Neighborhood Focus: The Trunnion District

Well, I get a lot of press releases faxed here, and sometimes there's some pretty interesting stuff. Take this, for example: something called Urban Beat magazine named the Trunnion District in Kendall Park the "most quickly gentrifying neighborhood in America" this month. Sherman used to do a thing called "Neighborhood Focus," so I guess I'll format this thing like one of those.

The Trunnion District, at its height in the 1870s, produced more trunnions then any city in the United States. Trunnions are critical to the manufacture of heavy artillery cannons, and no one made finer trunnions than our local companies -- United Trunnion, American Trunnion Works, Mishipeshu Trunnions. I remember it pretty well. My grandfather on my mother's side was trunnionsmith, a big, brooding Irishman. He hated trunnions to his dying day, but he used to say that trunnions kept his 27 children fed and clothed. "Charlie," he used to say, "I have dreams about feckin' trunnions every night. But those trunnions are what made us a family. Trunnions are what made this city great."

Anyway, the trunnion business fell on hard times after the Spanish-American War, and eventually, all the trunnion plants closed, leaving only the Mishie Trunnion Foundry by 1920. They hung on through the fallow trunnion years of post-cannon warfare by landing an exclusive contract with the Principality of Pinerolo, manufacturing the trunnions used for that city-state's elaborate bi-annual ceremonial battlefield drilling re-enactments, and occasionally landing lucrative one-off contracts with eccentric billionaires, historic arms dealers, artisanal artillery buffs, LARPers, producers for medium-budget BBC costume dramas, and miscelleaneous cannon perverts. The Pinerolo contract expired in 2003, and two years later, the plant was shuttered and its nineteen employees were laid off.


Mishipeshu Trunnion Foundry, 1856-2005

By 2006, the area was an urban wasteland, beset by arson, homicides and gang wars. Between 2005 and 2006, the Mishipeshu Police Department reported that violent crime in the precinct had skyrocketed 300%. The area was generally considered off-limits for residents of the city, and for several months in 2006 acquired the inelegant and stupid nickname the "Runnin' [From Gunshots] District." There was an influx of dozens of poverty-stricken native Esperanto speakers from the nearby Esperanto District, mostly separatists whose embrace of the Ido constructed language had lost them their jobs and homes in the more prosperous sections of Kendall Park. Average household income for the Trunnion District, a once fairly propserous working-class area, sunk below $9,000. The area continued to decay into 2007.


The corner of North 18th Avenue and East Wilson Street, March 2006.

Stories of cheap warehouse space, delicious ethnic Esperantan food, lax noise ordinance law enforcement and gorgeous brownstone Victorian architecture began to bring in a few dozen rock bands, artists, monogmaous gay couples, scooter enthusiasts and bohemians into the neighborhood in early 2007. Local zines and alternative media outlets began to declare the Trunnion District the "new Cassock District." By the end of 2007, a thriving new art and rock scene had sprung up along Wilson Avenue, much to the dismay of more conservative Esperantans and trunnionsmiths.


Free-Press noise-rock darlings Frost Creep at STORE, their rehearsal space/art gallery in the old Steve's World of Store Fixtures at 1800 East Wilson Street, April 2007.

"The Trunnion District, once known for something called 'trunnions' and then briefly for poverty and crime and now apparently for exciting new developments in twee-revival rock music and time-based media art is also now apparently the hottest new thing in upscale urban living!" crowed the Mishipeshu Herald-Tribune in a Lifestyles section editoral from early 2008. By early this year, construction had already begun on three new loft-style condo developments, a MINI Cooper dealership, two Starbucks coffee franchises and a Sonoma-Williams outlet.

The new Cannon Flats Lofts, set to open in July. The old Steve's World of Store Fixtures / STORE Gallery now houses a Mini Cooper dealership.

Urban Beat notes that this is an almost unprecendented opportunity for at least four generations of neighborhood residents to interact simultaneously. And believe me, they do, too. I get complaints from this neighborhood about everyone. I get probably a dozen variations on the "Those trunnionmakers/poor people/gay rock bands/condo developing yuppies are screwing this neighborhood up" email per week. "That this entire cycle could happen in the space of three years is nothing short of remarkable," says the magazine. I guess we'll take accolades where we can get 'em.

Fall arts and culture round-up: visual arts preview!

