OK, this may be too much sharing, but whatever. I’ve been pondering the phenomenon of graffiti.

I love street art. I love how it takes something kinda ugly and stupid—blank or dirty walls, sidewalks, annoying advertisements—and turns it all into something beautiful. This British artist, Paul “Moose” Curtis, is particularly interesting, because he achieves his effects by removing stuff, not by adding it. His “selective cleaning” efforts have been written up in numerous places.

British authorities aren’t sure what to make of the artist who is creating graffiti by cleaning the grime of urban life. The Leeds City Council has been considering what to do with Moose. “I’m waiting for the kind of Monty Python court case where exhibit A is a pot of cleaning fluid and exhibit B is a pair of my old socks,” he jokes.

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Set dresser David Ritchie was pronounced dead on the scene after a large piece of frozen sand and gravel fell from the top of a wall at an outdoor set that he and three crew members were dismantling in frigid winter temperatures.

Another crew member was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries and kept overnight for observation.

“He was loved by everyone on the crew,” said a colleague of Ritchie, who was 56. “He had a wonderful, gentle spirit.”

–Variety

Mr. Ritchie, 56, was a veteran of the movie industry, with credits on movies as diverse as New York Minute, The In-Laws, X-Men, The Family Man, The Corruptor and Simon Birch.

A friend said he was a smart and witty person who was popular with his colleagues.

“It’s an absolute fluke,” Barry Horsley said at the scene. “He was a very, very kind man. . . . It’s a loss for the union and a loss for the city.”

–The Globe and Mail

The set they were dismantling when this horrible accident happened was for Jumper, the movie based on my 1992 book. They’d wrapped for Toronto on the 19th and were just doing that ordinary stuff after, the dismantling of the set–clean up.

And someone I didn’t know died working on something I helped create.

I’m not responsible, obviously, but the least I can do is say, I saw that you died. You do not pass unnoticed and without regret. I’m sure your wife and daughter and friends are devastated but I just wanted to say I noticed, too, and I’m sorry.