This older picture, which I found while looking for other thing, is from September, 2007. This image of a cassette tape sprawled on the side of the street reminds me of my first days and hours in New York in late 1990. It seemed like everywhere I looked I saw mysterious-looking masses of cassette tape littering curbs and sidewalks. I imagined that cassettes had been disposed of in this manner so as to make unusable the contents of the tape, but not to destroy the tape outright. A dedicated individual looking to receive mysterious communiques would take the tape home, re-wind it onto the roller, re-assemble the cassette mechanism and summon from the gutters a message meant for obscurity. I imagined that these tapes, dramatically disposed of to conceal lurid communications and secrets, had been initially left on answering machines or sent anonymously through postal mail to surprised recipients. The conspiracy continued with the tapes exploded onto sidewalks and curbs and left as treasure for those who understood the code.