![IMG_20140502_092311]()
because a good idea never grows old…
![TOYNBEE IDEA IN MOVIE 2001 RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPITER.]()
TOYNBEE IDEA IN MOVIE 2001 RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPITER.
Baltimore, May 5, 2014 – So many new “Toynbee Tiles” have been spotted around town lately – especially in the Mount Vernon area – that Baltimore Or Less feels compelled to consolidate all previous postings into this latest update on the pop-cultural street art phenomenon, complete with a geographic guide to where to find these curious installations. – Tom Warner (Baltimore Or Less)
Mount Vernon may be the new home of “Toynbee Tile” sightings. Though many of these cryptic tiles have been spotted here (and in Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and other Northeast American cities – not to mention all over the world), there have been some two dozen spotted in Baltimore over the years, and over the last eight months there with at least four tile markings within the half-mile area between Eutaw Street and W. Franklin Street and the Walters Art Museum on N. Charles Street.
All “Toynbee Tiles” share a common message: a conflation of statements linking “TOYNBEE IDEA,” Stanley Kubrick’s “MOVIE 2001,” RESURRECT DEAD (or “RAISE DEAD”, and the “PLANET JUPITER.” They also share variations on instruction to “LAY TILE ALONE,” usually addressed as a warning to the “FEDS.” Each tile also features individual “footnotes” featuring rants and commentary about various conspiracy theories.
But before we get started looking at this spate of new sightings…
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT, TOYNBEE?
![British historian Arnold J. Toynee had an idea. (And no, his middle initial doesn't stand for "Jupiter.")]()
British historian Arnold J. Toynee had an idea. (And no, his middle initial doesn’t stand for “Jupiter.”)
Countless questions remain about the Toynbee Tiles: Are we standing on some sort of interplanetary message? Who is planting these tiles? What are they made of? How do they get away with planting them on busy city streets? And just what the heck do filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, his film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the planet Jupiter and religious historian Arnold J. Toynbee have in common?
For those unfamiliar with this mysterious street art phenomenon (and I count myself among those who walk in darkness about this ongoing urban legend-in-the-making), check out the “Toynbee Tiles” Wikipedia entry, Phillyist’s “A Beginner’s Guide to Toynbee Tiles – Part I,” John Stoehr’s “Feature: The Toynbee Tiles” Clip Pile blog, or Alan Bellows damned excellent post “The Mysterious Toynbee Tiles” (September 25, 2005) at damninteresting.com. Here’s an excerpt from Alan Bellows’ post that summarizes the tiles phenomenon:
In 1992, a chap in Philadelphia by the name of Bill O’Neill starting noticing strange tiles randomly embedded in local roads. They were generally about the size of a license plate, and each had some variation of the same strange message: “TOYNBEE IDEA IN KUbricK’s 2001 RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPiTER.”
![Whole-Tile-Close-Up]()
They varied a bit in color and arrangement, but they were all made of an unidentifiable hard substance, and many had footnotes as strange as the message itself, such as “Murder every journalist, I beg you,” and “Submit. Obey.” Some were accompanied by lengthy, paranoid diatribes about the newsmedia, jews, and the mafia.
So Bill started asking around about these tiles, but nobody knew anything about their origin or meaning. So, he created a website devoted to the mysterious tiles, and in doing so learned that it is not just a local phenomenon. Similar tiles have appeared in many US cities, including Washington DC, Pittsburgh, New York City, Baltimore, Boston, and many more. Some have even shown up in South America; in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. To date, about 130 tiles have been discovered. Somehow, someone is managing to embed these tiles into public roads– some of which are busy 24/7– without being spotted.
The tiles all mention “Toynbee,” most likely Arnold J. Toynbee, a religious historian born in England in 1889. Some of the tiles mention Kubrick, the filmmaker responsible for 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was a movie that made implications that a man was reborn on a mission to Jupiter, not exactly resurrected. There is only one known intersection between the works of Toynbee and Kubrick, and it’s pretty circumstantial: Toynbee’s writings spoke of a man named Zoroaster who conceived the idea of monotheism, and this name also occurs in the title of the famous 2001: A Space Odyssey theme song; it’s entitled “Thus Spoke Zoroaster.”![Zoroaster]()
The “Thus Spoke Zoroaster” attribution above is a reference to the initial “Sunrise” segment of Richard Strauss’ tone poem “Also Sprach Zarathustra” and the book by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, which dealt with like-minded ideas of the “eternal recurrence of the same.”
For more on Toynbee Tiles, be sure to check out the links listed at the end of this post.
And, if you get Netflix, watch Jon Foy’s 2011 documentary film Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles. The trailer for this intriguing film is shown below.
Watch Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles trailer.
