#111

#111, Soho, NYC

Without quite realizing it, I embarked on a sort of impromptu Rorshach test last week right here on &7. I posted a 106 that had an intriguing, mysterious air about it. A few of my faithful readers offered their remarkably inventive interpretations of what was obviously just a trio of inverted acorns gathered for a nefarious neo-druidic ritual. (Duh.) Sure, one could conceivably take the lazy Freudian's approach and argue that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and a number is just a number. But what fun is that?

This issue has reared its pointless head, of course, because this 111 is a fairly accurate representation of what it looks like in my brain. Forget the MRIs and CAT scans. Rogue New York street artists have their fingers both on the can of spray paint and on my pulse. Although I did participate in a handful of plays in high school (showing my full range as an actor by playing, at various points, a murderous old lady, a libidic southern girl, and a possessed young nun who suffered the stigmata), I remember shunning the choice of the comedy & tragedy masks on my high school class ring because frankly, I found them neither comedic nor tragic. But these hysterical, hyperbolic, Sharpie-drawn faces really have nailed my fluctuating emotional states in a way those masks never could. Well done, nameless street artist. If only you'd worked for Jostens in the early nineties, I might've been able to put food on your table. A can of Pringles, at the very least.

So for my readers: if you happen to find yourself in that Rorscachy, personality inventory kind of mood as I so often reluctantly find myself, studiously taking online quizzes that pose philosophical queries like "Who's Your Inner Rock Star?" and "What Type of Goth Are You?" and if you'd like to while away some time in the Ye Olde &7 Archives, here's a question for you: which of the numbers pictured so far best represents what's inside your head? You can dig through the archives or just give me your most recent, knee jerk of a response. Inquiring minds want to know.