{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.0319744204636291, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 4.823255813953488, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Slums Do Stink: Artists, Bricolage, and Our Need for Doses of “Real” Life

After opening the commercial double-pane glass door and crossing the threshold that awkwardly welcomes us in—and decidedly seals us off from the pristine place from which we came—we feel transported; suddenly we are in another world. A tattered wood shack dominates this strange environment. It is uninviting: the rusted, corrugated metal door, the haphazard construction (the whole thing is tilting!), the jumble of old barbed wire evoke the precarious conditions of slum areas or abandoned places. The fascination it provokes makes it uncomfortably alluring. There is something (someone) there; we can sense it (him or her) hiding from us. As we move around, through this landscape of forgotten objects—an unsteady wooden ladder, an old fence, a corroding metal box spring—we attempt to make sense of it all. It resembles too closely those landscapes of decaying America that we approach only from the distance of our speeding cars (or our televisions). Some observers give a cursory, polite nod and head for the door, happy to abandon the debris and return to the safety of a sterile space. Others stay, as if waiting for the inhabitant of the shack to eventually come out.