psychoceramics: Local kooks (was: The Boston Mystery Writer)

[Andrew C Bulhak <acb @ cs.monash.edu.au>]

[Art Medlar]
> 
> 
> In one of her early Kooks Magazines, and possibly also in
> her book (which I have shamefully not read) Donna Kossey
> profiles someone she calls the Boston Mystery Writer. Stalking
> the streets of Boston with a felt-tipped pen and a chip on
> his or her shoulder, the Mystery Writer left long, rambling,
> neatly-capitalized screeds, alleging evil and conspiracy,
> on all manner of public appliances.  For a while in the mid '80s,
> it was hard to find a newspaper box, light pole, or construction
> barricade without the familiar writing on the back side hinting at
> some sort of horrid misdeeds by nurses, Boston University security
> guards, or banks.
> 
> I left Boston around 1990, and during subsequent visits have
> been disappointed in not finding any more of these thoroughly
> entertaining writings.  But this trip is different.  At the
> corner of Boylston and Essex streets, in front of the Lenox
> Hotel, on a traffic light control box, there it is!  I think.
> 
>    DOUBLE CURSE
>    WELLS FARGO
>    DOUBLE CURSE
>    GREEK WAITERS
>    DOUBLE CURSE
> 
> Anyone from Boston have the current poop on the Mystery Writer?
> Could he or she still be active?  Were they ever unmasked?  Is
> this an original, or have others taken up the mantle?

Not sure;  I know that the Boston Mystery Writer is not mentioned 
in _Kooks_.

There was a somewhat less entertaining, but still rather bizarre,
figure in Sydney (Australia) from the 1950s to the 1970s (I think)
who would inscribe the word "Eternity", written in an elaborate script,
in chalk on all manner of surfaces.  His goal was apparently to instill
some sort of supernatural or divine awareness into people.  I believe a 
film was made about him.

More in the spirit of the BMW, the graffito "THANKS FOR MAKING MY
STUMPS BLEED" was seen inscribed on inner Melbourne light-rail 
stations some time around 1990.

By the way, does anybody have any tips for finding local kooks and
kook-lore in a city?  I was recently thinking about looking for 
local kooks in Melbourne, possibly intending to write them up for
psychoceramics.  Where are some good places to start looking?

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