All hail the almighty toothpick...

It boggles the mind you know: the level of creativity and dogged determination of some people. Take for example, Scott Weaver,who, over the course of 35 YEARS, completed this here sculpture. 35 YEARS! 35 ....are you serious?! I mean even Michelangelo only fluffed around for four on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel! Like don't get me wrong, I'm impressed and all...but what I want to know is...what makes you wake up one morning and say; "I'm going to take 100,000 toothpicks and make a sculpture depicting San Francisco...you know, just for shits and giggles"? How on earth does that just pop in there with. "What socks should I wear?"  and "where the hell are the coffee filters?"

I'm eating pizza right now (a piece of useless information for you) and, for a moment, entertaining the thought that perhaps Scott was just a hard core Fraggle Rock fan in the day....you know, an industrious wee youngster whose first aspiration in life wasn't to be a rock-star or policeman, but simply to be a Doozer and create epic construction.

But this kinda takes it into a whole new universe dunnit?...And turns the tables something wicked when you think about it...I mean what self-respecting Doozer wouldn't want to grow up to be Scott Weaver?!

Now I will confess though, I have had desires to do something radical and artistic like this in my time, but I was never a completer....I was an epic starter of things....but wasn't quite so epic at finishing them. While this has improved in my later life, I do have many unfinished projects laying about the place that bear testimony to the fact I frequently have the attention span of a half-baked goldfish.

So what kept this boy going?? Abandoning the quandary of what inserted the idea into his consciousness in the first place, one is hard pressed not to be just as baffled by the question: "Why didn't he give up halfway and hurl it in the bin?" It must have been tempting at some point surely. You can just about guarantee that there would have been days when perhaps the cat had playfully knocked the whole shebang to the carpet and he felt like giving up toothpick sculpture in favour of, say, taxidermy? But no! He resisted! He didn't say: "Sod this for a game of soldiers" and use it for kindling....he kept at it....adding toothpick after toothpick until his vision was complete.

It's astounding really and all I can say is jolly good for him. From someone who is artistically challenged by basic origami....his achievement is nothing short or incredible. And as I'm finishing my pizza I cannot help but be mindful of the fact that Mr Weaver has elevated such a humble object to almost mythic status. This in mind however, I would still be sorely tempted to snap a wee piece of said sculpture would I be seated next to it right now as a bit of pizza crust has nestled itself most uncomfortably between two molars and yep, you guessed it...I've run out of bloody toothpicks!!