Street art-art of the street
Downtown Cairo is deja vu-especially at night
mud, garbage, loose bricks, sand, cars…always cars….
that feeling anything can happen-
feels like New York City of the 1970s-the period Patty Smith evokes.
you feel rougher edges and a ferment in streets fanning out from Tahrir .
There’s graffiti from the last several years of sporadic uprisings in the streets
and “sleds” like football players use to practice “hitting” wrapped with barbed wire
strewn near busy intersections and sidewalks
They look random like they’re part of a construction site except
this is the constuction -a barbed sometimes physical barrier that doubles as random street art with possible sinister undertones
they’re there-sort of just waiting….in case you need them..for the next time.
but people don’t seem to notice them…they’ve seen it all and will see it again.
We don’t photograph these sculptures…do anything…but note them as we crossed them
Downtown you see tags commemorating dead zealots, themes and fantasies
near the American University, by the Armenian church, under bridges,
on a side street building
The Great God Horus