Why was this so disturbing? To explore this idea, I ran a thought experiment of everyday objects in unusual places.

Starting with the original idea: a laptop in a pot of chili. There’s a chilling idea! This borrows heavily from the iconic Gilroy, CA radio station KFAT with their radio melting in a fry pan logo. (Slogans included “high cholesterol country radio”, “eat more garlic”, and “who stole my screwdriver”).

I realized it came from the cognitive dissonance of hard/soft, ephemeral/permanent, and inappropriate placement of everyday objects. This plays out in other ways: a guitar in the washing machine, a washing machine on the bed, or a TV in the front hall.

The roads on a river topic play well into the common domestic brain game of lying on the floor and imagining the ceiling as the floor: how clean it is, you have to step over door thresholds, doorknobs are too high, lights stick out of the floor.

The SF bay area is a good place to imagine roads on water: there used to be a thriving ferry industry here.