Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix
IN:
« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Ransom Riggs
Photo Challenge #1: Your “Pants”
by Ransom Riggs - January 22, 2008 - 10:53 AM

Due to overwhelming response to yesterday’s call for photographers, we figured we’d better strike while the iron’s hot and give you shutterbugs your first challenge right away! So here goes. It’s your pants!

No, not your pants pants. (That would be too easy.) Watch this four-second clip from Ghost World, and then I’ll explain.

“The pants” — a discarded pair of jeans on the sidewalk — show up three or four times in Ghost World. They’re not exactly a major story point, but they illustrate that the characters in the film are the kind of people who would notice the weird incongruity of a never-moving pair of pants on the ground.

So what are “the pants” in your neighborhood? It doesn’t actually have to be pants, of course — maybe it’s a mailbox shaped like a fish, or an especially weird bit of graffiti (for instance, someone has prominently spray-painted “Beat your children … beat them hard!” on the side of a building near where I live) — just something absurd and incongruous that only an astute observer with a flossy sense of humor would notice. Heck, I don’t know; they’re your pants!

Send photos of your “pants” to flossypics@gmail.com, and include any details you think might be important (especially your location) in the email. We’ll also send out an email with this info in it to everyone who’s already volunteered to be part of our photo army (in the future these calls to arms will mostly be sent via email). If you haven’t already volunteered, it’s not too late — just leave a comment here, then grab your camera! We’ll post the results next Monday, so you’ve got a few days to find your pants.

Send this Post » Suggest a Topic/Link »
« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Comments (12)

  1. A great pair of “pants” used to exist in Portland, Maine in the trendy Old Port retail/restaurant area - it’s gone now, sadly, but there used to be this slogan spray painted on a brick wall:

    BEER = GOD

    Succinct and expansive at the same time.

    posted by Kim on 1-22-2008 at 12:42 pm

  2. There actually *is* a pair of real pants floating around my apartment complex. First they were sprawled helplessly near the stairs, then someone folded them neatly and put them on the side of the fake fountain, now they’re sitting inside the fake fountain collecting ash and rainwater. . .

    posted by Andrea on 1-22-2008 at 1:25 pm

  3. those pants had more of a part in the comic.

    posted by sheya on 1-22-2008 at 1:54 pm

  4. A mailbox shaped like a fish . . .

    Not exactly, but there was an (older) guy who filled his mailbox with cement after the umpteenth time it was smashed by a sporting group of hoodlums. One would imagine that the kid holding the baseball bat out the car window should have learned his lesson. Instead, he sued the guy for his broken arm.

    posted by K on 1-22-2008 at 2:25 pm

  5. I’ve seen a mailbox on a 25 foot tall pole that said “airmail” on the side of it. My favorite graffiti definitely has to “I Love Satin.” Apparently there is a group of satinists active in my area.

    posted by Candiru on 1-22-2008 at 3:34 pm

  6. I’ve noticed an actual pair of jeans apparently abandoned on a fence in a nearby state park.

    posted by Sara on 1-22-2008 at 4:33 pm

  7. This *should* be easy, where I live (Austin, TX).

    And yet… I’ve been living in the Yuppie North for four years.

    Thank you for giving me a reason to head on down south and central. :)

    posted by Stephanie on 1-22-2008 at 7:50 pm

  8. Back in my college day backstage in the main theatre was scribbled “God is Dead” — Nietsche. Next to which was scribbled “Nietsche is Dead” — God

    posted by beth on 1-23-2008 at 8:59 am

  9. The world’s best graffiti. It reads thusly:

    COOL X COOL = AWESOME

    Only it’s arranged like an introductory multiplication problem from a textbook, so it’s even better.

    posted by Greg on 1-23-2008 at 10:13 am

  10. In Lynchburg VA there was a goat at the top of a hill. It was just tied to a pole at the top of a hill. And then one day, the goat disappeared. The next day, the missing goat made front page news in the local paper! Does that count as a pair of pants?

    posted by Jebus on 1-23-2008 at 2:19 pm

  11. Graffiti on public bathroom wall:

    “You can catch VD from a toilet seat.”

    Below that, in a different handwriting:
    “Why, when there is a better way?”

    posted by CapeCodBob on 1-28-2008 at 4:49 pm

  12. Candiru - Where’d you see the airmail box?

    posted by Mike on 2-29-2008 at 2:48 pm

Comment

commenting policy