September 26–October 3, 1996

hit and run

Chinmoy Annoys

You've seen the posters. Surely you have. Sri Chinmoy is coming and you can barely turn the corner in this town without Chinmoy's peacefully sedate mug, eyes closed in meditation, looking you back.

The concert, scheduled to take place Nov. 1, is a free event; an evening of music and meditation; a coming together of people of all walks of life to pray for peace.

But apparently the advertising campaign hasn't left everyone with a peaceful easy feeling. Larry Dichter, the South Street-area resident responsible for bringing down the Andre the Giant poster bandit, has his eyes on bringing down Chinmoy, or his flyers at least.

Dichter complains that the flyers are made of a heavy plastic foam core and are wired, not taped or stapled, 10 and 12 feet in the air. "They are un-rippable and will be up there for three months afterwards," adds Dichter. "With all the talk about cleaning up the city and these flyers are all over the place. This is graffiti and we need to start something to clean it up."

According to Ketan Tamm, assistant promoter at the Philadelphia Sri Chinmoy Center, the advertising campaign is completely grassroots and completely kosher. Tamm says that the monumental campaign is run on a very small budget, and completely by volunteers.

"The cheapest way to get a message out is by flyering and postering," adds Tamm. "We did get a permit and we do have a group of people who are volunteering to pull everything down because we don't believe in leaving waste in the community."

Tamm added that because all the work is done by volunteers, they sometimes get a little too aggressive in their flyering. He emphasizes that they do impress upon the volunteers that there are no-poster and no-flyer areas in the city, but on occasion a flyer will end up in such an area because of overzealousness.

— Brian Howard