A bronze bust of the late educator Hikoichi Orita was vandalized so often, Kyoto University administrators put it into storage – still, the students persisted.

Orita-sensei played an instrumental part in the founding of Kyoto University back in 1897. In 1950, a bronze bust of the revered former headmaster was set atop a stone plinth near the university’s Yoshida South campus. Uneventful decades passed… until one night in 1990, students protesting the First Gulf War spray-painted the statue’s face red and captioned it “Angry Person”.

The school’s Faculty of Integrated Human Studies dutifully cleaned the bust after each incident and added a signboard reading: “As headmaster of Third Senior High School, Orita Hikoichi-sensei assisted in the founding of Kyoto University, and is a person who has left behind many achievements in pursuit of academic liberty at Kyoto University. Please do not dishonor this statue.” Problem solved!

Notwithstanding the printed admonishment (see “Streisand Effect”), poor Orita-sensei’s bronze bust was defaced again and again while the vandalism grew gradually more elaborate. A bizarre tug-of-war ensued between authorities trying to maintain the bust and students trying to deface it. Finally in 1997, the school had had enough: the bronze Orita-sensei bust was removed from its plinth and unceremoniously retired to the basement of the Integrated Anthropology Department. Problem solved… again?

It’s still there today, suffering only the occasional minor indignity of a feather-dusting by the cleaning staff. Poor Orita-sensei doesn’t look too pleased by his relocation, as snapped by Flickr member jun sasaki (doublemachen) in February of 2015. Meanwhile, the stone plinth still stood outside at the Yoshida South gate, bust-less. It would not remain so for long.

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Sensei Tion Kyoto Us Much Defaced Orita Bust

Cryptic ‘House of Hades’ linoleum tiles inspired by mysterious and anonymous Toynbee Tiles are cropping up on The Big Apple’s paved streets.

The so-called “Toynbee Tiles” are mosaic messages cut from colored linoleum floor tiles and ingeniously set into asphalt-paved urban streets. The tiles – made and installed by a still-anonymous person – began appearing decades ago in cities from the U.S. east coast west to Kansas and as far south as Santiago, Chile. Most of the original Toynbee Tiles have worn away and are preserved for posterity through photographs taken by aficionados such as Flickr member Brecht Bug, which describe new Toynbee Tiles placed as recently as 2016.

The artist’s carefully guarded anonymity has inspired at least one copycat who signs their work “House of Hades”. Besides not having to deal with copyright issues, copycats are able to stoke public interest in their own work by creating uncertainty in the public mind… is this a copy or a work of the original artist? House of Hades tiles greatly resemble the original Toynbee Tiles (example above) in style and construction though their inherent and obvious messages are quite different… and often quite weird.

No Happy Media

House of Hades’ most commonly expressed sentiment is a vitriolic hatred for the Mass Media – sometimes called out in person, i.e. the New York Post. He (or She – we’ll go with the male pronoun for the sake of flow) often refers to himself as “one man against the media machine”. The laying of these tiles seems to constitute a vengeful vendetta on one level; a warning to society on another.

Angry New York State of Mind

House of Hades tiles can be found from Buffalo, New York (where they may have originated) down through Pittsburgh and Philadelphia but they may be most common in New York City. Flickr member Brecht Bug has uploaded over 300 photos of NYC-area House of Hades tiles, often returning to the same tile to highlight the tiles as they gradually decay in the Big Apple’s punishing urban environment.

The Only Living Tile in New York

The tiles are not alive, of course, but they do have lifespans which vary depending upon their location, amount and type of traffic, and other such factors. In 2009, Brecht Bug was serendipitously fortunate to find a newly-installed House of Hades tile located near Broadway & Houston. The tile was so new, its tar paper cover was completely intact.

Like the original Toynbee Tiles, House of Hades tiles are made of cut linoleum set mosaic-style into a tar base, then covered with a thin sheet of tar paper. The cover protects and stabilizes the tile until solar heat and the weight exerted by passing traffic conspire to press the tile into the pavement. Ingenious… and that doesn’t even take into account how the artist performs installations in the middle of NYC’s infamously busy streets.

The photographer was able to snap the newly-laid tile on August 21st of 2009, four days later as the tar paper had partially worn off, fully exposed on September 1st, and yet again in early April of 2010 as the tile was crumbling away. It’s the Great Circle of Life, tile style!

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Toynbee Too Cryptic House Of Hades Street Tiles

The Russian embassy has taken a hard line in Bulgaria where Soviet monuments have been spray-painted to become iconic American fictional characters from Superman and the Joker to Santa Claus and Ronald McDonald.

