December 16

We had not envisaged standing in the street today, fighting with a complete stranger.

Mind you, “The Writer” has form in this area. We stopped driving in London because I feared someone he was haranguing would get out of their car, stroll over to ours and knife him.

And then there was the bank: A whole line of disgruntled customers turning on him as he complained about slow queue movement, shouting that it wasn’t the teller’s fault and threatening to manhandle him off the premises.

And ,as for his interaction with pavement cyclists, and light-jumping cyclists and speeding cyclists…………….enough said.

This incident began quite civilly:

I had stopped to photograph a poster on a wall near our apartment.

My main reason for photographing it was (a) that I have never heard anyone calling a human rights defender in the matter of Covid a “Do gooder”. I’ve heard many epithets applied to them but that isn’t one of them. And ( b) I wondered who “the Genderqueer Human Rights Deity”of the poster was and thought I might look up her/him/them when I got home.

As with most rows, I can’t quite remember how it started. But the woman passing by immediately assumed I was photographing the poster because I disagreed with it and began to berate my husband and me for wearing masks. Before long, we were standing in the street yelling at one another as passers by stared incredulously.

Like holocaust deniers who spend their every waking moment measuring the distance from the camp dormitories to the ovens in order to prove mass gassing was impossible, this woman knew intimately the work of every epidemiologist, virologist and immunologist in the world – except any of the experts by whom we have been guided – and quoted at length each of their theories against mask-wearing, social distancing and hand-washing. “The Writer vigorously defended our position in favour of keeping as safe as possible at increasing volume and with escalating irritation and, though she didn’t actually get as far as asserting that Bill Gates was planning to microchip us with every vaccine shot, that couldn’t have been far off.

Her arguments that she ‘didn’t believe” in Covid-19, that the whole thing was “a hoax” and that masks were of no use, were familiar to us of course, but she was the first person we’d ever heard express them at close quarters. The exchange ended when “The Writer” protested that part of his reason for wearing a mask was to protect her, and she replied that she “didn’t need his protection” and scoffed at the idea that some might be quite pleased to have it. At this, we ‘made our excuses and left’

Back home, I looked up “The Gender Queer Human Rights Deity” and discovered that the drawing was by an artist called Rachel House and was her first poster for “Flying Leaps” a collection of artists whose aims are to” Exhibit artists’ work on street poster sites to make unexpected, thought-provoking contributions to the urban spectacle“.

House’s poster is described thus:

“With her debut flyingleaps poster, House is emphasising that human rights include trans rights and genderqueer positivity. Displayed on the streets to coincide with International Human Rights Day on December 10^th, House’s Genderqueer Human Rights Deity (2020) is one of a series of captivating single panel works that feature an ouroboros – a snake devouring its own tail – symbolising the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth. The sloughing of skin suggests the transmigration of souls and the tail biting snake is also a symbol of fertility.

In the void of the snake circle, House has created variously serene, always arresting faces made up of ancient glyphs, signs and figurative details. Patterned textures and further protective motifs in the design afford a distinctive character to the works so that while they all rail against assorted injustices each has its own particular expression. There’s an owl-like Minerva, goddess of wisdom, quality to them that suggests a measured, calm, righteous questioning rather than aggressive confrontation. A thoughtful approach that is something of a breath of fresh air in these febrile times”.

I wish House could have seen us standing toe-to-toe shouting at each other, heedless of the poisoned droplets passing between us, and, unlike her owl-like, Goddess Minerva figures, failing dismally to maintain the “measured, calm righteous questioning rather than aggressive confrontation” her poster depicts. Would she have been disgusted with us? Or would she just have been thrilled that her work had produced just the sort of “happening” the sixties would have been proud of – An ‘Urban spectacle” indeed.

A triumph for provocative art, then, and a sad reflection on the human condition when three reasonably intelligent human beings are unable to maintain a calm exchange of views.