Green Art.

I am not the only eccentric on our block. I meet my match in Robert C. Tannem of 2326 Esplanade Avenue, 70119. You have no idea how much pleasure it gives me to write out that address. Mr. Tannen did it first. I take it as tacit permission.

My obsession with zip codes continues. 70119 is home to genius.

Unlike your dilettante humble narrator, Mr. Tannen makes real money from his eccentricities. He is an artist and urban planner. How he makes his dough, I dunno. I have always found art to be a cash-poor profession.

Being an urban planner, I suppose that means Mr. Tannen works with City Hall. He and I part ways there. This is where I must have gone wrong. I have spent my whole life working around City Hall.

Last year, Mr. Tannen painted things red and he displayed them in his front yard. His front yard is already a loo-loo to begin with, full of stacked cinder blocks and crumpled sheet metal. A gold marlin hangs suspended over it all.

I told you I have met my match.

What kinds of items did he paint red? Prepare to be edified. This is how many conversations I had last year about the red art: too many. They all ended with a shrug. Mr. Tannen, like a Mardi Gras Indian, like your humble narrator, does what he does because that’s what he does.

The contents of his front yard last year, in addition to the usual collection of gewgaws and gimcrackery, were a red water heater, a red shovel, a red stack of kindling, and some other red things. Why? Shrug your shoulders. You won’t be the first.

In an act of classic guerrilla marketing that I, personally, find inspiring, Mr. Tannen dispatched his assistants around the neighborhood to drop these flyers on the sidewalk and in gardens in a six block radius. The flyers are damp with the morning humidity.

I assume this is Mr. Tannen’s handwriting. It isn’t signed, but it is written in the first person. It is a very legible artist’s statement.

Being written in the first person means nothing. Do you think I wrote this?

I stare into space and wonder what Mr. Tannen is going to paint green. I hope it’s an air conditioner. Either that or a stack of crab traps.

Whatever it is, I am sure it will have no impact on my life beyond being something to talk about. I sit on the front porch of the green house close by. It will be inevitable. I can hear it now, “What’s up with the green air conditioner in that guy’s front yard?” “Why are those crab traps green?”

Some people don’t recognize art when they see it.