According to the Moscow Times, Russia has continued to demand that measures be stepped up to clean and protect the statues. They also want Bulgarian authorities to identify and punish the criminals and do more to prevent future attacks.

The monument at the center of the controversy was sprayed with red paint around the anniversary of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, but some artists have had other ideas over the years as well.

Previously, this same monument in Sofia was painted bright pink to recall the Prague Spring — it later got covered in Ukrainian colors to show solidarity. They have been covered with masks as well.

Of course, this is all a bit excessive in context — these are memorials to a defunct regime and situated in a foreign country over which Russia has no control. One solution would be to simply remove them from public view, as has happened in other countries over the years, but, in the end, it’s up to Bulgaria, not Russia.

Golf isn’t the hit sport it used to be and one consequence is the proliferation of abandoned driving ranges closed due to changes in recreational pursuits.

The good thing about abandoned driving ranges – at least, for those who photograph and/or write about them – is that they’re usually outdoors and as such, are often overgrown with invasive vegetation. Kinda adds to the post-apocalyptic vibe if you know what we mean (and we think you do). In any case, Flickr user Josh Lightbody visited one such overgrown abandoned driving range in Northern Ireland just this past summer. “No Golfing”, in my abandoned driving range? Indeed, it’s more likely than you think.

From Swing to Sting

Welcome to Kejonuma Leisure Land, or maybe “unwelcome” is more apropos. Located in northern Japan, KLL opened in 1979 as a sort of pay-as-you-go themeless theme park: visitors could partake in amusement park rides, a campsite, a six-hole golf course and last but not least: a driving range. The shattered clock in the first photo, by the way, now houses a nest of suzumebachi… “sparrow bees” in the direct Japanese translation, Giant Asian Hornets to the rest of us. Yep, the fun never stops at Kejonuma Leisure Land even though the park itself has.

The intrepid urbex explorers from Abandoned Kansai visited Kejonuma Leisure land – with the owner’s permission – in May of 2014. We would have gone during the winer, what with the Giant Asian Hornets and all, but that’s what makes those guys so intrepid… and presumably unaffected by extreme pain.

Magnum PEI

Flickr user Brett Sanderson took the strikingly detailed HDR photos above at an abandoned driving range in Charlottetown, PEI, Canada in mid-September of 2013. Bud the Spud unavailable for comment.

Ball’s-Eye View

Driving ranges can be so large it takes, say, a camera-equipped drone to take them in properly. Cue YouTube Eric Milewski, who accommodatingly brought just such a device to an abandoned driving range in Burnaby, British Columbia in the summer of 2015. Milewski employed his ZMR250 250mm Carbon Fiber Mini FPV Quadcopter drone at the now-closed Hastings Golf Centre. Watch the entire 4:13 video here.

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Teed Off A Dozen Abandoned Golf Driving Ranges

As the Ukraine strives to break free from all things Russian, some unlikely allies – Soviet-era statues of Lenin – have been enlisted to wave the flag.

Or “wear” the flag, as the case may be, and the easiest way to do that is by liberally (pun intended) applying blue and yellow – the colors of the Ukrainian flag – to bronze tarnished by decades of weathering. Lenin, as depicted above in Nikopol, wouldn’t be caught dead sporting such an ensemble back in the day. Not to worry, it wasn’t long before nationalistic protesters with plenty of rope put Dayglo Vlad out of his misery.

Siberian Breakfast Club

Not all Ukrainian-themed Lenin statues are in the Ukraine, mind you… take the above hastily colorized example from Novosibirsk, a city of 1.5 million in southwestern Siberia. According to a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty report carried by KyivPost, “Authorities in Novosibirsk say suspects accused of painting the colors of the Ukrainian flag on a monument to Lenin in the Russian city have been detained.” Hey, at least they didn’t tape his butt cheeks together.

Hail Stylin’!

Back in Kiev, however, anyone wanting to Ukrainianize a Lenin statue need not fear the police though a fear of heights would be a hindrance. The stylish statue above displays all the marks of an unhurried artist – ol’ Vlad looks dapper enough to work at IKEA!

Party Chair Man

You don’t see many “Seated Lenin” statues like the one above, located in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. There’s no rest for the wicked, however, and the Communist icon’s relaxed pose just made things easier for those wanting to make a political statement in blue and yellow spray paint.

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Color Me Patriotic Ukraines Painted Lenin Statues