Etc.

Dad, I could use a little help

What college student doesn't call home once in a while for an infusion of extra cash? This can be for a variety of reasons. Ordering out for pizza too often, for example. Or, in the case of a master's degree candidate at University College of Arts, Crafts, and Design in Stockholm, Sweden, for the cost of his thesis. If reports are correct, Magnus Nugstafsson has run up a sizable bill for the project, a film that runs a total of two minutes. It shows a masked individual spray-painting grafitti inside a car on one of the city's subway trains, then smashing a window and launching himself through it and onto the platform of the station where the train was stopped. This, while passengers looked on in astonishment. "My ambition," Nugstafsson explained on the school's website, "is to take my personal experience ... with graffiti into new media and environments without losing the energy of traditional graffiti bombing." Alas, the Metro system, which is into art – it boasts some of the most imaginatively designed stations in the world – doesn't share the student's vision. "Totally unacceptable," fumed its boss. "We can't spend loads of money to clean up graffiti and repair damage." Also irked: Sweden's minister of culture. "I don't think vandalism is art," said Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, who has seen the film, "and I presume that [the school] does not intend to pay" for the damage. (The Metro system is demanding $12,000 for repairs from Nugstafsson and an apology from the academy.) As for the latter, a spokesman said students are not supposed to break the law but also suggested that it isn't clear whether Nugstafsson caused the vandalism or merely recorded it.