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City attacks graffiti quickly, before 'fnord' sets in
Copyright © 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. |
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Laurie Thibodeau shook her head disapprovingly as she contemplated the
yellow letters sprayed onto the Civil War memorial in Portland's Monument
Square. "That's awful," she said, as much unsettled by the vandal's
motives as by the seemingly meaningless word itself. "The anger that
is coming out in that way I think a lot of it is meant to hurt other
people." This week, crews hired by the city will again break out the sandblaster
and chemicals needed to scrub the latest batch of graffiti from building
walls and other surfaces. It's a never-ending task as Portland officials,
business owners and residents work to clean up the blemishes before they
spread. Crews of youths performing community service, under the supervision of
the nonprofit group Portland West, will clean about 40,000 square feet of
graffiti this year, about the same as last year. The work will cost the
city about $28,000. "I think it's kind of selfish and egocentric," said former
Mayor Tom Kane, who for a decade has coordinated graffiti removal for
Portland West. "I think there are many ways of expressing yourself
without hurting someone else. "What's the difference between writing 'fnord' on the hood of
someone's car or taking a key and scratching it into the side of their
car?" Kane said, referring to one of the graffiti "tags"
that appeared in recent weeks. Tom Fortier, the islands/neighborhood administrator for the city of
Portland, is pushing a more aggressive approach toward graffiti. It would
involve a combination of stiff punishment for anyone responsible, quick
cleanup, and strategies for preventing it in the first place, such as
educating the public about the problem and its costs. "The more prolific taggers are responsible for tens of thousands
of dollars in costs to businesses and taxpayers," Fortier said. Police say graffiti is a public safety issue. "Obviously, you want the appearance of a community to reflect the
personality of the community," said Lt. Tony Ward, head of the
Portland Police Department's community affairs team. Graffiti tends to
spread, and gives a sense of disorder and lawlessness, he said. People who spray their tag onto buildings have been caught and
convicted in the past, and even though the criminal mischief charge may
seem minor, if the damage exceeds $2,000 the crime can be prosecuted as a
felony. "If you deal with it at the initial stages, you confront the
dissolving of a neighborhood," Ward said. Thibodeau believes that to be especially true in a city that works hard
to appeal to tourists. She and others say that for the most part, Portland doesn't have a
serious problem with graffiti. "If the city were overrun with it, it would bother me," said
Kathy Collopy, standing outside 15 Pleasant St. where the landlord has
just applied a fresh coat of cream-colored paint to cover a hastily
sprayed word. The simple printed letters, which also appeared on other
nearby walls, seem pointless to her. "If you're going to do it, you should do it creatively,"
Collopy said. The city avoids the serious graffiti problems of other urban areas by
moving quickly to keep the problem in check, Fortier said. "Graffiti that's not removed invites further disorder. It just
sends a message of chaos and disorder," he said. "If we decided
one day we did not have the commitment or resources to continue, it would
be a problem." Gazing at the city's Civil War monument, illuminated by a crisp morning
sun, Thibodeau was puzzled by the latest batch of graffiti the word
"fnord" spray-painted in quick, simple lines. She figured it
might be a nonsense word like some of the others that have appeared. It may well be, though the word does have a literary connection.
According to free-definition.com, "fnord" was initially used as
a nonsense word in the book Principia Discordia. It was later adapted in a
book about a global conspiracy in which the word had a subliminal,
hypnotic effect on readers, giving them a feeling of uneasiness and
confusion though they could not consciously see it. Most people probably have no clue about the reference, but seeing it
clearly does provoke unease. Sean Hamel, 53, likes the mural-like graffiti that decorates sanctioned
walls like the back wall of the Asylum nightclub. Graffiti where it
shouldn't be is bothersome. "It's disrespectful and disgraceful if you ask me . . .
on a monument especially. It just ain't right," Hamel said. Some of the city's more industrious taggers have sought ways to get
more and longer-lasting exposure by spraying their calling card high on
the walls of multistory buildings. "You look around and we really have done a good job of eradicating
a good amount of it," Kane said. "What we've done is driven them
to the rooftops because it's a little harder and more expensive to get rid
of that." That can pose problems for the taggers, too. Fortier notes that an
elderly man spotted a group painting high on a Congress Street building
wall on a recent evening. After upbraiding them for their mischief, he
followed up by taking their ladder. |