Jeff Cutler™ – columns, essays and opinions

I’m on a Jetblue flight right now – Flt 1263 from Boston to Austin, TX actually – and I’m thinking anxiously about the week ahead.

Most people in the world may not know what SXSW is, or are peripherally familiar with the event.

Essentially, it’s a couple weeks of festival- and conference-esque gatherings centered around tech/social media, video and music.

In that order, the topics are explored as THOUSANDS of people descend on Austin. While some attendees say it’s a long drinkfest, I have other views.

Take for instance my role at SXSW. I’ll be doing stories on new tech during the interactive portion – reporting for MobileMag and Automotive Rhythms.

Further, I’ll be filming at least three NomX3 episodes and also meeting a ton or cool people.

If you’re at SXSW, let me know in the comments what you’re doing at the festival and what you hope to get out of your time in Austin.

Thanks!

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Tags: #sxsw, Austin, Jet Blue, lance armstrong, mashable, steve garfield

Today, Steve Garfield was on CBS Backstage being interviewed about video blogging and his new book, Get Seen. Here are some screen shots from the event. And I believe Steve has the interview archived on his site.

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Tags: Boston, cbs, CBS news, Get Seen, Jeff Cutler, steve garfield, video, vlogging

Granted, many of the post titles here are a lot more descriptive than this one, but I’m sure you’ll get the imagery or the intent by the time you’re a little ways through the post. So, onward…

In a conversation I had with my GF the other day, she said, “You should definitely hitch your wagon to him.”

She was talking about a friend of mine. A guy who is fairly well-known in the social-media sphere and who has contacts elsewhere in business communities and the technology world.

Preliminarily I agreed. It’s never bad to know more people. It helps you maintain perspective – both personal and professional. It helps you reach new communities and audiences – fairly important when creating content for a variety of consumers. And having a variety of wagons around you – circa the old West – means that you’re ensconced in a protective and nurturing shield of like-minded and similarly driven entities.

But where does the fishbowl effect come in? When does each wagon start to look like the next one?

If you’re focused on the Boston social-media scene, you might ascribe any one of a dozen names to the person my girlfriend suggested. You’d likely be wrong. The person we were talking about was someone I got to know recently and someone who has far less influence than the recognized old-guard rockstars.

This guy has ideas about services and how to deliver them via the Web. He knows how to use and enjoy social media and is looking for partners in his quest.

It’s like watching the start of Lord of the Rings – or any film where a merry band of people gather together to take on the odds as a team.

Now let’s get to the butter.

For a while I’ve been an evangelist of social media tools. I’ve used most of them and have even taught individuals, businesses and educational institutions how to Tweet, Link and ‘Book. That’s not changing, but the thing that is – ever-so-slightly – is my focus on the future.

As Ashton Kutcher and Oprah delve into social media and drag it to the masses, there’s going to be a wave of demand for the skills I’ve built over the past five years.

Instead of being the scribe or content creator, I’ve shifted to the role of content coordinator. I’m now advising people about the content they should have and where they should have it. There’s a greater opportunity in that role – both for financial return and for sharing.

You see, if I just hitch my wagon to the superstars and feed Remora-like off their conquests nobody wins. If I ride alongside them and offer to pull people with my wagon, then the bread gets buttered on both sides for everyone.

The only reason I’m able to pull – and never lose sight of this – is that the rockstars have shared themselves and this is just my way to pay it forward…errr backward.

Look at your vehicle. Is it a wagon? If so, I urge you to offer someone a ride, too. You’ll both get where you’re going a little faster. Trust me.

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Tags: Ashton, Chris Brogan, Garyvee, greg verdino, Jeff Cutler, jeff pulver, mike langford, social media, steve garfield, twitter

Sometimes I wonder if other jobs offer the same opportunity for snack adventures, celebrity sightings, wild weather, and marvelous vistas as do the handful of occupations I call my own.

That is, as a writer, journalist, content creator and commentator or columnist I’ve had the chance to see and experience some great things.

What brought this to mind? I was on This is Why You’re Fat – a fantastically heinous site that documents why Americans might be a little overweight. It documents this in photos. And I realized while clicking around tonight, that I’ve eaten one of the most ridiculous items featured on the site.

The Loco Moco.

That’s right. It’s a bed of rice topped with a hamburger patty which is then topped by an egg and then topped with some gravy.

