<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class="">Graffiti to Confetti </div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class="">Their prayer flag is to haunt the highway underbellies; the down-in-the-mouth recesses of homeless tenters.</div><p style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""> </p><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class="">Graffiti is the key. It keeps most people away; it attracts them.</div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class="">“It’s multi-layered performance art--urban cave messages, human glyphs, social narrative, cultural venting,” comments Khanh.</div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class="">Jango is taken by the high Andean practice of <i class="">hucha.</i> <i class="">Hucha </i>is not evil or curse, it’s density. Quecha medicine people say the Earth’s favorite food is <i class="">hucha. Hucha—</i>that which blocks life force—is only generated by humans. What if nourishment came from composting pain and clog?</div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class="">Ethnobotanists of street art, they collect graffiti and turn it into confetti.<br class=""></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class="">“Here’s a good one”: <b class="">GIRAFFITI: VANDALISM PAINTED REAL HIGH</b></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class="">"Here’s another," he responds: <b class="">DOWN WITH PANTS</b></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class="">I ask: D<i class="">o you ever add your own?</i> Great question! The temptation is definitely there. We’re all about transmutation. And anyway we don’t taint the raw material by adding our own. But I do use it in poems and editorials sometimes. </div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class=""><i class="">Does your practice regularly take you into danger?</i> Everyone asks that—have we stepped on used needles, has someone unpacked a gun, has a crazy person mistaken us for the cops? Nope. We generate a field of kindredness and joy, that’s our best protection.</div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><i class="">What’s your favorite “GRAFFITI TO CONFETTI” story?</i></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class="">One day we were under the West Seattle Bridge.. Khanh was attracted to the accent of some Vietnamese squatters. “That’s my grandmother’s dialect,” she says in her grandmother’s dialect, adding: “May your rice be sweet and plump.” The recipient of her benediction emerges. He is covered in whimsically colored designs. His outer clothing is canvas he’s continuously refining. </div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class="">Khanh asks if he wants to make some graffiti for our project. He does. It’s a mystical mural featuring the urban jungle and the jungle in Vietnam. We capture it on our phone, take it home and print it on a color printer. Then we put the printout through a paper shredder. </div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class="">On New Year’s Eve we go back. He’s still there. “Happy new year,” we say in English and Vietnamese, raining confetti down on him. He says thank you in several languages: Vietnamese, Ethiopian and Samoan. </div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Gair Hemphill Crutcher</div></body></html>