NEW YORK NOT JUST DICKISH - DUMB AND DIGITAL TOO!

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The digital publishing group at NYD are proud to announce that New York Dumb for iPad is now available for download at the Apple App store. New York Dumb is a visual love note to dull-witted poster defacements, disrespectful dolts and the town that brought them together — the big dumb apple, NYC.

We here at NYD have long cataloged poster defacements and graffiti from the dick perspective and now we'll whole heartedly embrace the dumb side of New York as well. Truthfully, in NYC the dickish and dumb always work hand-in-hand so the defacements in NewYork Dumb are clearly in keeping with the dickish side of the New York attitude, just not quite as disgusting.

But if you still want your dumb defacements to be specifically schlongy please refer to our spectacular book New York Dick, published by Mark Batty Publisher, it's as beautiful and dongalicious as ever. And please check back here for periodic updates on New York Dumb, now our brave new digital world is dumb too!.

PRESS MY DICK - LATEST COVERAGE

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New York Dick has recently received some exciting online press coverage (or maybe more accurately aggregator coverage, which we love!) Please check out these fantastic sites, always filled with terrific cultural tips.

METAFILTER
Most fab comment; "Awesome. A totally under-appreciated art form." Less fab comment; "Flagrant false advertising!" (Not about private detectives?) 

POP CURIOUS
Most fab comment; "But now, some of those committing the crime are rewarded by having their work included in a new book about the carvings, stencils, doodles, and tags that cover promotional images across the city." (Nice accurate input, but not exactly an inspiring shout-out.)

SPLICE TODAY
Most Fab comment; not much comment here at all but we're very excited to be covered, tagged both "sex" and "graffiti", two of our favorite things!

KAWASAKI DICK - JAPAN'S KANAMARA FESTIVAL

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When spring comes a youth's thoughts naturally turn to fertility, and at the Kanamara Matsuri in Kawasaki Japan those thoughts then turn to giant penis parades and genital candy. 

The annual fertility festival, held traditionally in the cherry blossom season since the Edo era (1603-1868), is said to encourage fertility and bring harmony to married couples. In recent times the festival has been used to raise awareness of AIDS prevention. 

But as reported at the Travel website, the festival also attracts some less than reverent fans of fertility. During the festival a few years back the apparently intoxicated spokesperson for some ladies of the US Navy stated, "We came here for the cock. My husband's in Iraq right now, defending our country, so it's the only cock I'm going to get." Go USA! Keepin' it real!

We here at NYD want to thank the farsighted Shinto priests that made this delightful display possible. For more info on these beautiful and bonerific festivals take a look at these terrific sites. Go for the spirituality, stay for the naughty schoolgirls.

In Japan for the Penis Festival 
Top 10 Japanese Penis Festival Souvenirs  
Kanamara Matsuri 
Hōnen Matsuri 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEFACEMENT - BANKSY, SECOND POINT

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A second insightful quote from one of the our most articulate and interesting street artists, Banksy. As the artist states in the book Wall and Piece:

The people who truly deface our neighborhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available surface but you're never allowed to answer back. Well, they started the fight and the wall is the weapon of choice to hit them back.

The smug ease that characterizes the presentation of advertising messages truly begs for defacement. Clever, smart-ass or plain idiotic, all commenters and doodlers should feel free to enter a public dialog with our friends in the advertising biz, they love their own talk — they just assume that anyone who talks back won't be heard. 

Using mockery to interact with public sales pitches is a reasonable form of speech and a proportionate response to the pushiness and power of the ad biz, but exercise caution free-speachers, sometimes a reasonable response can get you disproportionately arrested. 

SHEPARD FAIREY STATES THAT HE WILL OBEY

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Last week the world of graffiti (and plagiarism, contempt) was reintroduced to the cold slap of the law when street artist/entreprenuer Shepard Fairey chose to plead guilty to a charge of contempt of federal court instead of, oh, maybe going to the big house for a few decades. This ain't no sticker bullshit, this ain't no plagiarism, this ain't no fuckin' around.

"Violating the court's trust was the worst thing I have ever done in my life," Fairey stated. "I was ashamed as I did all these things, and I remain ashamed." Ashamed as you did them, really? Are you sure you didn't just think you were too famous and slick to get nailed?

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara (by the way, this guy's no bullshit, most days his team is sending Al Qaeda terrorists and pirates up the river, seriously, pirates!) said in a statement Friday that Fairey "went to extreme lengths to obtain an unfair and illegal advantage in his civil litigation, creating fake documents and destroying others in an effort to subvert the civil discovery process." Subverter, you!

Assistant US Attorney Daniel Levy told Judge Maas that the US would ask for “some term of imprisonment.” Ouch, we're not even going to try to be clever about this one.

This case, and the circumstances that led to Fairy's guilty plea is truly convoluted and interesting. It clearly raises then totally blurs issues of creativity and "borrowing" of content in this modern world, subversion of authority, copyright, fraud, evidence and witness tampering, and document forgery by a respected graphic artist. If only someone would turn up dead we would have a Law and Order episode on our hands.

But before the subpoenas start flying we at NYD would like to mention a few things. First — for the benefit of Shepard and his supporters; Fairey's work really is beautiful and resonant, and all graphic-istas respect his innovation and accomplishment, and we here at NYD wish him good luck with this situation. Second — for the benefit of all graffitists and street artists; let's all be careful about this stuff, and if you plan on getting world famous be willing to share a bit of the wealth and don't try to scam the federal attorney's office. And third — for the benefit of NYD; we would like to mention a few things regarding why we should not be sued or brought into federal court for using a somewhat "appropriated graphic" to lend visual appeal to this article.

The above graphic is a parody intended to illustrate the content of this article and in no way is attempting to present itself as a wholly original artistic creation. We assume (but cannot prove) that the copyright for the general appearance of the above graphic resides with Shepard Fairey the creator of the original graphic publicly known as "Obey the Giant." We at NYD respectfully request that the legal team working on behalf of "Obey the Giant" be fair about our use of this moderately original creation and not sue us and fabricate documents to accomplish whatever weird thing they might be trying to accomplish.

We further assume (but cannot prove) that the true credit for the "sans serif bold italic on red band" portion of the graphic as a known element of popular culture is the creation of Barbara Kruger. Additionally we assume that the basic look "black and white cropped face photo with stark graphics consisting of red bands with white type" is also a cultural artifact originally popularized by Kruger. We at NYD respectfully request that the legal team working on behalf of Barbra Kruger not sue us on a charge of secondary theft, or something.

The "Fairey face graphic" contained in the above graphic is based on an illustration by Rob Dobi, which we assume (but cannot prove) is based on a photo by a "human photographer" unknown to us. The illustration was seen, copied, heavily modified and reconceptualized by the team at NYD. NYD offers to pay a royalty (not to exceed 5% of the net profits earned by NYD) made by the selling merchandise showing the above graphic (which almost without doubt will never happen) to the holder of the copyright to the Rob Dobi image and to the holder of the copyright of the original photo, if one exists. We at NYD respectfully request that the legal team working on behalf of Rob Dobi and the unknown "human photographer" not sue us on a charge of some sort of plagiarism, loss of income, or whatever.

For more information on this case please take a look at the Associated Press story (picked up by USA Today, full disclosure please!) Fairey, Simpsons, and Banksy-esque! Wow! Another take on recent Fairey developments is available at The Washington Post. Lastly, in case you are interested in the views of someone who is not too impressed with the artist in question, take a look at the website Art for a Change (gotta keep it fair-and-balanced, or at least interesting, and the lefty graphics are really nice!)