The documentary tries to find the person or persons responsible for the tiles and makes the case that it may have started in Philadelphia and that it may have been a recluse named Severino “Sevy” Verna, who placed the tiles through a hole in the floor of his car while broadcasting a short-wave radio message about his theories. The filmmakers believe Verna also may have used the alias of James Morasco.
In 1983, Philadephia Inquirer writer Clark DeLeon mentioned Morasco’s attempts to contact local media about his reanimation theories (“Theories: Wanna Run That By Me Again?”). As John Stoehr wrote in his “The Toynee Tiles” article for Cincinnatti CityBeat (August 2-August 8, 2001):
Morasco was reportedly a social worker who believed we could colonize Jupiter “by bringing all the people on Earth who had ever died back to life and then changing Jupiter’s atmosphere to allow them to live.” Morasco discovered these ideas while reading the works of Arnold Toynbee. He also believed Toynbee’s ideas of resurrecting dead people’s molecules were depicted in Stanley Kubrick’s monumental film of regeneration and growth, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Philadelphia-based Bill O’Neill, who created a web site called “What Is It?” to document Toynbee tile sightings, reported receiving a message in 1999 from Nathan J. Mehl, who claimed to have met a man obsessed with raising the dead on earth and transporting them to Jupiter. Mehl said the man had been posting wheat-pasted hand bills similar to the tiles around Philadelphia bus stops. Mehl recalled “one tantalizing detail” about the man performing short-wave radio broadcasts on a regular basis. One of those broadcasts was heard by none other than acclaimed playwright David Mamet! ![Goldberg STreet]()
In his 1985 collection of plays and monologues, Goldberg Street, Mamet wrote a skit called “4 A.M.” In it, a radio talk host listens to a man obsessing over Toynbee, 2001 and dead people!
Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001 was, of course, an adaptation of a short story by sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke. But Clarke also shared spiritual believes about birth, life, death, and resurrection similar to those espoused by his contemporary Toynbee.
The plot thickens!
Also check out the related Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles Facebook page for the latest sightings and news. (Interesting stuff here; for example, I learned that in August 2006 Chicago’s Department of Transportation ordered the destruction of all Toynbee tiles.)
Naturally, given their alleged birth in the City of Brotherly Love, there’s a Philadelphia Toynbee Tiles guide on Google Maps.
OK, following is a guide to recent Toynbee Tile activity in Charm City.
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MOUNT VERNON: MD STATE LIBRARY FOR THE BLIND & PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED
The following tile appears on the crosswalk at intersection of Park Avenue and W. Franklin Street, across from the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.
!["Toynbee Idea Movie 2001 Raise Dead Planet Jupiter."]()
“Toynbee Idea Movie 2001 Raise Dead Planet Jupiter.” Spotted on May 2, 2014 across from the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped on Park Avenue and W. Franklin Street.
Where: Crosswalk at corner of Park Avenue & W. Franklin Street
Spotted: Friday, May 2, 2014
Footnotes: This example features the added all caps text (in between quotation marks) of “A REAL RESURRECTION IS EASY AND PROVED BY CAVEMAN’S FIRST [USE?] OF GENUS [GENIUS?] TOOLS.” Also, the new marking substitutes instructions to “RAISE DEAD” in place of the more common “RESURRECT DEAD.”
MOUNT VERNON: WALTERS ART MUSEUM
In October 2013, a similar Toynbee Tile was spotted in Mount Vernon at the Walters Art Museum crosswalk between Centre and N. Charles Street, as shown below:
![Toynbee Tile spotted in October 2013 outside Walters Art Museum.]()
Toynbee Tile spotted in October 2013 outside Walters Art Museum.
Where: Crosswalk leading to Walters Arts Museum at corner of Centre & N. Charles Street
Spotted: October 2013
Footnotes: “HITMAN FROM VENEZUELA + CUBA FAILED TO MURDER ME TWICE, SO THEY SENT A FAGGOT CELL TO MURDER MY MOTHER.” There are also two warnings to the “FEDS” to “LAY TILE ALONE.”
H&H BUILDING @ EUTAW & W. FRANKLIN STREET
There are two tiles appearing on the crosswalks at the intersection of Eutaw and W. Franklin Street.
The tile shown below appears on Eutaw street at this intersection, directly across from the H&H Outdoor military surplus, camping equipment and clothing store. Heavy salting from our recent seemingly never-ending winter has worn away much of its text, as shown below.
![Decaying Toynbee Tile at corner of Eutaw and W. Franklin Street, across from H&H Building.]()
Decaying Toynbee Tile on Eutaw Street at corner of Eutaw and W. Franklin Street, across from H&H Building.
Where: On Eutaw Street, corner of Eutaw & W. Franklin Street
Spotted: Friday, May 2, 2014
Footnotes: What little text I can make out mentions something about “THE HELLION,” and “SEARCHING FOR ‘MORE THAN ONE HELL’ IDEOLOGIES TO GET ‘MORE REWARDS‘.”
