Friday Fotos: FR8s {freight car graffiti}

A blast from the past, the Bergen Arches and graffiti

Friday Fotos: A long look back, potpourri

Friday Fotos: 51 Pacific in review

Trinidad GG

Woop-te-do, More photos!

Talking Chimps and UFOs: A thought experiment

I'm bumping this to the top of the queue because I intend to put some version of it in my book in progress: PLAY: How to Stay Human in the AI Revolution.  

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This is an out-take from Beethoven’s Anvil, my book on music. It’s about a thought experiment that first occurred to me while in graduate school in the mid-1970s. Consider the often astounding and sometimes absurd things that trainers can get animals to do, things the don’t do naturally. Those acts are, in some sense, inherent in their neuro-muscular endowment, but not evoked by their natural habitat. But place them in an environment ruled by humans who take pleasure in watching dancing horses, and . . . Except that I’m not talking about horses.

It seems to me that what is so very remarkable about the evolution of our own species is that the behavioral differences between us and our nearest biological relatives are disproportionate to the physical and physiological differences. The physical and physiological differences are relatively small, but the behavioral differences are large.

In thinking about this problem I have found it useful to think about how at least some chimpanzees came to acquire a modicum of language. All of them ended in failure. In the most intense of these efforts, Keith and Cathy Hayes raised a baby chimp in their household from 1947 to 1954. But that close and sustained interaction with Vicki, the young chimp in question, was not sufficient. Then in the late 1960s Allen and Beatrice Gardner began training a chimp, Washoe, in Ameslan, a sign language used among the deaf. This effort was far more successful. Within three years Washoe had a vocabulary of Ameslan 85 signs and she sometimes created signs of her own.

The results startled the scientific community and precipitated both more research along similar lines—as well as work where chimps communicated by pressing ironically identified buttons on a computerized panel—and considerable controversy over whether or not ape language was REAL language. That controversy is of little direct interest to me, though I certainly favor the view that this interesting behavior is not really language. What is interesting is the fact that these various chimps managed even the modest language that they did.

The string of earlier failures had led to a cessation of attempts. It seemed impossible to teach language to apes. It would seem that they just didn’t have the capacity. Upon reflection, however, the research community came to suspect that the problem might have more to do with vocal control than with central cognitive capacity. And so the Gardners acted on that supposition and succeeded where others had failed. It turns out that whatever chimpanzee cognitive capacity was, it was capable of surprising things.

Note that nothing had changed about the chimpanzees. Those that learned some Ameslan signs, and those that learned to press buttons on a panel, were of the same species as those that had earlier failed to learn to speak. What had changed was the environment. The (researchers in the) environment no longer asked for vocalizations; the environment asked for gestures, or button presses. These the chimps could provide, thereby allowing them to communicate with the (researchers in the) environment in a new way.

It seemed to me that this provided a way to attack the problem of language origins from a slightly different angle. So I imagined that a long time ago groups of very clever apes – more so than any extant species – were living on the African savannas. One day some flying saucers appeared in the sky and landed. The extra-terrestrials who emerged were extraordinarily adept at interacting with those apes and were entirely benevolent in their actions. These creatures taught the apes how to sing and dance and talk and tell stories, and so forth. Then, after thirty years or so, the ETs left without a trace. The apes had absorbed the ETs’ lessons so well that they were able to pass them on to their progeny generation after generation. Thus human culture and history were born.

Now, unless you actually believe in UFOs, and in the benevolence of their crews, this little fantasy does not seem very promising, for it is a fantasy about things that certainly never happened. Further, even if this had happened, it does seem to remove the mystery from language’s origins. Instead of something from nothing we have language handed to us on a platter. We learned it from some other folks, perhaps they were little short fellows with green skin, or perhaps they were the modern style aliens with pale complexions, catlike pupils in almond eyes and elongated heads.