I ate this while covering the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.

And I enjoyed this delightful meal with Steve Garfield, Greg Verdino, Joseph Jaffe and Melissa Pierce at the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Was this type of excess necessary? Hardly.

Was it worth it? Certainly.

See the photo!

If you’ve ever eaten, seen, touched, met or experienced something mere mortals might not have had the chance to try, please share that here in the comments.

Thinking thin…but also pining for another Loco Moco.

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Tags: #ces09, greg verdino, joseph jaffe, Las Vegas, Loco Moco, melissa pierce, steve garfield

At CES, from the prototype cellphone with a video projector in it to the three or four models (no phone) that fit in your hand and put movies on walls at resolution that amazes you, there’s a lot to see – literally.

Steve Garfield and I spent a moment with people from Optoma to put their little projector through it’s paces. I’m working on an article for Gatehouse Media featuring these products, so I’m not going to give you my take yet.

But here’s my interview in total along with some photos. You make up your mind. And I welcome your comments.

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Tags: CES, interview, Jeff Cutler, Optoma projector, steve garfield

If it were up to me, I would introduce legislation that would require all journalists to be licensed. And a requirement of that licensing process would include at least two years of collegiate study and at least one year of full-time work as a reporter. Further, I would ask that the law require all prospective journalists to provide letters of reference from no fewer than three editors who would vouch for said reporter’s judgment and skill.

That’s not going to happen. Not in an era that sees businesses flocking to the most widely viewed media with story pitches. Not in a time when news organizations (ironically) are the first to lose sight of how important story telling and rich, informative articles are to an informed public. And certainly not in a time when some of the smartest people I know can’t make a distinction between the practice of journalism and the classification of journalist.

Maybe the solution is a simple realignment of naming conventions. We can change ‘journalist’ into ‘media delivery person’ and leave the process of journalism alone. Because in my understanding – developed from 20+ years in the news industry and advanced study in communications and journalism – the process of journalism requires that you have an editor assigning, critiquing and hopefully refining your reporting so that it delivers the most unbiased and informative information to a publication’s readership.

The media delivery people of today – journalists, bloggers, videographers, pundits and even PR flacks – are increasingly creating content for consumers without that layer of refinement. I’ve included journalists here too because newsrooms are being decimated by budget cuts and a lot more content is flying onto newsprint and into the ether without editors touching a red pen to it.

You might ask if we need editors. Can’t people decide what content is good or bad by themselves? Wouldn’t things be much better if there was a shakeout and more competition in the news industry? Maybe both are true.

Perhaps we’d be better off without the reporters who broke the story about the major auto manufacturers flying private jets to Washington. Oh, you read that on a blog. Yeah, you read it there because it was reported first by the D.C. press.

First to the public doesn’t indicate who did the hard work behind the scenes.

Maybe we’d be better off without knowing that Illinois government is for sale. Oh, that was a Federal investigation? Yes it was, but the story was shared by trained journalists who had the respect and the skill to follow that story down and then share it with the world.

Well, if the papers weren’t around, there would be bloggers and new media folks to fill the void. Maybe so. But the reality is that on election night, the majority of the country got its news from four outlets and then re-reported the news of the election. When the major outlets are dead, is Billy the blogger going to have the resources and the reach to inform the entire country about election results?

A friend recently shared with me an article written by Boston University journalism professor Chris Daly. This article – Are Bloggers Journalists? – made me consider my stance and refine my argument re: blogging isn’t journalism.

After taking us from 1760 to present-day America, Daly’s penultamate point is:

Nowadays, when we ask whether someone is a journalist, we may need to refine the question. We should ask: Is this the kind of journalist who presents analysis, commentary, or political rants? Or, is this the kind of journalist who offers the fruits of reporting? Or some of both? The issue is not the job title but the activity.

I agree, sort of. On more than one occasion I’ve been confused by my social-media brethren (including Steve Garfield, Christopher Penn and even Ari Herzog) as to what they feel constitutes journalism. My feeling was that journalism came from a reporter who submitted work to an editor at a newsroom – physical or virtual – and from that came content for a reading/viewing/consuming public.

The stance I received from these, and other people, was that content creators of all kinds should get the same treatment, benefits and access as ‘traditional’ media. And in fact, that in most cases there shouldn’t be a line drawn between the two. That’s the crux of my frustration.

