It was one of those scenes you stumble upon trekking through the city — just another universe on the macadam. No one can hear you scream in space, but the mind’s ear might go back to a wailing toddler, her ice cream cone dropped and splattered beyond any hope of the five-second rule, a nebula of sugary pink flakes and baby-blue cream melted to ashes and locked in a binary star dance with a trepanned orange perched perilously at the event horizon of a sewer grate.
The flaring structure of the irretrievable treat might also recall the classic NASA command module, triggering a third eye to flash on late Sixties moon trips before segueing to a 70mm super-wide-screen sci-fi vision of a spacecraft docking at a gargantuan astro station, as Also sprach Zarathustra thrums across the synapses.
Though, as usual, Bowie said it best:
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you —
Here am I floating ’round my tin can
Far above the moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do
And then down the steps to the subway. ❖
Below, from the archives, a few other tales of art on the pavement and in the aether.
Originally published:
❖ ❖ ❖