Urban Decay Chic, West Coast Style

I was struck by a photo in a friend's blog recently, depicting what he rather nicely terms urban decay chic. It's instantly recognizable, and prompted from me an affectionate sigh: Ah, Europe! Here, in response, is an example of artistic urban decay on the West Coast.

The quotation comes from poet and political activist John Trudell. He was chairman of the American Indian Movement for most of the 70s, and in the 80s began recording his poetry to Native music. These lyrics come from his 2002 album Bone Days, produced by none other than Angelina Jolie. The full excerpt runs as follows:

Crazy Horse
We hear what you say.
One earth, one mother.
One does not sell the earth
The people walk upon.
We are the land.
How do we sell our mother?
How do we sell the stars?
How do we sell the earth?

Crazy Horse was a respected Oglala Lakota war leader who fought against the U.S. in the Battle of Little Bighorn, 1876. His actions served as inspiration for Trudell, although these are not words Crazy Horse would have spoken - after all, he spoke Lakota. But Trudell was not alone in ventriloquising this viewpoint. Consider Ted Perry's famous reimagining of Chief Seattle's speech from 1854:

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.

Ironically, although Perry wrote this for a film in 1972, it has been widely accepted as the 'original.' Since Seattle spoke in Lushootseed, and had his words translated first into Chinook and then into Victorian English from the notes of a Dr. Henry Smith who was present, the notion of 'original' is compromised to begin with. There are some pretty thorny problems of appropriation, mistranslation, and romanticization here, but what fascinates me is how this stance, however much of a construct it is, has entered the collective imagination. To the point where it's been graffitied on a street-side wall on Roosevelt Way.

I defy you to find graffiti in Europe that makes a guilt-ridden plea for environmental rights through the words - however apocryphal - of the displaced indigenous peoples. This is urban decay chic, west coast style.