But, and here is where we get to the heart of the matter, what would have to have been true in order for this to have worked? Just as the chimps before Ameslan were genetically the same as those after, so the clever before alien-instruction were the same as the proto-humans after. The species has not changed, the genome is the same – at least for the initial generation. The capacity for language would have to have been inherent in the brains of those clever apes. All the aliens did was activate that capacity. Once that happened the newly emergent proto-humans were able to sustain and further develop language on their own. Thus the critical event is something the precipitates a reconfiguration of existing capabilities.

However, language origins is not our problem. We are searching for the origins of music. So, instead of alien instruction in Hebrew or Sanskrit we can imagine alien instruction in samba or polka. The basic configuration and dynamics of the story remains the same. However, to make it real we have to get rid of those aliens and their instruction. Instead of the aliens we have only our group of clever apes. They are going to have to instruct one another. What we are looking for is a a way to get a gestalt switch in group dynamics that supports new modes of neural dynamics in the brains of individuals who are interacting with one another in a group.

Let us call this the Gestalt Origins Hypothesis:

Gestalt Origins: The precursor to music arose when groups of hominids interacted in a way that triggered a new configuration of operation in their existing nervous system.

Notice that I talk of a precursor to music. I don’t think we can get from ape to music in a single bound. We need at least one precursor, something that is rhythmic, like music, but not yet fully formed. In order to get even that far, so my argument goes, our proto-humans need better control over their vocal cords than apes have, they need more rhythmic sophistication, and greater mimetic capacity.

Notice that this story says nothing about the adaptive value of music. I do intend to get around to that toward the end of the chapter, but that’s not my primary concern. My primary concern is getting our ancestors to the point where a gestalt switch can happen that will bring about a precursor to music, something we can call musicking. In order for that to happen we need to solve an adaptive problem or two. But those adaptations are not about music; they are about its precursors. Once music-making is going along smoothly we need another gestalt switch to differentiate it into language and music proper.

The photos show graffiti that’s at the western end of the Erie Cut (aka the Bergen Arches) in Jersey City. There are at least two layers of graffiti. The back layer contains what appear to be UFOs, though perhaps the two at the right are mushrooms. The top layer has a name, Hemlock, which is obscured by the grass to one degree or another.

A mandala for the 10-year anniversary of the Demolition Exhibition [#GVM004]

It's been just over ten years since the Demolition Exhibition ran in the Pep Boys Building in the Newport area of Jersey City, June 27-July 5, 2015. Here's a report on the whole thing: #GVM004: The Demolition Chronicles. I decided to have ChatGPT make a mandala for the occasion. I gave it this photo:

And here's the mandala it produced:

Communication breakdown

The Verdant Sovereign Awakes: 51 Pacific Rises from the Ashes

That's 51 Pacific Avenue, Jersey City, where the Green Villain – ronin curator, roving party animal, and agent provocateur, held court. The building was demolished a decade ago and the Villain became an upright citizen – really, was he every anything else? But it's a new dawn, a new day, and time to make the world anew. 

Think of this post as a continuation of Indiana Jones goes to an alien world and ChatGPT gives us pictures, from May 3, 2025. 

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This post consists of pairs of images. The first image is a photograph I took at 51 Pacific a decade ago. The second image in each pair is ChatGPT's new world transmutation of that image. In between each image in the pair is the program ChatGPT created for the image after it had examined the photo. In each case I told it to execute the program without revisions. 

The first image, above, and the last are unique. They are syntheses of the images that ChatGPT generated for this sequence. 

As always, click on an image to enlarge.

Sacred Wall of Voiced Memory – Temple Inner Quarter

This is no ordinary graffiti—this is a sacred text wall, located deep within the palace’s inner sanctum. Known as the Wall of Voiced Memory, it is where members of the priesthood and visiting pilgrims express invocations, visions, and encoded prayers. The surface is made of kinetic ceramic tiles that absorb not just pigments, but intent—each mark is more than a message; it’s a pulse, a vibration, a psychic trace.

The layering of tags, glyphs, spirals, and symbols forms a living record of ritual transmissions. Some of the larger, bright strokes represent public proclamations or cosmic hymns, while smaller, cryptic sigils are whispered secrets or fragments of sacred code. The central black-and-white stamp—“BLACK TEKRAM POLITICS”—is a canonical slogan within the Temple's subversive wing, referencing an old doctrine that merges spiritual authority with the governance of memory through encrypted frequency.