Armitage Heights Center for Contemporary Art: MySpace Facebook Guantanamo: New Work by Hanson Freeman Carney

Mishipeshu Institute of Art: Arbus /Frazetta (October 20, 2007 - March 3, 2008) .

Stanton Avenue Arts: Maeda Bedosky: New Paintings on Corporate Letterhead (November 3, 2007 - February 2, 2008) .

Hanley Contemporary: Mas Feces (November 7, 2007 - December 19, 2007).

5299 Space: Building Code Violations (October 12, 2007 - ongoing) (note: the 5299 Space remains closed for building code violations)

Little Wilmington Arts Center: New Botanical Watercolors by George Thorogood and the Destroyers (October 18, 2007 - January 24, 2008) [pictured above]; Cambridge x Dover x Chincoteague: Six New Delmarva Artists (November 11, 2007-January 3, 2008).

Baby Dolls Heads: New Baby Doll Head Collages by Suzanne S. Carmichael (November 14, 2007 - December 2, 2007).

Man Vs. God Vs. Starwood Hotels: Why I'm Voting "No."

Man Vs. God Memorial Park -- in development plans, this portion would be incorporated into the pillars for the interior for a Wolfgang Puck restaurant.

When I came into the office this morning, there was much to be done. My assistant Marisha was already hard at work typing up the minutes from my meeting with the Esperanto District Retailers' Council (a.k.a. the Konsilantaro Detalisto Esperanto) from yesterday, which is never easy work, since Chairman Weaver still insists on delivering his remarks in Esperanto, and the city won't pay for Marisha to take lessons, so she has to transcribe the meeting phonetically, and then attempt to translate her notes back into English. There was an update from the Metro Council 3rd Ward Porter Weiss Memorial Novelist Laureate Search Task Force, which is nearing a decision after months of deliberation. There were noise complaints from the residental pockets off Stanton Avenue in the Cassock District near the Lakesider again from the recent "screamo" bill headlined by I Promise To See You Die And I Will show. There was indeed much to tackle.

But I could only think of one thing.

It was a remarkable dream I had last night. Marisha is standing over me begging me not to mention this, but it was too powerful not to share.

This is it: in the dream, I was standing here, in my office, and I hear a knock on the door. I open it, and standing there is ghostly apparitions of two of our neighborhood's greatest statesmen, Councilman Spence Whitmarsh and Senator Fletcher O. Casady! They walked in and had a seat. And before I could say anything, they spoke.

Both were accomplished public speakers while they were alive (1938-1971 and 1861-1934, respectively), and they were both true to form in my dream, speaking with great eloquence. The thing they had on their minds was the proposed destruction of beloved hippie art garden Man Vs. God Memorial Park -- a project which Whitmarsh personally greenlit during his tenure as 3rd Ward councilman.

"We built a lot of beautiful art during my tenure, Sherman," said Councilman Whitmarsh. "And you'd vote to destroy it?"

"Verily!" said Senator Casady. "You would vouchsafe to undertake this detestable deed, Mr. Larson? For shame, for shame! Confound it, Council-man, have you no sense of history?"

Then they both looked at me, and repeated over and over Senator Casady's best-known adage: "A man must will himself to righteousness, and right himself to willfullness!" until I awoke.

And I lay there for a moment, and it occured to me: I must follow the example of these principled leaders. I must will myself to righteousness.

That is why you have my pledge that the city will not sell Man Vs. God to any developers, no matter how generous their offers. Because to me, nothing is more beautiful than Soviet scrap submarine parts forged in the furnaces of our neighborhood's great artists in the 1970s, piled high on a beautiful green parcel of land in the middle of a bustling neighborhood, and given life. There is certainly room in our neighborhood for development and for exciting new projects of all kinds, but let's leave a grand old landmark like Man Vs. God out of it.

Which is why I'm voting "no" on selling the property. Senator Casady would have voted "no," Councilman Whitmarsh would have voted "no," and so will I.

Well, actually, Casady might not have thought Man Vs. God was a bit "queer" (in contemporary parlance), but the point remains. Honestly, I think it's pretty weird and hippie too, but there are certain values that rise above mere taste. This is one of them.

Our vanishing '70s sculpture garden heritage.

