• saltesc@lemmy.world
    1971·
    3 个月前

    My friend used to climb massive pine trees late at night in a park across his street, and place traffic cones on top. No one knew who was doing it or why. Many people thought it was the local council marking the trees to be cut down which upset residents. He started noticing police regularly patrolling the area, but he kept doing it and never got caught. It made the local paper, explaining how much confusion and disruption it was causing the police and local council. He hung the article on his wall.

    Went on to become a stuntman https://imdb.com/name/nm3068647/

      • MNByChoice@midwest.social
        25·
        3 个月前

        Their comment has been posted before. Either they ruined it ages ago, or it has become copy-pasta, protecting the identity of the climber.

      • saltesc@lemmy.world
        12·
        3 个月前

        Haha. I’m sure the police knew. He had been arrested a few times for climbing bridges and construction sites around the city. Then get dropped home right by a massive pine tree with a cone on top.

  • The Snark Urge@lemmy.worldEnglish
    889·
    3 个月前

    Surrealism is always antifascist. Cruelty and absurdity are two sides of the same coin, or perhaps the same side of two coins.

        • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
          7·
          3 个月前

          I’m going to use this in the future.

          “What? Your calculations don’t make any sense.”

          “It’s surrealist math.”

          “…”

          “Pfft I knew you wouldn’t get it”

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
        7·
        3 个月前

        When you write a declaration of peace with the blood of your enemies.

        “Sir this is a rescue for puppies, why did you make a flag out of their pelt?”

      • Onionguy@lemm.ee
        61·
        3 个月前

        There’s absurdity in cruelty… there’s cruelty in absurdity… kinda works… like a dark yin yang.

        • Peppycito@sh.itjust.works
          52·
          3 个月前

          You say surrealism is anti-fascist. Then you say cruelty and absurdity are the same thing (two sides of the same coin). Then you try to clarify by saying they are two separate things but have a commonality (two coins same side). I think ying/yang is more fitting, and quicker to the punch, in that there can be a little cruelty in absurdity and vise versa, which you were dancing around with your ill fitting metaphor. So, yes, I don’t think so. Clarity is in the eye of the beer holder.

          • BlorpTheHagraven@startrek.websiteEnglish
            1·
            2 个月前

            The expression “two sides of the same coin” does not mean two things that are the same. It means two things with the same base and opposite expressions.

            As such, the same side of two different coins indicates two different bases with the same expression

            The metaphor works better and acknowledges more nuance than the Yin Yang.

        • LustyArgonian@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          3·
          3 个月前

          I actually think I see a little of what you’re getting at, but maybe it’s just my willful interpretation.

          The absurd is the gap between what we expect to happen, and what actually happens. We expect to go to work today, it’ll be mundane and boring, and then an asteroid hits the road and we can’t go in today. How absurd.

          Cruelty is often a tool people use to gain control. The absurd by definition is outside of our control. I can see how these could be related in some way

    • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
      13·
      3 个月前

      Absurdity is like seeing your cat go “mrwn! mrwn!” at the passing plane, then suddenly flying and catching it. Then cruelty is what your cat does with the passengers.

    • Rolando@lemmy.world
      131·
      3 个月前

      Surrealism is always antifascist.

      I dunno. Doublethink is pretty surreal, but it supports fascism. If you’re just talking about art, I think you could make the case that the Italian Futurists were at least Surrealist-adjacent, and some of them supported fascism.

      • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
        81·
        3 个月前

        I’d argue semantically that surrealism is that which lies under reality whereas Doublethink (and other Orwellian language) lies over reality

        • Rolando@lemmy.world
          3·
          3 个月前

          You may be thinking of 'Pataphysics:

          the science of that which is superinduced upon metaphysics, whether within or beyond the latter’s limitations, extending as far beyond metaphysics as the latter extends beyond physics

          • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
            3·
            3 个月前

            'pataphysics is an extension of metaphysics - both of which extend the concept of “that which is beyond”

            although connected - surrealism from the French for “under reality” is more about incongruity with what is real, but meta- and 'pata-physics are looking at what is beyond the physical.

            Dream-like things like a star with a face are surreal, something like an actual sentient star would be 'pataphysical

  • DavidGarcia@feddit.nl
    69·
    3 个月前

    Suspicousmaxxing to gaslight the authorities and waste their time is a very wholesome thing to do

  • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    43·
    3 个月前

    This reminded me of a glass artist named Josh Simpson who is known for his glass spheres he calls “planets” that have amazingly complex scenes in them. For over two decades he’s had what he calls the “Infinity Project” where he encourages people to hide them out in the open where folks are unlikely to find one. If you submit a proposal to him that he likes then he’ll send you two of his smaller planets, one for you to hide and one to keep for yourself.

