisions; I try to listen to myself instead. The graffiti seems a fitting part of this landscape.

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This blog post, Seattle graffiti about coronavirus, by Douglas Lucas, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (human-readable summary of license). The license is based on a work at this URL: https://douglaslucas.com/blog/2021/02/27/seattle-graffiti-about-coronavirus/. You can view the full license (the legal code aka the legalese) here. For learning more about Creative Commons, I suggest this article and the Creative Commons Frequently Asked Questions. Seeking permissions beyond the scope of this license, or want to correspond with me about this post otherwise? Please email me: dal@riseup.net.

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