Via Letters of the New Yorker,

Banksy, as profiled by Lauren Collins, is surely a talented artist, but the moment he makes a brushstorke on property that doesn’t belong to him he is a vandal and a criminal. It is an unfortunate truth that the notoriety given to Banksy and other graffiti vandals by media coverage like that in The New Yorker only encourages more vandals, and less talented ones, to contribute to urban blight. In Los Ageles alone, cleaning and fixing vandalism on buses, trains, and facilities cost L.A.’s Metro system twelve million dollars a year. The vandalism ranges from unintelligible words scrawled on seat backs and paper-label “slap tags” to etchings made with inscribing tools on windows and seats. Etching can’t be cleaned; the windows must be replaced and the seats refinished at great expense to transit patrons and taxpayers. Banksy would do a lot more good in this world if he would confine his artistic endeavors to canvas.

William Heard
San Pedro, Calif.

Yo. Defacing public or private properties that you do not own is illegal and unethical. Just like stealing digital music and software. All that public dissent bull shit - save it, and suck it, especially if you’re not Banksy, who is at least amusing.

As for Mr. Heard’s suggestion of confining to a canvas - that’s like asking Paris Hilton confining her ‘artistic endeavors’ to just singing. Take away the fact that it’s “the street” and you’ll find mostly silly scribbles and a whole lot of poor imitations. But it’s cool, I guess. Like it’s cool to wait in a long-ass line for some rare Nikes.

By the way, to all you graffiti people and wannabes, I hear there’s a show at the museum right now with some big slabs of steel - they’d make great surfaces for your, uh, art.