Lots

In Nicholson Baker’s relentlessly introspective novel, The Mezzanine, the narrator reflects on—among countless other observations about social and psychological minutia—the ways in which everyday objects evolve organically to be used for purposes other than which they were designed. 

So, for example, the humble paper clip, whose primary function is to hold manuscript pages together, is regularly unbent and employed as an ear-scratcher or hole-puncher.  Or the common parking meter morphs from being a device for collecting money from automobile drivers to an apparatus for leashing your dog to when dashing into to the dry cleaners or for securing your bike on as you stop in at the corner bar for a few cold ones.

The same thing apparently happens to much larger structures, notably multi-story parking garages, which go from being a place to vertically store hundreds of cars in the horizontally-challenged core of an urban center in the Pacific Northwest to becoming a marble raceway for cyclists ascending to the perfect viewing platform upon which to observe a sunset over the industrial heart of that aforementioned western US metropolis.

It was a view no doubt soon enough to be reserved only for our future condo overlords on the tenth floor of the glass and steel box that will inevitably replace the concrete cube as real estate values in our fair city continue to rise, and the importance of enjoying it while we can was brought home when it turned out that the second of the two parking garages on the evening’s conceptual agenda was no longer accessible on two wheels, although that did lead to the opportunity to turn a pedestrian overpass into a windy single file outdoor bar for libations al fresco.

There are places in our town that given their geography and scale, are pretty scary to ride to by yourself, but when you’re there with a score of fellow cyclists, end up becoming a charming little park. Transformations abound, unbound transformationally.