My girlfriend and I went out yesterday to steal love locks, then went to get some warm food and drinks afterwards (it was friggin' cold).
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My girlfriend and I went out yesterday to steal love locks, then went to get some warm food and drinks afterwards (it was friggin' cold).
We ended up with 28 new love locks¹, a cinnamon roll the size of a large hedgehog, and chai I had to strain through my teeth.
All and all, it was a beautiful day and a lovely experience...though next time I hope they pour the chai through a strainer
¹I went for easier prey because, from the time I pulled my hands out of my pockets, I had about 30 seconds of poking icy metal before my fingers went numb.
@alice what do you do with the locks? Just curious.
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@thedoctor plenty of places look the other way, but in most places it's technically a misdemeanor (either considered graffiti, abandoned property on public grounds, attaching a fixture to public infrastructure, etc).
I was sad that I was too late to save a bunch this time—the city destroyed them and repainted the structure, but some survived.
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@alice what do you do with the locks? Just curious.
@goncalor I post every couple months about it, but I'm building an interactive art installation that's an ode to lovers. I'm about ¼ done.
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@thedoctor @webhat @pronounshe @alice They can be hazardous if left unchecked. See e.g. https://time.com/2847633/pont-de-arts-bridge-paris/
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@koalou that would be amazing!
I thought about getting a PO box in case anyone on Fedi wanted to send me cool locks to pick. I've had a few people do it so far.
@alice I was half expecting you to say that they shouldn’t because there are already too many locks rusting out there 🤭
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@jimgar @alice Are you the kind of people to raze your lawn to a grand total of 1mm and secretly cut down their neighbour's bushes when they grow in size?
God forbid couples leave a heartfelt memorandum of their relationship on public infrastructure and come back 10 years later to relive the memories. The poor road maintenance companies must be protected from young couples!
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@jimgar @alice Are you the kind of people to raze your lawn to a grand total of 1mm and secretly cut down their neighbour's bushes when they grow in size?
God forbid couples leave a heartfelt memorandum of their relationship on public infrastructure and come back 10 years later to relive the memories. The poor road maintenance companies must be protected from young couples!
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My girlfriend and I went out yesterday to steal love locks, then went to get some warm food and drinks afterwards (it was friggin' cold).
We ended up with 28 new love locks¹, a cinnamon roll the size of a large hedgehog, and chai I had to strain through my teeth.
All and all, it was a beautiful day and a lovely experience...though next time I hope they pour the chai through a strainer
¹I went for easier prey because, from the time I pulled my hands out of my pockets, I had about 30 seconds of poking icy metal before my fingers went numb.
Hrmkay ... i don't like it .. stealing love locks just because they're easy to grab? Sorry no ... don't like it...
But why the heck do you take the newest ones straight from this year?
Why not at least take older ones first?
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@lianna @alice I bet you would. From your profile you sound like a really nice person
I’m a huge fan of native meadows and try to convince everyone I know with a garden to do their bit.On love locks, I don’t really like them in my city centre because of the wider context. So first of all, they’re being put on some pretty old fencing and railing, and it’s fencing for pedestrians (only) that protects us next to a very steep set of stairs. It’s a quaint place to put them if you’re a visitor, but as a resident who uses that staircase I want to know the fencing isn’t under strain. Secondly, tourism in Edinburgh fucking sucks. The city centre is super congested all year round now, and while I don’t have anything against any individual visitors, as a whole they are loud, slow, and just generally incredibly annoying when I’m trying to live my normal life. Those will be the people leaving the love locks. It’s sweet, sure, but if you’re putting a padlock on public infrastructure in a place you’re visiting, I don’t think you should be naive enough to believe it’s going to be there if you ever choose to come back. And let’s be real, many of those people never will be back!
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My girlfriend and I went out yesterday to steal love locks, then went to get some warm food and drinks afterwards (it was friggin' cold).
We ended up with 28 new love locks¹, a cinnamon roll the size of a large hedgehog, and chai I had to strain through my teeth.