I'd just like to take a moment to acknowledge some emails I received lately from several members of the Kendall Park Neighborhood Association. This one, from KPNA interim president Dr. Linda F. Snyder, is very representative:

No one who lived through the councilmanship of Spence Whitmarsh can forget what heady times those were for the sculpture garden scene. There were new ones sprouting up everywhere, and the neighborhood was the better for it. Only a few remain today, and even those are threatened by the forces of greed and "social improvement."

For those of you that are too young to recall, Councilman Spencer J. Whitmarsh (left) represented the 3rd Ward from 1968 until his tragic motorcycle death in 1971. He cut quite legendary figure during that "go-go" period, representing the neighborhood through one of the most tumultuous times in Armitage Heights' long history -- the Esperanto Arondismento Tumulto of '69, the '71 Kitchen Riots, and the sedition trial of Dr. Thomas Jefferson Harding, also in 1971. Controversial journalist and writer Kimball F. Burin was appointed to replace Whitmarsh by then-Mayor Freese.

Perhaps Whitmarsh's most visible legacy, though, was his shepherding through of some of the most revolutionary land-usage acts in the neighborhood's history. Hundreds of sculpture gardens exploded onto the scene, in every conceivable nook and cranny of the neighborhood. My assistant Marisha dug up from the Armitage Heights Historic Society a copy of a 1975 book entitled Sculpture Parks Now!: Your Guide to the Armitage Heights Topiary Art Revolution. The appendix is a list of contemporary sculpture gardens and their locations. Consider these mostly now-defunct sites that comprise the list:

• Giant Earth Robot Meditation Plaza (1970)
• New Atlantis (1972)
• Man Vs. God Memorial Park (1969)
• Good Time Charlie's Sculpturetorium (1973)
• Up With Statues! (1972)
• Spencer Whitmarsh Municipal Art Park (1971)
  
• City Sculpture Yard and Come-Down Tent (1969)
• The People's Revolutionary Three-Dimensionalists Guild (1968)
• The East 33rd Street Urban Boreal Plaza (1975)
• Superlove Legacy Gardens East (1973)
• The Stanton Avenue Olympus (1977)
• Preservation Compound (Mk. I, 1973; Mk. II, 1975)
• Pierce County Hebrew Gardens (1969)
• Urban Lightning Field (1975)

With a few notable exceptions, most of them are now gone. In fact, all that remains now are Man Vs. God Memorial Park and Giant Earth Robot Meditation Plaza (Superlove Legacy Gardens East at Stanton Avenue and 56th Street still exists, but the original design has been incorporated into a Chevy's Fresh Mex restaurant).

Man Vs. God Memorial Park, located on a quarter-acre of land at the corner of Schofield Parkway and Gilpin Avenue, is in particular danger. Built around a towering sculpture created by noted late local artist and Church of Satan high priest Hargrove Forsyth in 1969 at the dawn of the golden era of '70s sculpture gardens, the MvGMP represents -- as only rusted metal forms, ivy, concrete, vintage Soviet submarine salvage parts, and park benches welded to steel can -- the epic struggle between man and god.

It's also standing on a prime piece of real estate right on the edge of the now-trendy Little Wilmington district that developers have offered the city an unspecified amount of money to build a proposed W Man Vs. God Luxury Hotel. If the deal goes through, that leaves only Giant Earth Robot Meditation Plaza as the sole reminder of a once-swingin' sculpture garden scene. A shame that would be, too, because Giant Earth Robot is an eyesore that I would much rather see torn down than the relatively charming weirdness of Man Vs. God.

Please continue to write both myself and Mayor Underdahl if you'd like to see our neighborhood's vanishing sculpture garden heritage be preserved. You can also direct correspondence to the Armitage Heights Historic Preservation Council, the Man Vs. God Defense Fund, or to Dr. Synder at the Kendall Park Neighborhood Association.

For more reading on this fascinating topic, I recommend Ecce Hoedown: The Armitage Heights Sculpture Explosion, by Frank Carney-Nentzl, Half-Welded to a Dream, by Groff Schwenson, or Cast in Pain: An Uncensored Look at the Armitage Heights Sculpture Garden Wars, by Dr. Connoly Boatman.

Why I voted against the Johannsen Memorial.

The proposed Marla Manda Johanssen Memorial that would replace the statue of Senator Fletcher O. Casady in Armitage Square.

