The Josh Fruhlinger Experience

If you live in Baltimore City, there are a couple different attitudes you can take on a day-to-day basis about the city’s crime problem: you can freak out about it, or you can adopt a certain air of ironic bravado. (I suppose you could also join the fray, but this would not exactly be the style of me or most folks I know.) I tend to choose number two, despite not living in a particularly blighted section of town. Still, it was something of a perverse relief to learn that the initial reports that Baltimore was America’s per-capita murder capital of 2008 were faulty, and that Detroit was trying to weasel out of its rightful crown. We’re number two! Woo-hoo!

One of my favorite vague-air-of-menace Baltimore spots is right around the corner from me: the alleyway behind the Waverly Library that leads into the the back entrance to the always wonderful Thai Restaurant. (Yes, my favorite Thai restaurant is named “Thai Restaurant,” although it comes up on my credit card bills as the more impressive-sounding “Royal Thai.”) As you walk across the crumbling asphalt, you get the vague feeling that this is where you might be led to be killed execution style, though it quickly becomes clear that you’re just in a narrow parking lot leading to the restaurant’s back door.

On the rear of one of the buildings that abut this alleyway is one of my favorite bits of Baltimore graffiti. This is what it looked like last fall (click to enlarge):

Where is the love, indeed? A somewhat more emo-philosophical sentiment than one usually expects from spray-painted verbiage on the side of a building. A couple weeks ago, though, I noticed that it had been embellished (again, click for bigness):

You’ll notice that the graffiti has in fact received a little love, with the word “love” being embellished and a cute dandelion being added. This is what I like about Baltimore: even the blight is kind of quirky, and people are willing to find — and embellish — the beauty in the rough.