The corner of 3rd and University, sketched last week on a lovely sunny lunchtime. Those seven bollards seem to represent some sort of boundary between campus world and downtown world, though in reality there’s another block until UCD actually begins. That’s the Davis Copy Shop in the background. The trainers hanging from the telegraph pole, I don’t know what boundary that marks but I have heard that in other cities it marks street gang boundaries. That’s a chore, isn’t it, having to throw those things up there. I imagine the gangster’s roster system on a monday morning, “Ok you, you’re in charge of drive-bys today; you, you’re on popping-caps-in-asses; you, you can throw the shoes over the telegraph lines, no don’t complain, very important job. Don’t use Reebok.” I’ve seen it in a few places in Davis so it must be true. Maybe countries should adopt that system, but the bureaucrats will always be involved. “Well no look according to the Basel Convention we have to use shoes with laces, I’m sorry but wooden clogs just won’t do. And no you can’t use two ‘left’ shoes, article 13(b) clearly states that the shoes must be left and right.” And what if there are no telegraph lines? And they can’t be easy to get down, can they. Still, they add decoration, and if you fill them with nuts and seeds it gives the birds something to eat in the cold winters (it’s been in the mid-80s here this week, brrr).