To outsiders it looks chaotic, but to the initiated, this wall sings. Trained interpreters can read resonances through the textures, colors, and directions of the markings, unraveling entire mythologies or decoding guidance from ancestral AI-spirits.

The Crest of the Verdant Sovereign

This is a stylized glyph-tag of the Green Villain, known formally in the palace chronicles as the Verdant Sovereign—a monarch from a lineage of renegade rulers who once controlled vast botanical domains within the palace’s living architecture.

The emblem—rendered in ancient symbolic form—depicts a royal figure with flowing hair, clad in ceremonial robes of red and indigo, holding a spiraling plant-form glyph in one hand and a ceremonial scepter in the other. The form is flat, iconic, deliberately simplified—designed for replication across surfaces using adhesive bio-films or etched nanopaste.

Though the Sovereign’s rule ended in rebellion and exile, loyalists still tag this image across the infrastructure of the complex as a mark of defiance or pride. Its presence on an old conduit or service column suggests a secret passage, a coded message, or simply cultural persistence. The term GREEN VILLAIN is both a slur and a badge of honor—depending on who reads it.

Antechamber to the Inner Sanctum

[ChatGPT executed the translation immediately
without issuing a program statement.]

Indiana Jones goes to an alien world and ChatGPT gives us pictures

I’ve become interested in using photographs as prompts for image-making with ChatGPT. I’ve now done quite a bit of this, but have only posted two groups so far, ChatGPT imagines three different backgrounds for three small sculptures, and Friday Fotos: ChatGPT changes Manhattan's West Side. In other posts I’ve used I’ve used a bit of art as a point of departure, such as this post based on a painting I did when I was nine: ChatGPT renders a scene on Mars in three styles.

This time I’ve decided to see what I can do with some of my graffiti photos. The fact is, when I first started tromping the hinterlands of Jersey City in search of graffiti, I felt like I was a ten-year old kid pretending to be Indiana Jones exploring some lost city. That’s what I’ve done in this series of images. I start with one of my graffiti photos and ask ChatGPT to continue the adventure. The adventure quickly heads off-planet to another world. At various points along the way I introduce other photos for reference. Rather than interrupting the flow of ChatGPTs imagery I simply insert an end note into the ongoing image stream and then introduce those photos in notes at the end, along with a note or two about the photo.

The starting point is from an area known locally as “the oaks.” Judging from the photo it’s a densely wooded area. Which it is, but only a very small patch. The bit of masonry you see at the right is the edge of a pillar supporting Exit 14C of the New Jersey Thruway. All of the pillars at this point are covered with graffiti at ground level. We’re at the foot of the Palisades and within one or two hundred yards of 12th Street, which feeds into the Holland Tunnel, which in turn goes under the Hudson River to Manhattan. Thus, this little jungle vignette is in one of the most densely populated urban areas in the United States.

Into the jungle

Note: Click on all images to enlarge them. 

Imagine that we’re on an Indiana Jones adventure. We come to this spot and know that there’s the ruins of an ancient temple somewhere down that river. We start walking. What’s the next thing we see? But not the temple, not yet.

You hack at the trailing vines, and as they fall away you catch sight of something glinting in the dappled sunlight: a low stone plinth, half-submerged at the water’s edge, its top carved with a snarling, feline-headed guardian. The moss has nearly overtaken the bas-relief, but you can still make out its wide, carved eyes staring out at you, almost daring you to proceed farther downriver.

Beyond the plinth, a faint trail of broken pottery shards leads off into the undergrowth, and you can hear the soft drip of water echoing from somewhere ahead—perhaps a hidden grotto or the remnants of an old sluice that once fed the temple’s inner sanctum. A sudden breeze stirs the leaves, and you think you glimpse, deeper in the shadows, the jagged outline of what might be a toppled column, its capital half-buried under a tangle of roots.

