Thanks to Youtube, we have been fortunate enough to witness “urban happenings” like the Mercury Opera‘s performance in the Edmonton IRT
and thanks to Penny McKinlay we are able to place gifts like this in their larger context.
In her article Random Acts of Urban Playfulness, Ms. McKinlay points us to the Tenderloin National Forest where “Luggage Store Co-Artistic Directors/Artists Darryl Smith and Laurie Lazer of the luggage store have been working to transform Cohen Alley since 1989 from a place emblazed in a health-hazardous cesspool of bodily fluids and other dumped items, non-supervised open-air chemical experiments and illicit – criminal activities — to a vibrant ommunity commons where people of all ages can gather for public art, performance, experimental art projects. and classes and activities… Driven by experimentation, cooperation, volunteerism and inclusion, dialogue and food.”
Tenderloin National Forest (photo by Brian Ulaszewski)
and then to a very small golf course that seniors built reclaimed from a local park in Japan:
from This Big City blog
and to San Francisco where people are converting parking spaces into “parklets.”
All of which, put together, exemplify what one might consider another application of the Fun Theory, or manifestation of public playfulness, or a reason for hope.
- from the Wanderlust and Words blog