How can anyone, and these people are very smart, assign the title of journalist to someone with access to a piece of technology?

If I hand my iPhone to my nephew and he figures out how to send video to iReport, is he a journalist?

If my cat wanders across my keyboard and creates a blog entry by pure happenstance, is she a journalist?

The trap people sometimes fall into is being too inclusionary and accepting of everyone. Like the paintings made with excrement a few decades back, there are certainly differing opinions as to what constitutes art. The same can be said of what makes an attractive house or a pleasant sound.

The interpretation is less acceptable when evaluating plumbing, driving, reporting and a host of other practices. If you don’t seal the gas main, you’ve done a bad job of plumbing. If you break traffic laws, you’ve done a bad job of driving. If you don’t present a balanced report of events from which an audience can make an informed opinion, you’ve done a poor job of reporting.

Sure, I’m open to the edges of journalism including opinion pieces, commentary, features and even some longer creative non-fiction approaches. But the vetting of an editor, the training of a J-School (or similar field experience) and an understanding of libel, slander and ethics should all be part of a journalist’s background.

Until that occurs, bloggers don’t get my nod as journalists.

I welcome your comments.

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Tags: bloggers, Boston University, Jeff Cutler, journalists, reporters, steve garfield

I’ll admit right at the outset that my attention span could use a gym membership, some spin classes and even some cross training. The cross-training comment was a joke, as my attention span flits from one item to the next without minimal urging or outside intervention.

Even as I compose this column, I’m frantically looking around the room at various objects that might easily take me away from the keyboard and into magical lands. Lands of television watching, Italian Ice snacking, scooter riding, magazine reading, and even furniture construction.

It’s not that I like all of those activities more than connecting with you readers, but I find my mind struggling to slow its pace and stroll along with my fingers. It’s not ADD (as I’ve ranted numerous times about how that’s a fantasy diagnosis created by antsy parents and accommodating physicians), but it is very real. And I’m not alone.

Just today, while cruising the Internet at 82MPH and jumping from Facebook to Twitter to CNN to the Sarah Palin Quotes page, I stopped to read a person’s profile. This guy regularly posts to Twitter as @technosailor and has his regular site here… TECHNOSAILOR.

His name is Aaron Brazell and he’s a self-proclaimed social media expert and backs up this bravado with some impressive writing on the subject and a long line of followers on Twitter. I poked around this follower list and added some of the smart ones to my Twitter feed, but then realized that maybe Twitter is starting to supplant longer forms of writing in the social-media space.

Brazell still keeps a blog going – and has a handful of contributors who blog nearly every day. People like Steve Garfield put videos up and are everpresent in the electronic space. And guys like Adam Gaffin are putting up news and other media by the barrelful.

But what has happened – or is happening – with the general audience in this space? I fear that it’s slowing and growing at the same time.

Last night my aunt asked me about blogging and ‘doing’ a Website. I told her I could get her up and running in 15 minutes, but I stopped short of asking her why she now wants to enter the digital age. I imagine that in the worlds of people 50 and up, digital is new and fresh and email is the wave of the future.

Look at the younger set, though, and you’ll see a move away from long-form blogs to quick-hit Tweets and Facebook status messages and FriendFeed aggregation of a person’s activity. In fact, I took a look at three people on Brazell’s following list and none of them had a blog post fresher than last June. While each had a Twitter post no older than two hours.

Have they run into the problem of having so much short stuff to share that there’s nothing left to build a bigger discussion around?

Are we facing the ultimate in OMG, L8TR conversations? And where does journalism and column writing fit into this new world?

Thankfully, the proportion of people currently mired in the new-media space is tiny. People are still wondering what a blog does. News organizations are just finding out that a shared Twitter post is called a Tweet. And our legislators don’t even use email yet.

So is the wave of the future ahead of us or crashing down upon us? It’s really up to the consumers to decide.

Ultimately, the delivery system isn’t the major factor to writers and other content producers. A good story, article, feature or column is the ultimate goal. I don’t care if you eat off a paper plate or the finest china, the meal of information should still be top-notch, accurate and compelling.

Let me know what you think and where you are in relation to the wave(s).