I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the high volume of emails I've received regarding my vote in the City Council on Monday against allowing the construction of the proposed Marla Manda Johannsen Memorial statue -- you can read the meeting minutes from the City Council website here, or a summary on the Herald-Journal's website here.

There is no doubt that Ms. Johannsen was a beloved figure by many in the neighborhood, particularly in Armitage Hill and Wihinapa. There is no doubt that her death last month was tragic. However, there is also no doubt that there are better ways to honor her memory than by tearing down a statue of one of this city's most beloved statesman, Senator Fletcher O. Casady, and putting in its place a gruesome, offensive eyesore of the sort that has been proposed.

I mean, goodness, it's a 15-foot handgun. In the middle of the city. We certainly have some nonsensical public art around the neighborhood (the 1890s-era Municipal Virginity Obelisk in Kendall Park springs to mind), but to put a giant metal weapon in the middle of the square where you may recall hearing some shots going off not less than six months ago -- and on a spot where Ms. Johannsen was actually arrested for firing handguns in the air -- is so distasteful it boggles the mind. I don't care if it's what Ms. Johannsen "would have wanted." Ms. Johanssen also, bear in mind, went on the public record as also wanting to have me deported to East Germany, re-name Hanley "Reaganonia," and abolish Labor Day because it was "a pinko faggot holiday." And yet, we did none of those things.

I am very sorry for what happened to Ms. Johannsen. I think the the churches, civic organizations and gun clubs in this neighborhood that she so loved could absolutely bind together to raise the funds for a private memorial. But to send me nasty emails declaiming me as a "fellow-travelling crypto-Trotskyite" because I don't think it's right to use public funds to remove a statue of a progressive and beloved local icon like Senator Casady (pictured to the left in 1910) and replace it with an oversized weapon is just ridiculous. I don't think a "blog" like this is any place for engaging in dirty partisan politics, and I hate to make such sweeping statements like these that will no doubt anger many of you, but to quote Senator Casady himself, "A man must will himself to righteousness, and right himself, indeed, to willfulness." Well said, indeed, Senator. This is a time for making a stand for what's right. And that is why you have elected me to this office -- to will myself to righteousness, and right myself to willfulness. That is precisely what I have done.

On a related note: the Johannsen debate didn't dominate the entire City Council meeting. We also voted on a number of other critical issues, including securing funding for the new overflow parking annex for the Office Depot Arena on Armitage Avenue; a motion recognizing local musician Billy Draeger of the "indie-rock" band the October Revolutionists for "contributing to the artistic well-being of the city" and nominating him for a Mayor Lester F. Grunwald Memorial Award for Excellence in June; a motion commissioning a study on the effectiveness of utilizing mineral water feeding stations for pigeons to attempt to cut down on the relative messiness of their solid waste; and a motion to adjourn early in recognition of the British holiday of St. George's Day, and the great contributions of British-Americans in the history of the city.

Kaos Krew: kopykat krimes?

With the warmer weather in recent weeks, there has been a spate of graffiti-related crimes, such as the above defacing of the old Armitage Amalgamated Gravy Distillery complex in Kendall Park. Be on the lookout for suspicious activity in the area, and don't hesitate to report your findings to the metro tipline at (436) BE-A-HERO (232-4376).

The above graffiti is troubling for a number of reasons -- how could the Kaos Krew be commiting new acts of vandalism when it is a well-known fact that they are staying abroad in the U.K. for an indefinite period of time, enjoying their shameful "high art" popularity? That's a question the Krew themselves are apparently asking. Seem as if they're not too busy with jet-setting to keep up with the news in their hometown, since we received this anonymous email Saturday:

We understand that there have been a lot of tagging around town by dudes claiming to be the Kaos Krew, and we just want say: NOT TRUE. We, the Kaos Krew, are no longer interested in tagging and lo-fi street art. Our interests now lie in directing music videos, site-specific installation art, and fashion design -- we don't tag buildings anymore, especially gorgeous old brick facades like the Amalgamated Distillery. We love that building, and it's the sort of classic deco architecture we really miss seeing over here in England. Judging from the photos we've seen, this new work is crude and artless, without the sort of irony, humor and skill that people expect from the Krew. We denounce these criminal acts completely.

The email was also signed by Matthew Barney, Bjork, Stella McCartney, Charles Saatchi, Yasmine Le Bon, Goldie, Dr. Alex Patterson of the Orb, and somebody named "Tricky."

