Elmaks left a clue in the comments about the location of yet another swap box: Where does the Invisible Man pay his late fees? Robin beat me to the Invisible Cinema, and swapped a finger puppet for a button. By the time I got there on Sunday morning, his finger puppet was gone, and there was a decorated egg and a pen and another button. I had nothing to swap, so I just took pictures.
This swap box is my favourite one yet. It’s the Mayor Larry Swap Box.
“Mayor Larry swapped ten libraries for a tax freeze. What’ll you swap?”
Speaking of Mayor Larry and his Preposterously Expensive Tax Freeze, a friend of mine who lives in Osgoode says the Osgoodians are none too pleased that their library is on the chopping block. Apparently they raised the money to build the library themselves, back before Osgoode was forced to amalgamate with the City of Ottawa. With the almagamation, the City took over their library, and is now threatening to axe it.
So what are we willing to sacrifice to help Mayor Larry get to zero? Because it’s not going to be done without us giving up a lot of the things we pay for collectively: libraries, snow removal, sidewalk maintenance, affordable housing, recreation, the Dalhousie Community Centre, arts, culture, keeping the city clean, transit, youth outreach, etc. etc. etc. And all we’re getting in return is more cops – even though the crime rate has been declining – and a tax freeze.
This is from an email Councillor Diane Holmes sent out today:
Public Meeting – Budget 2008 Public Consultation for the downtown wards:
Monday, November 26th, 2007
6:30 to 8:30 pm
Lansdowne Park – Assembly Hall
December 3-7, 2007 – City Council hears delegations from the public. To book a time for your presentation please call Dawn Whelan, Council Co-ordinator at 613-580-2424 ext. 21837.
December 10-14, 2007 – City Council deliberates and approves the 2008 Budget.
Send in your comments – If you are unable to attend any of the above, you can provide your comments in writing to 311@ottawa.ca or use the feedback form on the City’s website.
I swung by Mayor Larry’s Swap Box again today. I had a bottle of perfume to swap. I opened up the swap box and there was a lovely alligator clip photo holder! And the clip was holding a little Cupid! Here it is on my shelf, with the only photo that was handy – she’s one of the strangest women I’ve ever encountered on the streets of Ottawa. She’s just in there temporarily. I’ll probably replace her with a picture of my son.
Meanwhile, the Nostalgia Swap Box on Elgin Street, right outside Sugar Mountain, has vanished. I can’t help but wonder how Elmaks feels when they disappear. Megabytes sounded disappointed when someone broke the door off her swap box on Rochester Street. I was disappointed too. But maybe Elmaks is more philosophical about it. He keeps putting them up, even though they keep disappearing. (I wonder what the record is for a swap box not disappearing?)
Tags:
What’ll you swap?…
It’s sort of like geocaching without the caching part, I guess, but it’s an excuse for some fine social…
So, will you tell us about the woman in the photo?
What is Swap Box?
A musing on the characteristics of the Swap Box… and a manifesto on what street art itself should be.
1. Swap Box improves its immediate environment and adds to its use characteristics. Where previously there was a telephone pole or a sheet of plywood there is now a piece of interactive art. Swap Box is also interactive. People are free to place items within the Box and take what they wish.
2. Swap Box adds beauty, wonder and an element of ever-changing uncertainty to the urban landscape. One does not know what will be in the Swap Box unless one looks inside.
3. Swap Box reduces all to equals in their use of it. President Bush and a six-year-old child both have the same relation to Swap Box when they open it and look inside. The creator of the Swap Box, likewise, has no idea of what will be inside.
4. Swap Box is capable of being easily adapted to any city and any situation…all it takes is a few things and a bit of work. Likewise, Swap Box can be decorated any way which the Swap Box creator wishes
5. Swap Box creates something within the urban landscape which keeps people coming back to check on it. It becomes a destination in itself.
6. Swap Box draws people’s paths together and provides a potential meeting-place for strangers.
Ephemerality is one of the qualities of street art, so I expect that eventually the Boxes will get taken down. How long they last depends on how people in the neighbourhood treat them and the attitude that city crews take. The one over in Westboro has been up since May or so.
[…] I suspect the NCC qualified for its own Swap Box the same way Larry O’Brien did – by virtue of its notoriety as a Big Stakes Swapper. The Swap Box says “The NCC traded Lebreton Flats for $7 million. What’ll you swap?” […]
[…] I’ve recently started leaving my Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) in the Mayor Larry Swap Box on Lisgar Street outside The Invisible Theatre. […]
I found your atc yesterday at the swap box outside Wallacks. I love street art and was fascinated by the boxes – I had never seen anything inside until now. I had nothing to leave, and for that I was, and am, horribly sad. Today I will go there as I go to school (I am a student at Ottawa School of Art) and leave two of my prints in the box. If you like, check out my public art experiment – I made 57 woodblock reduction prints and left them on busses around Ottawa and saw if anyone got back to me. It’s at myspace.com/tyfttb.
Real glad I found this website,
Kelsey