Catty-corner to the H&H Outdoors tile on Eutaw Street is another tile on the W. Franklin Street crosswalk directly across from the Charles Fish & Sons building, as shown below. (On a watch, this tile would be roughly 3 o’clock to the decaying tile’s 12 o’clock position if one was walking west on Franklin Street toward the H&H Building.)
![Toynbee Tile Idea Movie 2001 Resurrect Dead Planet Jupiter, spotted on W. Franklin St at corner of Eutaw and Franklin.]()
Toynbee Tile on W. Franklin Street at corner of Eutaw and Franklin, across from Charles Fish & Sons building.
Where: On W. Franklin Street, at corner of Eutaw & W. Franklin Street
Spotted: Saturday, May 3, 2014
Footnotes: This latest marking includes the curious all-caps text “YOU MUST LAY TILE. AS HELLIONS – ALL COMMUNISTS JOIN UP ‘EN MASSE’ AND GIVE YOU BEATINGS.”
The above tile was not there on May 2. So, as Sherlock Holmes would say, “The game’s afoot!” Someone – perhaps the hipsters in the Floristree concert venue-cum-art colony that inhabit the upper levels of the nearby H&H Building? – is planting fresh markings. In other words, in Baltimore the Toynbee Tiles phenomenon is the equivalent of an active volcano.
In fact, just a day after the above discovery, a Baltimore Or Less follower named Justin Ethan notified us that he had just seen a Toynbee Tile on Albemarle and Eastern Avenue in Little Italy. [When my bum knee gets better, I'll make a pilgrimage down there to take a picture!] And others have reported sightings in Canton, as well.
Some of the previous Baltimore sightings included a 1999 sighting of two Toynbee Tiles at 200 West Lexington Street. The Baltimore Sun even ran an article about the tiles sometime around 2001 (how fitting, given the Kubrick Space Odyssey connection!). You can also check out the guide to Baltimore Toynbee Tiles posted on Google Maps.
FYI: MORE CRYPTIC STREET ART
![Museum of the Future stencil, Krononauts, March 4, 1982.]()
Museum of the Future stencil, Krononauts, March 4, 1982.
The stencil stylings are reminiscent of the similar, but unrelated, underground Stencil Street Art Project launched in the 1990′s by Baltimore’s own Cultural Cryptanalysts Collective (CCC), which was a collective of anonymous individuals “dedicated to revealing the secret messages embedded in our society’s institutions, the media, and our daily lives.” (It somehow tied in with their “Nine New Museums” project. A 1996 press release announced the creation of nine new museums named after the nine classical Greek muses and was accompanied by a series of street stencils at precisely chosen locations around Baltimore – one of the stencils, for The Museum of the Future (not to be confused with Ralph Kramden’s “Chef of the Future“) was laid in 1982 right around the corner from the Walters Art Gallery at 527 North Charles Street, the former home of the Empire Salon; each stencil functioned as “a curious aesthetic marker to the general public, and carried a secret message to particular individuals and/or social groups.”
![Map of CCC's "Nine New Museums."]()
Map of CCC’s “Nine New Museums.”
For more on the CCC and the street stencil project, see my Accelerated Decrepitude blog post “Link: A Remembrance of Local Arts Scenes Past.”)
Related “Toynbee Tile” Links:
“New Toynbee Tile Sighting” (Baltimore Or Less, October 15, 2013)
Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles (Facebook)
“Toynbee Tiles” NPR story (2006)
New York Times story (April 25, 1999)
“What Is It?” (Internet Archives)
Toynbee Tiles (Flickr)
Baltimore Toynbee Tiles: Google Maps
In 2007, “Sidereal” posted the placemark guide Baltimore Toynbee Tiles to Google Maps. Might make an interesting walking tour to see if the tiles are still there.
![Baltimore Toynbee Tiles (Google Maps).]()
Baltimore Toynbee Tiles (Google Maps).
BALTIMORE —The quiet confines of a Baltimore public library erupted into chaos during a confrontation Monday afternoon between a security officer and a teenager, and it was all captured on video.
Hello Baltimore! Once again, we’re in the national spotlight for sex, drugs, murder and corruption!
Before a stunned crowd of 100,311, Ferrell vaulted from the infield, where he had been drinking heavily, ran across the turf course and planted himself on the main track while the horses were coming down the stretch for the Maryland Breeders’ Cup Stakes. Risking his own life, as well as those of the jockeys and horses in the race, he took a wild swing at Artax, who would go on to win the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint and the 1999 Eclipse Award for outstanding sprinter. With Jockey Jorge Chavez able to steer his mount out of the way at the last second, neither Ferrell nor any of the horses or jockeys were seriously hurt.
love you sis.”