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Tags: aaron, adam gaffin, Boston, columns, editorial, elections, internet, Jeff Cutler, McCain, news, obama, opinions, palin, social media, steve garfield, twitter, video, web

This is the second version of the Podcamp Boston feature I prepared for a client earlier this summer.

Forging Connections in New Media – the value of Podcamp Boston
by Jeff Cutler
Correspondent

Steve Garfield couldn’t stop talking about meeting a woman from his neighborhood at last week’s Podcamp Boston 3. Both are photographers from Jamaica Plain.

Podcamp is an unconference built on the premise that hallway conversations are as important as session content. Garfield might have never have crossed paths with this woman at a traditional tech conference, but the unconference model encourages attendees to make connections and educate each other.

As with any conference, there were planned sessions. But that didn’t stifle collaboration in the hallways or regular posts on Twitter (a group text-message service) during the show.

Some messages alerted podcampers to room changes or speaker adjustments. Some broadcast what was going on in the room where they sat. During the keynote, most tweets (the 140-character messages carried on Twitter) were quotes of the speakers or requests for the location of other attendees.

According to Garfield, the relationships that come from Podcamp Boston are valuable.

“What I get out of these Podcamps is meeting new people and making new relationships with new people,” said Garfield. “And also making existing relationships I have with people stronger.”

For all its free-form stylings, the podcamp product does have six rules. These are:
1. All attendees must be treated equally. Everyone is a rockstar.
2. All content created must be released under a Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
3. All attendees must be allowed to participate. (subject to limitations of physical space, of course)
4. All sessions must obey the Law of 2 Feet – if you’re not getting what you want out of the session, you can and should walk out and do something else. It’s not like you have to get your money’s worth!
5. The event must be new-media focused – blogging, podcasting, video on the net.
6. The financials of a PodCamp must be fully disclosed in an open ledger, except for any donor/sponsor who wishes to remain anonymous.

And an unconference can have its bumps. A room change at the last minute left attendees scrambling to find the right room. And some equipment challenges stalled the beginning of a session. But the podcamp audience is versed in using technology to solve problems.

Half an hour into this year’s event, Jim Storer of Burlington-based Mzinga used Twitter to ask if anyone could find portable speakers for a session that was happening in room 214.

Room and speaker changes were also broadcast to all attendees using the Twitter tag #pcb3.

That on-the-fly use of technology underscores what co-founders Christopher Penn and Chris Brogan hoped would happen when they started Podcamp Boston in September 2006. They wanted an event where the people were the essence of the conference. Where the experience and knowledge a person had would enrich the lives of other attendees.

Penn, Chief Technology Officer at the Student Loan Network, explained the unconference model as a “conference put on by its participants.”

Since Podcamp Boston 1, there have been 41 podcamps worldwide. So why do the same people keep attending?

The unconference bug bit Phil Campbell after he attended a couple podcamps. This geek from the United Kingdom decided Brogan and Penn had come up with a formula that worked.

In less than a year, he had nearly £10,000 in funding and started Podcamp UK.

“The thing that happens at podcamps,” said Campbell. “Is that the people who are looking for something tend to organically gravitate toward the people who can make those things happen.”

Boston resident Adam Weiss has helped organize each Boston podcamp and feels that the way people share information continues to change.

Weiss used to create audio podcasts for the Museum of Science. It was a low-cost way to share science knowledge with a broad audience. It gave science fans a resource they could download at their leisure. It gave the Museum another way to add value to traditional exhibits.

Weiss is now a podcast consultant and explained that podcasting is becoming commonplace, as is the sharing of information at unconference models like Podcamp.

“It’s starting to become a lot more mainstream,” he said. “So you get a mixture of the people who really know what they’re doing and know what they’re talking about – the geeks again – but also you get a lot of people who want to learn about this. One of the exciting things about an unconference is that it’s either cheap or free, and everybody arrives as equals. So you can go, even if you don’t know anything, and just talk to these people who are experts in the field.”

Brogan, VP of Strategy & Technology at CrossTech Media, said, “There’s a lot of technologists and a lot of media makers and a lot of forward-thinking people on the Boston scene.”

Smart people are necessary ingredients to an unconference, according to Penn. He said the first unconferences were formed with a simple thought.

“Let’s put a couple hundred of the smartest people we know in a bunch of rooms together for a couple days and see what happens,” said Penn. “That’s really the essence of this unconference idea. It’s the participants and what they bring with them makes it work.”

