Connector Field Notes #8

A celebrity mailman

There's something so wholesome about the mailman who knows all the neighborhood dogs, saying hello to them and their owners as he walks his regular route delivering the mail.

I saw this in action on a recent walk and it made me smile. It was actually a specific mailman- one who became Internet famous on the hyperlocal scale from his days as a recurring character on a local artisan shop's Instagram Stories. He’d smile and wave for the shop owner’s camera when he delivered the mail, and it felt like seeing a celebrity when I’d see him out on his regular mail route.

This is what I mean when I talk about connecting in a hybrid world. Every part of our lives is one foot on the ground, one foot in the digital world. The relationship between the two worlds is a constant, bidirectional exchange of information and blending of experiences.

Public art

A group of people were stopped on the sidewalk the other morning, all with their phones pointed at something across the street, taking photos. I went back later to see what it was, and I found a large inflatable pink man hanging suspended between two buildings! It was part of a playful public art installation; the figures are sitting on top of awnings, peering over buildings, sitting in trees in parks, and otherwise popping up in interesting and unexpected places. They’re staged like they’re giant people interacting with the city as though it were a playground.

I had often pondered public art as an individual experience, but this was an interesting effect of public art that I hadn’t considered: the collective enjoyment and interactive aspect of observing it alongside strangers having a shared experience, like the group that all stopped at the same moment to take pictures.