Nobody meant for it to be symbolic—they just liked the cool animal and its bright colors—but the 65-foot-long, 15-foot high Jackson's chameleon now painted on the side of Gorditos taqueria is a spectacular symbol that beauty can come out of even the worst kind of forced change.

Gorditos was shuttered for almost half a year after a natural gas leak explosion that shocked the Greenwood neighborhood in March and destroyed parts of it. Other businesses weren't as lucky as Gorditos.

In a cool move encouraging the ongoing rebuilding of the neighborhood, Gorditos owner Shannon Hall commissioned a huge mural. The artist is Oasis of Hilo, Hawaii, and he had an assist from Seattle artist Graves33.

"I wanted to give him all the freedom in the world to do what he wanted," Hall said. The mural is intended to be permanent.

Oasis showed his art at Lucy's, Gorditos' sister restaurant in Hilo, which is how Hall knew of Oasis's work.

Oasis offered Hall multiple options for the wall, including a whale, a salmon, and an eagle killing a snake, Hall said, but he thought the chameleon would give Oasis the most artistic freedom.

As for Oasis, he didn't mean anything symbolic by proposing the creature of change. He just likes Jackson's chameleons. He's had them as pets. They don't do much, he said. "In the jungle they just chill," and that's what they did when he fed them crickets and took care of them. His had bodies about six inches long, tails about five inches long, and tongues another six inches long.

There wasn't enough room on the wall to do the tongue.

In case you are new to this whole subject, Gorditos has good food, including burritos advertised as the size of babies. There are photographs on the walls of burritos next to babies to prove it. A few of those invaluable photographs were destroyed, but most of them, thankfully, are still on the walls inside.