Over drinks, my friend Justin suggested that we take a roll of mylar that he found in his apartment dumpsters and make a tiktok video with what we make.

Saturday, we accomplished this task.

I appreciated going to Treasure Island for the first time (other than just to turn around). The overpass area that we occupied was near some old military housing. Justin described how General Nimitz lived in the building closest to us. There was also an old swing attached to a cherry blossom tree that looked very picturesque.

We did not coordinate what to bring except for him asking me if I had a stapler and I did not, but I said I have some brads and a hole punch and some twine.

It would have been a fun idea to take inventory of everything we decided to bring. I brought a few fabrics that I thought would be good supplementary material, my voice recorder, scissors, a blue marker and some paper, scissors, a picnic blanket, hole puncher, brads, two combs, a paintbrush, twine and my sunhat, sunglasses, sunscreen– it was a perfectly sunny Saturday afternoon.

He brought some cheap beers and individually wrapped mochi snacks, some special chocolate, a small stapler gifted to him by his grandmother decades ago, scissors, and a big ol’ roll of mylar.

It was fun to sketch out some designs before having at with the materials. His approach was different than my approach. I think he enjoyed just playing with the material and seeing what it did without too much intervention, while I really enjoyed sketching and also I had some excitement in making my pod-cowl-hat that I don’t really think went with the outfit but it was pretty fun to see this pattern in a different material. I was very impressed with his steady hands and how skilled he was at pulling the twine through the small hole the hole punch made.

After we made the outfits, we had a short photoshoot/video shoot. We did not come with a plan, though in my mind’s eye of the event, we were in the bowels of the overpass which would have had a different sonic scape. I imagined part of the video efforts would be to create an unusual sequence of noises which I still think would be a good idea to do at some point.

I really enjoyed Justin’s sense of the dramatic in his fabrications, the curvilinear scarf-thing that kind of looked like praying mantis appendages. I appreciated having a simple vision of an outfit of cone-shapes and felt satisfied in creating it.

I really like this mylar material and it was cool not having so much of a plan ahead of time. It was an exercise in making something happen in situ. I am looking forward to trying this fabrication method again with more people and perhaps in a controlled environment like a yoga studio. It was interesting weighing down pieces we weren’t using because otherwise they would float away. Also, the mylar when you wore it felt like a sail and would catch the wind. I enjoyed the strange constriction of being in an armholeless outfit made of stiff shiny material. The act of walking around in an odd outfit with a friend is something I highly recommend.