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Friday Slide Show: Twin Peaks Scope
19 April 2024
On our recent trek up Twin Peaks, we snapped a vertical shot of one of the telescopes installed in the viewing area. And, for some reason known only to fortune tellers, we really liked it.
There was something noble about its position, facing south, perpendicular to the view, as if it could care less about the financial district, civic center, Alcatraz and all the other sign posts of civilization.
It just wanted some rays. A tan.
Naturally, it's not amenable to T-shirts screen printed with slogans or tattoos needled into the aluminum base. But that's where stickers come in.
Lots and lots of stickers.
So we wondered, "Can you make as slide show from one image?"
We tried. We failed.
Our crops of the stickers from the distant image just didn't cut it. They were soft like VGA-resolution* digital pictures of the 1990s.
But the idea stuck, so we returned to the hill this week, jumped out of the car and took a few more flattering shots of the defaced property.
We have the same understanding of these stickers as we do of the roadway decorated by the skaters just south of the viewing area and of graffiti in general.
It's a barking for attention. "Look at me!" it says. "I count!"
Well, yes, you do. And more than public property. Probably even more than private property that gets tagged just as much. You do count, you do.
So we see it as a cultural phenomenon. A worldwide cultural phenomenon. In cities. It reflects a new generation's rejection of the old order. An old story, that.
But we won't sing the chorus ("in favor of what?") because timing is everything.
One day they'll stand again on Twin Peaks and look east to the menagerie that sprouts into a skyline and wonder at the beauty of the bay embracing it, the hills crowning the bay, the sky lighting it all up.
And they'll wonder why their kid is scratching their initials in the rock wall instead of taking in the beauty that surrounds them.