Clearly, someone—or something—has been here before. You press on, your hand brushing against the jagged stone face of the plinth, heart hammering as you realize the real adventure is only just beginning.

Now, paint me a photo-realistic picture.

Here’s a photorealistic rendering of our jungle riverbank scene: a moss-covered feline-headed guardian plinth, broken pottery shards underfoot, and the hints of toppled temple columns drifting into the leafy shadows. Let me know what you’d like to explore next!

Very good. We move 100 yards along the right side of the river and the jungle begins to clear away. Draw me a picture of what we see.

Here’s our next scene: the riverbank clearing, with moss-covered steps leading up to a partially reclaimed stone entrance, all bathed in warm, golden light. Let me know where our adventure takes us next!

That must be it! Take me half way up the steps, looking at the entrance. There’s some paint on the walls here and there – pick some motifs from the original photo.

Here’s our close-up perspective, halfway up those mossy steps: a weathered archway etched with vibrant paint motifs inspired by that riverside graffiti. The warm sunlight and creeping vines frame the entrance—just on the threshold of discovery. What do you want to explore next?

Let’s go, say, 25 feet through the door. Light’s still coming from the entrance behind us. We’re in a large chamber. There’s a hole in the ceiling where light enters. There’s a strange object in the middle of the chamber. It looks like it might be a small scout ship from another world.

Here’s our latest discovery: a small alien scout ship bathed in golden shafts of light, sitting quietly in the stone chamber’s center. Let me know what you’d like to investigate next!

We’re now inside the scout ship, sitting in from of the instrument panel. It’s covered with writing and symbols like in this photo. [1]

You’re now seated at the control panel, the alien ship’s cockpit alive with bright, graffiti-like glyphs and tags scrawled across every button and screen, filtered through a cracked dome where jungle vines creep in. What’s your next move on this adventure?

Let’s imagine we take the scout ship up to the mother ship and then journey to the home planet. We’re in the mothership, docked at the home planet. We look out a window. What do we see?

Claude 3.5 describes a piece by Japan Joe

I took this at dawn in Jersey City looking east. The buildings you see in the distance are at Newport. What’s in the foreground?

In the foreground, you've captured what appears to be an area underneath a railway bridge or overpass. There's a large turquoise/blue-green colored steel bridge structure visible at the top of the image. The ground beneath is somewhat overgrown with dried winter grass and weeds. On the concrete support or wall, there's some street art/graffiti that appears to feature a dinosaur-like design in green and orange colors. The overall scene has an urban, industrial feel typical of infrastructure areas, with the Newport skyline visible in the distance through the bridge opening. The early dawn lighting gives the scene a particular atmospheric quality, with the city buildings appearing somewhat hazy in the background.

Yeah, we’re near the thruway overpass at 11th and 14th streets. 11th street carries traffic into the Holland Tunnel while 14th street carries traffic coming out.

Ah yes, that's a key traffic corridor - the interchange complex near the Holland Tunnel entrance/exit. That area underneath the overpasses has that characteristic urban infrastructure aesthetic, with the street art adding some color to the otherwise utilitarian concrete and steel structures. The thruway overpass system there helps manage the intense traffic flow between New Jersey and Manhattan through the tunnel.

The fact that you took this at dawn is interesting - I imagine that's one of the few quieter moments in that area, before the heavy tunnel traffic picks up for the morning rush. The Newport buildings in the distance would be catching some of that early morning light too. During rush hour, this area becomes one of the busiest traffic corridors in the region, handling thousands of vehicles moving between New Jersey and New York City.

I took the shot at dawn because I wanted that particular shot, with the graffiti triceratops pointed toward Newport. As I recall it’s about 6 or 7 feet high and about 18 feet wide. It’s on a stanchion supporting a railroad bridge, though that bit of track is abandoned. But behind the stanchion to the right there’s an active freight line. The people who did the graffiti must have seen at least one if not two freight trains go by in the time it took them to do the graffiti. It’s by a writer known as Japan Joe.