Well, what a turn-about! The sentiments of the Krew are appreciated (and I say that with a touch of sarcasm), but that doesn't change the fact that we are still working to extradite them for their misdeamenor crimes. That said, the email is correct, to a point: these new "Kaos Krew" taggings bear not a trace of the gutter wit and cleverness that made the original Kaos Krew graffiti so beloved in certain misguided circles.

So if you have any information on of any of these so-called "kopykat krimes," I would urge you to report them. We can't let our beautiful neighborhood be continually defaced by punks cruising on the accomplishments of one high-profile group of celebrity vandals.

Additionally, my assistant Marisha tells me that the new video the Kaos Krew have made for UK pop sensation M.I.A. is up on YouTube now. You can see it here.

New "fashion stars"? An outrage.

Well, my assistant Marisha recently brought an interesting media item to my attention, and I can't say I'm very pleased about it. It seems as if our very own Armitage Heights Kaos Krew has made quite a splash in England following their contemptible, illegal art show in London last January, and have had a full ten-page spread devoted to them in this month's issue of the British fashion magazine ON, along with ridiculous photos of the sort pictured above, and fawning text describing their "clear-eyed vision for an exciting new direction in street art." The article even mentions that they have been tapped to collaboratively direct a music video for ex-Blur frontman Damon Albarn and UK hip-hop star Lady Sovereign, both of whom are said to be "massive fans" of their work!

May I just remind everyone that these "artists" were six months ago a bunch of punks running around Kendall Park "tagging" garages? This is an absolute outrage!

Of course, this ironically may be the beginning of the end for these hoodlums. The article finally lists their identities as 2Shy, Li'l Warsaw and Docta Sabotage. These pseudonyms may not help us in revealing their heretofore-unknown identities, but the picture above is the first printed photo of the gang -- and that we can use to identify them! In fact, the hoodlum standing on on the left in the shot, "2Shy," has been positively identified by Principal Barbara Dunlap of St. Rumwald Academy as 21-year old former student Scott Munsch of Wihinapa, pictured at left in his 2002 yearbook photograph. The identity of the other two are not known as of yet, but rest assured that we will find out who they are, track them down, and bring them home to face the consequences of their destructive hacking, marquee-defacing and dangerous hijinks. In the meantime, we can only prevail to the good people of the United Kingdom to end their infatuation with these thuggish young men.

In the meantime, if you'd like to be further outraged, you can read additional news items about the Kaos Krew's glowing reviews in the British art press, the rumours that the Krew has been invited to curate next year's All Tomorrow's Parties music festival in London, and sordid tales of their debaucherous stay across the pond, hanging around models and British jungle DJs.

If you'd prefer to do something constructive, though, send an email to the British Fashion Council and demand they stop coddling criminals! You can reach them by email at uk.press@londonfashionweek.co.uk.

Winter Parade trial: acquittals for all.

Yesterday, Judge Martin F. Pickert of Pierce County Superior Court ruled to acquit the entire slate of defendants related to the December Winter Parade disturbances, a number that included outspoken handgun activist Marla Manda Johannsen, "...From My Cold Dead Hands" television program host and right-wing radio program panelist Hal Halloran (pictured with his attorney on the left), unlicensed non-Muslim cleric the Ayatollah Martin Wisniewski, and award-winning, frequently nude performance artist Jennifer #4720331. (Of course, radical urban guerilla and Viet Cong terrorist Dr. Thomas Jefferson Harding remains at large for the time being, and the Mishipeshu Delta Tau Kappa fraternity and men's varsity squash team members Mike "Da Chugster" Carson, Mike "Bro Hammer" Schultz, Ian "E-Dawg" Reese and Mike "Boner" Osborne were acquitted in January).

I'd like to say that while I am very disappointed in the ruling, I believe it is in the best interest of the community to put this awful chapter behind us.

All the defendants held press conferences afterwards to state to reporters their future plans. In the interest of public dialogue, I will list them here, though I would like to state that I do not approve in any way of any of this:

• Johannsen will have a letter to the editor published in the Herald-Leader later this week and claims she plans to travel to Vietnam with a small group of friends to bring Dr. Harding to justice personally using, in her own words "any necessary force."



