The End of Borf

Despite scant evidence to the contrary, I am no aficionado of graffiti culture. Yet even the most aloof District resident will be familiar with "Borf," whose tag (along with his apparent rival, "Slae") appears throughout the city. You can imagine the rumor and intrigue that erupted yesterday at the first news of his arrest. (I learned of this around 10 a.m. yesterday via craigslist, but wondered initially if it wasn't some kind of hoax.)

Borf, it turns out, is 18-year-old John Tsombikos of Great Falls, VA, a community in which the average household income is nearly four times the national average. Try as the Post might to romanticize this young man's work and to present his typically contrarian teenage demeanor as evidence of his status as an "artist," the treatment of graffiti as a novel cultural trend in search of legitimacy was last appropriate circa 1980.

More infuriating, however, is that we must now hear about Borf's anti-capitalist and anarchical worldview -- right alongside the fact that his parents, who clearly knew about his penchant for vandalism, occasionally gave him $14 so that he might park in downtown garages during his bombing trips to the "inner city."

Enough. It's disgusting, really. It is a testament to just how trite graffiti has become, that a wealthy, self-proclaimed nihilist driving around in his parents' Volvo SUV could attain such a level of fame (or infamy). Worse still, what made his work unique was his use of stencils. If it were possible, I'd like to punish him by sending him back to 1979 in the South Bronx, and see how he would manage there. For all his talk about anarchy, and not believing in age or property rights, I'd pay good money to see the look on his face upon stepping out of that time machine.