Each new Alley Protector is my favorite, and this is today's, below:
Spike, the Apotropaic Bunny.
Spike's one glass eye is a vintage toy-eye from Susan, of the long defunct blog Art Spark Theatre (her current Instagram).
Speaking of which, I deleted my IG this week. (They hate to see you go, they love you so, so they "give" you a month to reactivate).
I was having so much fun looking at IG, I wasn't getting bored enough to go to my work table and make my own things.
The crown of spikes ^ is sewing pins. With pliers, I held each point in a stove flame until red-hot, then pushed the pin into Spike's hard plastic body. I cut the pin heads off with a wire cutter.
Try it yourself at home!
The paint is acrylic, and I sprayed Spike with a UV- and water-resistant clear coat. I don't know how much this helps the apos stay bright, but having seen how quickly the weather wore down toy offerings at George Floyd Sq., I thought I'd try it.
Of course the apos will wear down anyway, and that's fine. They are not museum pieces!
Also, they are anonymous and like it that way.
Their (adopted)* motto is,
To be small and to stay small.
Some things that have been outside for years wear nicely, like this BVM in an alley a couple blocks from the store.
BELOW: Pig (another favorite!) went out a couple days ago, on a bridge rail one block from the store, across from a spot where tweakers (people on meth) go. Not meaning to insult them (though they can cause chaos at the store)--Emmler chose the spot for the protectors to watch over them.
I glued Pig and the others in place with Gorilla Glue, or, as Jeff suggests, guerrilla glue.
Jeff is an amazing photographer of places--check out his Flickr).___________________
BOOK's
A few photos of BOOK's here--I'm behind, and I like a record.
Another reason I deleted IG---there is no way to search it. My account was five years old, and if I wanted to find an image, I had to scroll back through hundreds.
I'm grateful to myself for having labeled blog posts all along, and I'm glad, and a little surprised, that Blogger still has a "search this blog" box too.
BELOW: Amish romance novels are popular with people who want their smut to be sexless. (Really.) Writers for Harlequin etc. have to push these out by the week, and they get desperate for ideas. This one is hysterical:
BELOW: Don't these two writers look similar?
BELOW: It's rare we have enough books for a queer display, but the other day we did so I set them up on vertical display.
I was putting out toys later that same day and someone picked up the pink Care Bear and said, "rainbow bear!".
So into the display went Quear Bear. But not for long--they sold quickly. (Everything leaned toward pink that day too.)
E-bike & Carpet
Someone donated an old e-bike to the thrift store, and I am trying it out for a week to see if I want to buy it. One downside--e-bikes are stolen a lot, so I have to bring it inside. (This one's not very heavy at least.)
Here's the bike on my new-from-the-thrift-store Oriental carpet, which I love a whole lot. It makes me so happy, I didn't mind paying big bucks for it: eighty!
I've thought for a while about getting an e-bike for going longer distances. They are really mini-scooters, you know, that you don't need a license for. When I was young, I'd bike all over town and across the river into St. Paul, and I went on a few long-distance bike trips too (around Ireland with bink when I was twenty-five).
At midlife, however, I've stopped enjoying long bikes, and I pretty much only bike for transportation, to get where I need to go.
I'm a little worried that if I get this e-bike, I'll stop using my me-bike, and it would be terrible to give up that exercise. Of course I promise myself I won't, but the system that is me likes to exert the least possible energy...
Still, I think this bike could open up my life, and that would be great.
I'll see how this week goes--I've only biked home last night.
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* "To be small and to stay small" is something I'd say myself, but it comes (via blogger Michael) from writer Robert Walser, who also said, "in trivialities lies the supernatural".