Reading The Silver Pin reminds me just how deep an object’s layers or layered context can be. The llama plushie sitting next to me on my bed has lived four years now and it took reading this article to realize that. My guardian bought it at my first comic con in Chicago, and was perfectly handled save for a small unnoticeable tear from recently. I hadn’t realized there was a tear until placing it on my bed from when it’d fallen again—a number of my plushies fall on the floor. And then I started wondering when did I obtain all of them and how—for two of them I couldn’t remember!
The Silver Pin immediately layers the importance of objects and how they’re found. Handling them, carrying them across borders and countries while barely wearing them every month. I have a lot of items sitting in my room that are touched maybe thrice on a generous month. It’s really fun imagining all the characteristics of an Item I have—like reading an imaginary profile.
Listening to a firsthand podcast of an object running around a students wallet was humorous! The American Life immerses a world I hadn’t considered before, it’s kid-like energy similar to Toy Story, but engaging and fun nonetheless. Hearing the item’s confession of wanting to be a balloon while meeting the student’s GameStop card is fun. In watching this comedic transition I learn about how gradual changes in someone’s life occur. From a college students wallet to multiple beds to a very warm shoebox, the strange object becomes a veteran multiple times until they happily reside in a peaceful, stilled retirement. This pattern paints a vivid picture of human transition and how all of our lives reform. With little changes, old parts of ourselves chip away little by little, replaced by newer defining items that serve as our identity.
nemo 