A good example of this in contemporary work is graffiti. So as graffiti started, it wasn't about gangs or anything like that, it was about writing. You were a writer, we called ourselves writers, and we were studying the art of calligraphy, essentially, on walls.
And over time, gangs started to utilize this method of spreading their presence, and now when you say the word, you know, I was a graffiti artist, or, oh, so you were a gang member. No, no, I wasn't in a gang. Well, yeah, we had a crew, and we would go and paint together, but that didn't mean we were a gang, right, in the sense you're talking about, right? I had to stop graffiti too, by the way.
I had to stop graffiti too. They wouldn't let me teach graffiti, and I loved that. I loved teaching, because the kids, I could communicate with them better, because it was a thing they could relate to.
It wasn't, you know, handwriting, cursive, trying to teach, because nobody wanted to learn that. And I said, okay, let's make a graffiti stuff. Oh, God, it was terrible.
Well, it's interesting. You're talking about illuminating manuscripts, and we've been mentioning patronage in this sort of system, and I'm sure you're aware of it, family, but like marginalia, they used to do, like these medieval scribes used to do crazy illustrations in the margins around, like knights riding on snails, and people playing trumpets from their bottoms, and crazy stuff like that. And this was really like the scribes just, they were doing two things, having a bit of fun, but they were also referencing a medieval mindset, which we've forgotten, which is called the world turned upside down, where the peasant could become the king for the day, and the king would become the peasant, which is a common meme in the medieval world.
