On Peace & Anarchy

[Originally posted April 15, 2009 on Wanderlust @ Blogger.com]

Yesterday, on my exhausted journey back from a multi-hour session of job apps at Leon, I passed by an utterly confusing and, actually, typical representation of life in the City. Two buildings, abutting each other as if they had always been like that, represented time periods of at least 100 years difference. In the top windows of the older one there were two conflicting statements – “No War” in one window, written in red paint, and the anarchy symbol in the same paint in its partner window. At first I just thought of the contradicting nature of these two messages, obviously meant to be a public statement of the “artist’s” views.
Then I looked at the building next door. Probably built within the last ten years, it boasted green-tinted glass and an imposing, yet beautiful, modern exterior. The artist’s building was solidly white, with a touch of 1900-esque exterior decoration in wreaths and busts of anonymous ladies. I began to think of the contradictory themese of the peace vs. anarchy message and the seeming contradictions between the two architectural styles.
But was it such a contradiction? It has come to be, in my mind, part of what makes the City what it is – a hodge podge of styles: fashion, art, architecture, religious, etc. Perhaps we might not ever have “anarchy” at once with “peace”, but props for proposing the possibility, anonymous artist.