GEORGE IZZO LOONEY

July 24, 2007 1:56 PM

DieKus. Haikus made out of pictures of gravestones, being plastered around New York City by a mysterious artist named Nick Beef. (whose name has some mysterious origins of its own)
posted by fungible (17 comments total)

Neat! Everyone loves a mystery or two.
posted by ba at 2:02 PM on July 24, 2007

How mysterious! Good thing he put his name on it. Oh, wait, it's probably not his real name. And that link tells us exactly where "Nick Beef" came from, so not really mysterious there, either.

I'm normally not one to snark, but "guy makes up fake name and posts stickers around town" isn't really BOTW.
posted by davejay at 2:03 PM on July 24, 2007

However, if you'd done the Nick Beef gravestone post, along with other links to mysterious gravestones around the world, THAT would have been a fun FPP. There's still time!
posted by davejay at 2:04 PM on July 24, 2007

Hmmm interesting. /me strokes chin

Cool link!
posted by Zephyrial at 2:16 PM on July 24, 2007

Interesting stuff - thanks for the post.
posted by Staggering Jack at 2:20 PM on July 24, 2007

Davejay, stop marketing for your FFP tutorial software. "BODJW Gold Edition" is full enough of adware as it is.
posted by hermitosis at 2:45 PM on July 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

Gotta be on the lookout for these...
posted by blaneyphoto at 2:46 PM on July 24, 2007

Deadline, NYC

New York City Has
Grave Misgivings About Rise
In Zombie Haiku
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:15 PM on July 24, 2007

These haiku are yet another awesome phenomenon about which, if davejay had his way, I never would have learned. Thank you for the post, fungible.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:22 PM on July 24, 2007

These are cool. Thanks for the post.
posted by oneirodynia at 3:32 PM on July 24, 2007

Neat, thanks.
posted by Divine_Wino at 3:48 PM on July 24, 2007

The pyromaniac haiku stands on its on merits, gravestones or no. Davejay needs to step up, 1250 comments and no FPPs!
posted by anthill at 4:24 PM on July 24, 2007

For some reason I'm picturing this guy with hundreds of photos of grave stones, all cataloged and on file. And he uses them like those magnetic poetry things that you find on people's fridges.

I have no idea why, but that is the image that popped in my head when I was looking at these.

And I agree with anthill; The pyro haiku is pretty sweet.
posted by quin at 5:25 PM on July 24, 2007

Awesome.

But...can he do limericks?
posted by misha at 6:39 PM on July 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Lovely. This stuff is the future of art, imo. Nobody's getting paid again.

Some of the haikus are obviously better than others and some are just clever/funny (warn eng), but excellent idea and good implementation. (Now cementing actual gravestones to the wal, THAT would be awesome!)

It reminds me of a cool writing class I took in college called Generative Devices. Oulipo and whatnot. Very hit or miss, but also very cool.

Thanks a lot for the link. I appreciate this stuff, and I don't need any supporting links. One link posts are often my favorites. I know how to use Google or Wikipedia if I want to learn more.
posted by mrgrimm at 7:02 PM on July 24, 2007

Coming in late here -- but, heck, I have some nice photos of one of his works I took close to my office -- tombstones arranged in the form of a human body with names like Butt and Armstrong...

Nice to hear more about it!
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 6:12 PM on July 25, 2007

Thanks for posting this. I thought of this idea last fall while bicycling through a cemetery (just doing poetry, not specifically haiku), and I'm happy to learn that some people don't just think of things, they actually go and do them.
posted by LeLiLo at 8:45 PM on July 25, 2007