![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A long time ago in an eastern Washington town far away a younger version of myself found the the MIT Guide to Lock Picking and wanted to try it. One of the suggested sources of picks was street sweeper bristles, but he lived miles and miles away from paved roads that were swept. Instead he made some suprisingly useful picks using saftey pins and friendly plastic, but the desire for street sweeper bristles stayed. He looked forward to moving to an urban area where one could find such things.
About a year later he did move, but had forgotten all about it.
Sometime last year I finally noticed one. By this time I had a commercial lock pick set, but I grabbed it anyway. And then forgot all about it.
Sometime last month the subject came up and I started noticing a few more. One every other week or so.
On Monday I found three. On Tuesday, walking the 6 blocks from the video store back to the Republic, I found thirteen. They're everywhere. Which makes me feel pretty stupid for never noticing them before. I've had a latent desire to collect them for years, yet I've been walking past them in the hundreds. Goes to show how subjective perception is.
I find the image of thousands of them, scattered and hidden across the city, to be very compelling. They're an obscure byproduct of the urban infrastructure like the spraypainted glyphs that guide (summon?) street repairs. A kind of natural resource waiting to be harvested. By using them I put myself in a symbiotic relationship with the city as a living entity. It's like finding out that traffic cones are edible or that you can recharge batteries by rubbing them against city council members.
About a year later he did move, but had forgotten all about it.
Sometime last year I finally noticed one. By this time I had a commercial lock pick set, but I grabbed it anyway. And then forgot all about it.
Sometime last month the subject came up and I started noticing a few more. One every other week or so.
On Monday I found three. On Tuesday, walking the 6 blocks from the video store back to the Republic, I found thirteen. They're everywhere. Which makes me feel pretty stupid for never noticing them before. I've had a latent desire to collect them for years, yet I've been walking past them in the hundreds. Goes to show how subjective perception is.
I find the image of thousands of them, scattered and hidden across the city, to be very compelling. They're an obscure byproduct of the urban infrastructure like the spraypainted glyphs that guide (summon?) street repairs. A kind of natural resource waiting to be harvested. By using them I put myself in a symbiotic relationship with the city as a living entity. It's like finding out that traffic cones are edible or that you can recharge batteries by rubbing them against city council members.