All and all, it was a beautiful day and a lovely experience...though next time I hope they pour the chai through a strainer
¹I went for easier prey because, from the time I pulled my hands out of my pockets, I had about 30 seconds of poking icy metal before my fingers went numb.
@alice Seems a bit nasty. Sorry.
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@lianna @alice I bet you would. From your profile you sound like a really nice person
I’m a huge fan of native meadows and try to convince everyone I know with a garden to do their bit.On love locks, I don’t really like them in my city centre because of the wider context. So first of all, they’re being put on some pretty old fencing and railing, and it’s fencing for pedestrians (only) that protects us next to a very steep set of stairs. It’s a quaint place to put them if you’re a visitor, but as a resident who uses that staircase I want to know the fencing isn’t under strain. Secondly, tourism in Edinburgh fucking sucks. The city centre is super congested all year round now, and while I don’t have anything against any individual visitors, as a whole they are loud, slow, and just generally incredibly annoying when I’m trying to live my normal life. Those will be the people leaving the love locks. It’s sweet, sure, but if you’re putting a padlock on public infrastructure in a place you’re visiting, I don’t think you should be naive enough to believe it’s going to be there if you ever choose to come back. And let’s be real, many of those people never will be back!
@jimgar
@lianna I'll add that the life of *almost* all of these locks (where I live) is measured in months at most before they rust into a little ball of tetanus risk. No one uses marine-grade locks, but they place them right over the salt water—in a city that rains like ⅓ of the year. So the bridge quickly becomes an ode to decay and less safe for the kids to cross, because there are rusty chunks of metal sticking out everywhere.The city also comes by and destroys them.
I save what I can and preserve/restore them—eventually they'll all go in the local museum in a big installation to celebrate love and love locks.
(Sorry for being a dick)
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@jimgar
@lianna I'll add that the life of *almost* all of these locks (where I live) is measured in months at most before they rust into a little ball of tetanus risk. No one uses marine-grade locks, but they place them right over the salt water—in a city that rains like ⅓ of the year. So the bridge quickly becomes an ode to decay and less safe for the kids to cross, because there are rusty chunks of metal sticking out everywhere.The city also comes by and destroys them.
I save what I can and preserve/restore them—eventually they'll all go in the local museum in a big installation to celebrate love and love locks.
(Sorry for being a dick)
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Hrmkay ... i don't like it .. stealing love locks just because they're easy to grab? Sorry no ... don't like it...
But why the heck do you take the newest ones straight from this year?
Why not at least take older ones first?
@hackbyte no, stealing them because the city will destroy them (if they don't become a rusty lump first—which only takes a couple months).
If I take them, they'll go in a museum (after being restored if needed).
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@eldersea it's true. Even without cutting, they're not marine-grade, and so most will only last a couple months this close to the ocean.
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@jimgar
@lianna I'll add that the life of *almost* all of these locks (where I live) is measured in months at most before they rust into a little ball of tetanus risk. No one uses marine-grade locks, but they place them right over the salt water—in a city that rains like ⅓ of the year. So the bridge quickly becomes an ode to decay and less safe for the kids to cross, because there are rusty chunks of metal sticking out everywhere.The city also comes by and destroys them.
I save what I can and preserve/restore them—eventually they'll all go in the local museum in a big installation to celebrate love and love locks.
(Sorry for being a dick)
They can also be hazardous. In Paris, at some point they they had to close a footbridge across the Seine because it was threatening to collapse under the weight of the locks. They had to replace the safety barriers by some that can't be easily covered by locks.
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This whole conversation is awesome and guves me all the feels. I look forward to seeing a love lock museum. Maybe
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This whole conversation is awesome and guves me all the feels. I look forward to seeing a love lock museum. Maybe
@tricethetraveller it's one of my life's goals to make an installation that makes the rounds to different museums, celebrating the beauty of these little chunks of metal and what they represent.
I want the Wikipedia page on love locks to have a section on it
