On my way back home from the library, I encountered a nicely-made suggestion box at the Northeast corner of Waller and Steiner. Signage encouraged passers-by to write suggestions on index cards and place them within the box. There were no index cards left, but then there was nothing preventing you from writing suggestions on other things. There were two slots for suggestions: one labeled "Public", one "Private". Each slot was on a drawer; the private one was locked, the public one wasn't. I read the public suggestions. Many of them suggested road and traffic improvements. Did their authors think that this was a municipal suggestion box?
A label on the side of the box read "sfzero.org" and thus I found out that this box is part of a game and that one can read suggestions from boxes around the world. I have not joined this game; my shoulders already strain beneath the weight of a few half-done projects. And yet... and yet, after some reading in their web site, I believe that this game has merit. And if you're in San Francisco swinging past the Lower Haight any time soon, I suggest you take a few minutes to visit that suggestion box. (I think I got that intersection right. I'm sure it was on Waller, close to Fillmore.)
Labels: absurd, paper, pedestrian