Podcamp Boston 3 was held July 19-20 at Harvard Medical School’s Joseph Martin Conference Center.

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Jeff Cutler is also a podcaster, and is halfway through a one-year writing sabbatical. His progress reports are available at www.jeffcutler.com. Jeff can be reached via email at jeff@jeffcutler.com.

If you have comments or questions about the event, please leave them here in the comments section. If you’d like to have me cover an event for your publication, send me an email.

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Tags: Chris Brogan, christopher penn, feature article, Harvard, Podcamp Boston 3, steve garfield, unconference

This is the first version of the Podcamp Boston feature I prepared for a client earlier this summer. Sometime over the weekend I’ll share the second version of this article.

Podcamp Boston 3 – A Tech-Centric Event About Making Connections
by Jeff Cutler
Correspondent

Podcamp Boston is a blank canvas where tech professionals, bloggers, podcasters and anyone interested in new media can paint a masterpiece.

That’s how Podcamp co-founder Christopher Penn described the opportunities offered at this annual unconference, the third edition of which took place in Boston July 19-20 at Harvard Medical School’s Joseph Martin Conference Center.

Penn, Chief Technology Officer at the Student Loan Network, explained the unconference(cq) model as a “conference put on by its participants.” Podcamp is an event where people can meet, collaborate and learn about media and the technologies people are using to communicate.

Of the 466 paid registrants for this year’s event, many have their own blogs or podcasts (see sidebar).

In geek-speak, this material…be it videos on YouTube, blog posts online, or even downloadable audio…is all classified as content. The people at Podcamp are a self-described collection of content creators and media makers.

But Podcamp is more than a gathering of geeks, and an attendee need not have her own podcast or video blog to participate. Podcamp is part of a movement focused on the way people connect with others, how they entertain themselves and how they share information.

There have now been 41 editions of this unconference worldwide beginning with Podcamp Boston in September 2006.

Chris Brogan is the other Podcamp co-founder and he believes that an unconference is ideal for people to learn about technologies that allow them to connect with others. He contends that Podcamp offers something for everyone, especially people new to using technology.”

“Who we’re trying to reach are the people who we think need to know more about this media,” he said. “So we might reach into businesses, we might reach into educators, we might reach into healthcare, and places where you would not expect your attendee base to come from for an event about media.”

In the hallways at Podcamp, you can’t walk 30 feet without encountering technology. iPhones are commonplace and session updates are handled by sending out alerts via a group text-message service called Twitter.

Many have attended a Podcamp previously, but they come to Boston out of their desire to stay connected with the podcasting world.

Adam Weiss began listening to podcasts in 2003 and helped organize the first Boston Podcamp. This Boston resident attended Podcamp Boston 3 to stay on top of frequently changing methods and technologies in podcasting. For Weiss, this is more than a hobby, it’s his job.

Weiss used to create audio podcasts for the Museum of Science. It was a low-cost way to share science knowledge with a broad audience. It gave science fans a resource they could download and enjoy at their leisure. And it gave the Museum another way to connect with the community and add value to traditional exhibits.

Weiss now makes his living as a podcast consultant and his current projects include audio walking tours of different cities – http://www.audisseyguides.com – and a regular interview-based podcast called Boston Behind the Scenes, http://bostonbehindthescenes.com. This show has featured everyone from Duck Tour drivers to a homeless man Weiss saw regularly during his morning commute.

While these behind-the-scene interviews might attract a small audience, Weiss said that NPR and major broadcasting networks make their programs available in podcast form and their audiences measure in the thousands.

Weiss explained that podcasting is becoming more common, as is the sharing of information at an unconference model like Podcamp.

“It’s starting to become a lot more mainstream,” he said. “So you get a mixture of the people who really know what they’re doing and know what they’re talking about – the geeks again – but also you get a lot of people who want to learn about this. One of the exciting things about an unconference is that it’s either cheap or free, and everybody arrives as equals. So you can go, even if you don’t know anything, and just talk to these people who are experts in the field.”

One such expert is Steve Garfield, a video specialist who lives in Jamaica Plain. Apart from Garfield’s willingness to share video and photoblogging techniques, is his genuine interest in attendees.

“What I get out of these Podcamps is meeting new people and making new relationships with new people,” said Garfield. “And also making existing relationships I have with people stronger.”

