Cracked Window

Meet my doppelganger. I just saw him and his endless list of exclamation-pointed needs: instant cash, online psychology degree, anatomy adjustments, soul mate promising unspeakable pleasures, discounted Wall Street Journal, and colon cleanse.

In the mirror I don’t see the alleged other me. His image emerges in disjointed words, thousands of them jamming my junk email box.

Every day I delete my automated huckster, my electronic stalker. But he never dies.

Next I’ll drive a wooden stake through my hard drive. It won’t matter. He’ll still be out there, bits and bytes of digital flesh and bone, waiting.

I hope this hauntingly beautiful video shot in San Francisco inspires copycats in Portland. Artist Paul “Moose” Curtis uses stencils and a pressure washer to transform the ravages of urban pollution and time into pastoral scenes. “Nature’s voice. . .is written in dirt like it would be written in blood,” he says.