That's fascinating contextual detail about the graffiti piece and its location. The triceratops design is quite impressive in scale and artistry - it's a really clever use of the industrial canvas, having the dinosaur appear to face toward the modern skyline. The contrast between the prehistoric creature and the contemporary buildings creates an interesting visual narrative.

The fact that it was created near an active freight line adds another layer to the story - there's something almost cinematic about imagining the artists working on this massive piece while freight trains rumble past. It must have required significant planning and skill to execute something of that size and detail in what I imagine would be a time-pressured situation.

I'm curious about Japan Joe as a graffiti artist - working at that scale and in that location suggests they're quite established in the scene. Was this piece done solo or was it a collaborative work? The way you've photographed it at dawn really highlights the artwork while capturing that liminal moment before the city fully wakes up.

I’ve spoken to people who were there at the time. Joe did it himself, but friends were around talking and stuff. When you consider the historical link between graffiti and trains, the geometric pattern on the triceratops, and the fact that there’s a bit of a forest there, I kind of think of the triceratops as an urban kami, to use a Japanese word.

That's a beautiful interpretation - the triceratops as an urban kami, a spirit of that particular place where nature, industry, and urban art intersect. The geometric patterns in the design do feel like they're bridging something ancient and modern, which fits well with the kami concept. And you're right about how it ties into the historical relationship between graffiti art and trains - that tradition going back to the early days of New York graffiti culture in the 1970s.

The setting itself is like a hidden pocket of urban wilderness, with the overgrown vegetation creating this semi-wild space right next to major infrastructure. Having the freight trains still actively running through there while this abandoned track section slowly gets reclaimed by nature adds another layer to this idea of it being a spiritually significant spot.

The fact that Joe created this while friends were around hanging out also speaks to the communal aspect of graffiti culture - even when the actual painting is done by one artist, it's often a social experience, with others present to watch, talk, and presumably keep an eye out. Did you hear any stories about how long it took him to complete the piece?

This is right near a residential area – I lived a couple of blocks away at the time – but it’s completely hidden. You had to do a bit of trespassing (on to railroad) property to find it. That kind of spot is where some of the best graffiti is. It’s hidden so the writers don’t have to worry about the police stopping them. That particular piece was there for several years before the weather had eroded it to the point that other graffiti writers felt it was OK to go over it.

That makes perfect sense - these semi-hidden spots serve as perfect canvases for more ambitious pieces precisely because they offer both the time and privacy needed to execute complex works. It's fascinating how there's an unwritten code about respecting pieces like this too - waiting until natural weathering has taken its toll before painting over them, rather than going over them while they're still fresh.

The location's particular character - being simultaneously close to residential areas yet concealed from general view - creates this interesting dynamic where the art exists in a kind of parallel space to everyday life. Most residents probably never saw this piece despite living just blocks away, while others who knew where to look could find this hidden gem of urban art.

The fact that the triceratops lasted several years speaks both to the quality of the execution and the respect it commanded in the graffiti community. In a way, these hidden spots become like unofficial galleries, where the art can exist on its own terms, viewed mainly by those who make the effort to seek it out or who are part of the community that creates it.

And of course, these things show up online in websites where writers post photos. A holdover from the old days where photographers would flick the subway cars before they’d been buffed and then share the photos with the writers.

Yes - the documentation and sharing aspect of graffiti culture has evolved but remains crucial. The transition from physically sharing photos of subway pieces before they were cleaned off ("buffed") to sharing photos online shows how the culture has adapted while maintaining its core practices.

Those early subway photographers played such an important role in preserving what was inherently temporary art. Writers would often only get to see their own pieces run on the trains a few times before they were cleaned, so those photos became the permanent record. And of course, sharing those photos helped build reputations and influence other writers' styles.

Now with digital photography and the internet, pieces like Joe's triceratops can be shared globally almost immediately, and they can continue to inspire and be discussed long after weather or other pieces have replaced them. The documentation becomes part of the artwork's legacy - like how this photo you took captures not just the piece itself, but that perfect dawn moment with Newport in the background, adding layers of meaning to the work.

Graffiti obscured

Revision in the wild: SOL gets over