Those types of connections are common at an event that has been built on the collaborative energy present in the Boston tech community. According to Brogan, “Boston has a really great tech scene.”

He mentioned the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, MIT’s media labs and a number of meet-ups (informal gatherings of like-minded people) as examples of how Boston nurtures advances in the adoption of technology.

“There’s a lot of technologists and a lot of media makers and a lot of forward-thinking people on the Boston scene,” said Brogan. “Adding in the newer wave of social media users like PR and marketing types, there’s quite a groundswell of people really passionate and interested in some aspect of making media, distributing media and using content to build relationships.”

That passion has spawned similar events all over the world. After attending an earlier Podcamp Boston, Phil Campbell, founder of http://www.me.dm, decided to establish an unconference for users on the other side of the Atlantic. He raised nearly £10,000 and Podcamp UK took place last September.

“The thing that happens at Podcamps,” said Campbell. “Is that the people who are looking for something tend to organically gravitate toward the people who can make those things happen.

Penn explained that through the use of Google, iChat, Twitter, email and other technologies, people are more knowledgeable and connected than they ever were before.

And it’s through the use of these utilities and the techniques learned at Podcamp, that people are communicating with others and painting their own technology masterpieces every day.

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Jeff Cutler is also a podcaster and is halfway through a one-year writing sabbatical. His progress reports are available at www.jeffcutler.com. Jeff can be reached via email at jeff@jeffcutler.com.

If you have comments or questions about the event, please leave them here in the comments section. If you’d like to have me cover an event for your publication, send me an email.

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Tags: adam weiss, Chris Brogan, christopher penn, new media, Podcamp Boston 3, steve garfield, unconference

Banging on a piano keyboard with canned hams might be cacophonous to some and it might appeal to the music lover in others. But is there a line something has to cross before it’s considered art?

Take the construction paper turkey you’ll be handed by your kids this Thanksgiving. Is that art? If so, is it worthy of display in a place other than your fridge? Would you fund a gallery exhibit to show that crayon creation to the well-heeled on Newbury Street?

If not, where’s the line?

Is the brand of baseball that Manny Ramirez plays artistic? It’s certainly not streamlined and efficient.

What about graffiti? People are killing each other over paint in Los Angeles this week, but in other areas of the world graffiti is an accepted form of artistic expression that doesn’t connote violence.

When I first entered the city of Paris by train, my hackles went up. Everywhere I looked there was a different spray-painted design. On walls, on buildings, on fences, on the ground, and even on the train in which I traveled.

“But this is Paris,” I thought. “THE city of culture and good taste and artistic expression. The Louvre is housed here for god’s sake.”

So I accepted graffiti as art for the first time in my life.

A recent Flickr photo taken by Steve Garfield challenged my established (at least for four years now) stance on graffiti as art. The shot was of a painted sidewalk in Steve’s neighborhood. Here’s the shot and a link to Steve’s Flickr account….

See the full-size version HERE.

See more of Steve’s work here.

In his description, he contends that the painting on the sidewalk isn’t art. Others comment as well and the field is currently leaning against Steve and toward paint anywhere as artistic expression.

But if we continue down that slope, are the highway passing lines art? What about sky-writers’ work? Where does it stop? Does art have to be the creation of one person? Does it have to be only in certain media or locations?

What about the people who dress in white and put on mime make-up and torture little kids in public parks? Aren’t they artists?

I know I’ve asked a lot of questions but the beauty I find in art is that it’s open to so much interpretation. For each piece of crap construction-paper turkey, there’s a creation that shines as the product of true talent.

And if the person who painted the sidewalk in Steve’s community goes on to have an exhibit at the MFA or MOMA, does that validate his earlier work? What about the person who ‘tagged’ the concrete underpass on the Mass Pike? What if the only thing he ever scrawls again is his name on his parole form…was that earlier work worthless?

Ultimately, the expression of an idea or concept or image is what many of us are trying to achieve. Whether we do it with ink or paint or word or electrons, nobody can take away the fulfillment we get from trying. And nobody but the creator of an expression can really say if they’re trying to create art or just some random markings on a sidewalk in Jamaica Plain.

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Tags: art, Boston, expression, graffiti, jamaica plain, jamaica pond, MFA, MOMA, NYC, robert maplethorpe, steve garfield