While wandering through the streets of Manhattan today I came across this brilliant Simpsons themed poster making fun of the current race for Mayor which features Charles Montgomery “Monty” Burns. Behind this humorous campaign (official website here) is a serious message: That despite how good of a mayor Bloomberg may be, many folks are quite upset (including yours truly) that he eliminated term limits without a public vote. Adding to this irony is also the fact that Bloomberg came in as a result of terms which drove Rudy Giuliani from office right after 9/11.

What I really love about this campaign is that it’s taking street art to make a very serious statement with the use of humor. The website for the campaign includes a wide range of proposals including selling off Staten Island, building a nuclear power plant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and a police campaign to eliminate hipsters. In addition to the website for Burns there’s also a Facebook group than welcomes voters.

This video, by the Japanese group of artists Rinpa Eshidan is one of the coolest things I’ve come across this week! Rinpa Eshidan, which is loosely defined as “To bring people together, art crew,” is a collaborative art effort that I am entirely too enamoured with. Focused on making art for the sake of creating, not the sake of preserving, the group has managed to come up with some amazing projects. This one, for example, is a time lapse video of them, in public, painting on the same wall for a week. Using each completed painting as a springboard to the next, the results are mesmerizing to say the least. Here are some photos of them in action:

John Martone is Texas based writer bent on creating odd plays. When not doing that he disassembles plot lines for the enjoyment of the internet.

While wandering around Kenmare and Mott in Manhattan I spotted this stenciled Spock street art which features him in his Wrath of Khan outfit sporting a Marilyn Monroe hairstyle. Clearly a homage to Warhol (as shown by the near by tomato soup spray can below) the artist is Mr. Brainwash.

Special thanks to Hrag Vartanian to identifying the street artist via his fast thinking tweets.