  • niktemadur@lemmy.world
    21·
    3 个月前

    Now THIS is art of a very high caliber, indeed!
    It was just a public visual detail that elicited a stupid response from the very stupid people, and probably some delight from the rest of the population.

    If I was one of the chief stassi goons in town, my response would have been “counter-intelligence art” or “counter-art”, painting MORE stones purple and even other colors, so that whatever secret message the original ones were conveying would be confused, drowned out.

    • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
      11·
      3 个月前

      After many years the stasi suddenly realise they have created the worlds largest pride celebration.

      Mission accomplished.

    • LustyArgonian@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      3 个月前

      Can’t all visual art and performance art be boiled down to “just a public visual detail that elicited a stupid response from the very stupid people, and probably some delight from the rest of the population”?

      • LustyArgonian@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        3·
        3 个月前

        Click “CC” in top right for closed captions, then click gear, ask it to change the captions to auto translate to English. Basically she’s saying there’s a guy dressed in a silly outfit (in video) walking around and no one knows why. Some people are scared.

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    321·
    3 个月前

    That’s a neat story. The Nazis did some terrible things and it actually makes me happy to know that somewhere there was a Nazis official who was baffled

    Edit: wrong side and time

        • Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world
          3·
          3 个月前

          No. It was communist.

          The society itself was not communist, but It was definitely ruled by communists. Even Marx called himself and the people who followed his ideas communists, not “socialists seeking communism.” When people say a country was/is “communist,” they mean it’s being ruled by Marxist-Leninists, not that it’s achieved the hypothetical level of society that usually only Marxists are familiar with.

          • silasmariner@programming.dev
            3·
            3 个月前

            When people say a country was/is “communist,” they mean it’s being ruled by Marxist-Leninists, not that it’s achieved the hypothetical level of society that usually only Marxists are familiar with.

            This is a great line

  • don@lemm.ee
    1771·
    3 个月前

    No one actually cared, but at least they felt good about painting rocks.

      • don@lemm.ee
        1940·
        3 个月前

        Sure! Like they said, it just felt good to do something that they felt the police couldn’t control or understand. From OP’s perspective, they needed to be able to exercise control over those that were controlling OP. Easy to understand.

        That said, the police and Stasi are (given the time) tasked with prosecuting and attacking far more than what OP could have known about, and given the relatively playful nature of children in even some of the most dire circumstances, the police and Stasi didn’t have limitless resources to chase down something that, over time, produced no significant threat.

        Both the police and the Stasi were wary and paranoid, but even they have their limits, and they weren’t completely stupid. They knew they had to devote their resources to far likelier threats.

        As OP said, she wanted to feel in control, and no one can really blame them. OP felt good, and that’s what matters.

        • rustyfish@lemmy.worldEnglish
          52·
          3 个月前

          Thanks for your answer. Sorry, I really don’t want to come across like a duchebag asshole. But this sounds more like a general guess of what has happened or how the Stasi might have operated in your opinion (plus some armchair psychology that kinda rubs me the wrong way).

          I literally just woke up and thought you might have some actual insight on this particular case?

        • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
          14·
          3 个月前

          Well I was there, and I can tell you the Stasi were confused af. Got a nice giggle out of it

        • unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          12·
          3 个月前

          You are not criticizing the OP, I guess, because you acknowledge their point, that it was meaningless, but it was entertaining to distract the Stasi. But you are criticizing the OP, because you think the Stasi were so competent?

          • Andrzej@lemmy.myserv.one
            31·
            3 个月前

            Surely the point is that the OP couldn’t possibly have known what the authority thought about their painted stones, unless:

            1. they had a personal contact, which is quite the omission

            or

            1. the authorities were putting up posters around town, interviewing door-to-door etc
            • unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              12·
              3 个月前

              Cops going around and asking about purple rocks would cause a tiny stir. A kid would be aware of that and entertained. This is pre- internet and It’s Soviet culture. I’m not supporting the Soviets, but people talked to each other, which is generically quite positive.

              • Andrzej@lemmy.myserv.one
                24·
                3 个月前

                Ok, I guess this is a matter of opinion, but ‘cops going around asking people about some purple rocks’ just doesn’t pass the sniff test for me

    • Absolute_Axoltl@feddit.uk
      512·
      3 个月前

      It’s fascinating that people have found your comment inherently negative when it is literally just the truth.