• Halloran plans to write a book on his experiences entitled Winter Hell, American Justice: My True-Life Adventures In Fighting The Left-Wing Anti-Christian Armitage Heights Soviet And Their Attempts To Silence My American Message Of Liberty, the Right to Bear Arms and the Gospel Of Jesus Christ. Expect to see that at gun shows and late-night informerical later this year
  .



• The unlicensed, non-Muslim cleric the Ayatollah Martin Wisniewski will be the guest preacher at the Kendall Park First Unitarian Church this Sunday.



• Jennifer #4720331 will debut her new performance piece based on her experiences later in March at the Armitage Heights Center for New Media. The piece will be entitled Silent Night Holy Night All Is Calm All Is Bright Round Yon Virgin Mother And Child Holy Infant So Tender and Mild Sleep in Heavenly Peace Sleep in Heavenly Peace. An image from the piece is pictured at right. Infuratingly, she has been invited to perform at the Cow Semen For Gary: New Voices In Contemporary American Urban Street Art show with the Kaos Krew, now showing in London, England.

So that awful event is all behind us now. I'm so glad to know that the best way to get your name known in town is to chase elected officials through the freezing streets of Armitage Square, brandishing a flaming fiberglass candy cane over your head and shouting incoherently.

An absolute outrage.

This week, my assistant Marisha had stumbled across a reference on Wikipedia to the underage band of skateboarding delinquents known as the Armitage Heights Kaos Krew having a show at a contemporary art gallery in London, England. Well, needless to say, I thought it was a joke -- not a funny one, particularly, but a joke nonetheless, since the Kaos Krew have managed to confound the authorities on a number of notable occasions, both in the physical world and in Cyberspace.

I had Marisha look into it, just to be sure. A quick international phone call to London, however, confirmed my worst suspicions: the so-called Kaos Krew are indeed part of a group show in London next month called Cow Semen For Gary: New Voices In Contemporary American Urban Street Art! Not only that, but they are featured in a lengthy profile in Artforum magazine this month! Marisha turned up this quote:

"...this anonymous young American collective have manged to transform the Ritalin and X-Box-inundated interests of their upbringings into something larger more successfully than perhaps any other artists of their generation. They have constructed with the crudest materials and crudest intentions an almost classical pantheon, a thrilling yet ordered worldview equally informed by an insatiable consumer desire and a shapeless, amorphic class rage. They have developed their own completely and uniquely synthesized mythos that runs through their work like a bike messenger weaves in and out of city traffic, referring back to itself and to an imagined outside world, a post-capitalist cosmology complete with Valhallian heroes (themselves) and villains (a small-time local politician with the deliciously square name of Sherman Larson)..."

This is absolutely outrageous!

The so-called Kaos Krew is responsible for a virtually unbroken string of petty vandalism crimes in every one of the eight metro wards, but especially here in the 3rd! They have cost the city thousands and thousands of your tax dollars defacing public property! And this is "art"?

Virtually their only "art" is enormous stenciled drawings on the sides of warehouses of General Alfredo Stroessner and myself throughout Armitage Heights, north Hanley and south Kendall Park. Very similar, in fact, to that dreadful, poorly-executed Photoshop "drawing" which they left on this website after hacking it this month.

Also, let's not forget their ridiculous re-arrangements of words on local business marquees to spell obscene and/or inappropriate phrases. Art? Only after we were able to procure the services of a freelance Scrabble champion were we able to cut down on this criminal mischief.

I fail to see how any of this is "art" worth writing about, particularly in such ridiculous, overheated language.

Listen: I am no "square," nor am I a Philistine. My aunt Helena is on the Board at the Armitage Heights Center for Contemporary Art, so I have an idea what "contemporary art" is all about. I voted, in fact, for the procurement of the funds that enabled us to build such a great facility. So I know art when I see it, and I know a sham when I see it. It's time to put an end to this sort of coddling nonsense that is ruining our neighborhood with ugly, juvenile "art." We are taking steps to apprehend the Kaos Krew before they can travel to London for their tasteless, illegal show. Furthermore, I have sent my my assistant Marisha to the art history and criticism department at the University of Mishipeshu to speak to the most respected professors there to get a second opinion on the Kaos Krew's "work."

So believe you me, this "deliciously square" councilman has got a double vise squeezing in on these delinquents: the long arm of the law on one side, and the similarly long arm of the Armitage Heights art criticism community on the other!