![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Not really, let's say it's a survey.
I am always interested in people's keychains because I think of keychains as random variables. People put thought and planning into other decorations, of their person or living spaces, but most people come by keychains in ways that don't always involve choice or planning. Keychains get lost, found, given as gag gifts, appear as freebies from loathsome or obscure institutions, fashioned out of random household objects, in a way they are transitory as pens or lighters, but more singular. People's keychains often don't match the rest of their "style" or match it in some hyper-exaggerated way. Let me give you some examples:
1. My friend P. is an exteremely fashionable "hipster" photographer who lives in Brooklyn. I love her so I mean it all in the best way, but when I first met her I thought she was way too cool to want to be my friend. She accesorizes, nothing in her home is random, she is stylish from her yoga clothes to her wine picks. Her keychain is a beer bottle-opener with an Americana eagle on it. It is not ironic, because she is not hipster in that 50-s/retro/atomic era/kitschy way. She does not drink beer. She shares my politics. She came into the ownership of this keychain in some random way I don't remember at the moment.
2. When I first started dating my ex-boyfriend J. I noticed that his keys to his apartment were obviously the same set that he received from his landlady--complete with the "keychain" which was one of those plastic holders containing the address of the building and the apartment. I pointed out to him that perhaps it wasn't the best idea in the world to have his home address on the keychain which held the keys to his apartment. He agreed and I fashioned him a keychain on the spot, from a little level I had lying around on my windowsill, one of those glass things with bright liquid inside, from the hardware store. It turned out to be a cool prop that people commented on, like it was somehow signified something about his personality when really it was a circumstantial whim. Like the sandwich crusts in "Closer."
3. I often see very functional people with the most incongrous keychains--fuzzy, or sparkly, or some other normative-"out there" accent. Conversely, I often see totally disorganized people with they keychain being the only locus of their organization, like they would never even have a daily planner, but they have some little drab chewed-up notebook of a keychain where they jot down things they later cannot decipher.
My keychain of the moment is a bizarre "abstract" contraption made "from airplane parts." I procured it while really hung over in Winston-Salem, NC on some post-inhebriated mimetic/totemic superstition tip that if I had a keychain made from airplane parts it would somehow do something either for my chances of dying in a plane crash or for my fear of flying.
So, what's on your keychain?
P.S. Keychain with real scorpion! Great gift for guy!
On Edit: my last keychain that I had for a year before switching to Airplane Parts contained a leatherman and a WTC keychain that I got as a present from one of the collectors I interviewed for my documentory. It features the tops of the Twin Towers in the clouds and the caption reads "Top of the World." That was the only souvenier that I acquired while making that documentary that I really liked.
I am always interested in people's keychains because I think of keychains as random variables. People put thought and planning into other decorations, of their person or living spaces, but most people come by keychains in ways that don't always involve choice or planning. Keychains get lost, found, given as gag gifts, appear as freebies from loathsome or obscure institutions, fashioned out of random household objects, in a way they are transitory as pens or lighters, but more singular. People's keychains often don't match the rest of their "style" or match it in some hyper-exaggerated way. Let me give you some examples:
1. My friend P. is an exteremely fashionable "hipster" photographer who lives in Brooklyn. I love her so I mean it all in the best way, but when I first met her I thought she was way too cool to want to be my friend. She accesorizes, nothing in her home is random, she is stylish from her yoga clothes to her wine picks. Her keychain is a beer bottle-opener with an Americana eagle on it. It is not ironic, because she is not hipster in that 50-s/retro/atomic era/kitschy way. She does not drink beer. She shares my politics. She came into the ownership of this keychain in some random way I don't remember at the moment.
2. When I first started dating my ex-boyfriend J. I noticed that his keys to his apartment were obviously the same set that he received from his landlady--complete with the "keychain" which was one of those plastic holders containing the address of the building and the apartment. I pointed out to him that perhaps it wasn't the best idea in the world to have his home address on the keychain which held the keys to his apartment. He agreed and I fashioned him a keychain on the spot, from a little level I had lying around on my windowsill, one of those glass things with bright liquid inside, from the hardware store. It turned out to be a cool prop that people commented on, like it was somehow signified something about his personality when really it was a circumstantial whim. Like the sandwich crusts in "Closer."
3. I often see very functional people with the most incongrous keychains--fuzzy, or sparkly, or some other normative-"out there" accent. Conversely, I often see totally disorganized people with they keychain being the only locus of their organization, like they would never even have a daily planner, but they have some little drab chewed-up notebook of a keychain where they jot down things they later cannot decipher.
My keychain of the moment is a bizarre "abstract" contraption made "from airplane parts." I procured it while really hung over in Winston-Salem, NC on some post-inhebriated mimetic/totemic superstition tip that if I had a keychain made from airplane parts it would somehow do something either for my chances of dying in a plane crash or for my fear of flying.
So, what's on your keychain?
P.S. Keychain with real scorpion! Great gift for guy!
On Edit: my last keychain that I had for a year before switching to Airplane Parts contained a leatherman and a WTC keychain that I got as a present from one of the collectors I interviewed for my documentory. It features the tops of the Twin Towers in the clouds and the caption reads "Top of the World." That was the only souvenier that I acquired while making that documentary that I really liked.
