Schuyler

@mrtowne.bsky.social

518 Followers 423 Following

Historian & Anthropologist of security technologies, once great lockpicker, now just a great dad. Impossible to overstate how much I think about locks...

A long, thin piece of paper that has been cut out by hand to be this shape is taped over another obscured piece of paper on a greenish wall. The text on the paper was printed by a computer and reads "DO NOT throw urine!"
Text exchange: Me: My heart is pounding out of my chest! Me: More to come! [A crying laughing emoji has been appended to this message] Cousin-in-law: I will cite you so hard in this thing [a loving smiley face has been appended to this message]
A girl in a blue princess dress styled after Elsa in the movie Frozen, holds a skateboard upright, showing off art between the trucks. They're is a red dog/wolf attacking an ICE officer and the text "STOP" appears above the image and "I.C.E. below. The girl stands in a fairly messy kids room with pink flowers, stuffed animals, and an orange and white soccer ball scattered around.
Pedro Delfino, a skateboarder, attempts the "grasshopper" obstacle course in Kasso Long Beach. 8 huge, angled platforms, decreasing in size sit jutting out of water, Pedro has just landed on platform 1, a large crowd cheers him on
Picture of a dope shoe from mox. A rainbow stripe runs along the side, the cuff of my purple pants half- covering the mox syndicate logo.
Black text on a white background: "Sunny?" Joy asked weakly, holding her breath and trying to stop crying. "I think you slept through your alarm." She said again. "O.K." Joy said, "But why are you holding my foot?" She was trying to calm down and breathe normally. Between the gut-wrenching dream and the terror of someone in her room, Joy was feeling very awake. "It's from Old Man and the Sea." Sunny said. "What?" "It's how Santiago woke up the boy to go fishing." Sunny added. "Grabbed his foot?" Joy asked. "Held it until he woke up. They didn't say a word to each other," Sunny said and after a moment added, "I always thought it was kind of sweet." Joy pulled her foot back under the covers, "It's not. It's creepy as hell." Sunny winced, "I've never actually done it before." "OK, well, probably don't do it again?" Joy was relaxing. There was something about Sunny's generally odd demeanor that made this whole situation feel less weird. Not much less weird, but still, Joy was beginning to calm down. "Yeah, probably not." Sunny agreed.
An absolutely stunning balloon art rendition of Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son by redditor "DJDrummer"
Two stuffed raccoons being buds, laying facing the camera on a pillow
A large (and in the author's opinion, nicely displayed) collection of locks, including high security cutaway, time locks, salesman samples, large cuttings from full safes with mechanisms intact, and a charming cutaway Yale & Towne door closer. All are displayed atop a dresser with an angled wall intruding from the left and a good amount of natural light.
Corbin Emhart salesman sample case with cutaway lock, interlocking pin system in acrylic, and two additional emhart cylinders
Two cut out (and cutaway) mechanisms from safes. One is a Hall's powder proof (~1850), another is a bog standard 4 wheel (~1885), and the final is a letter dial safe from an unknown maker (~1880). They are arrayed around 3 home depot boxes filled with other extraordinary locks
Fancy greeting card of a woman kissing her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. Text reads: "I BELIEVE IN YOU"
Happy Schuyler wearing a white jacket and green bag over a trans color "find out" molotov shirt by mox
An older blonde woman in a yellow sweater sits in a cozy recliner with a content white and gray cat asleep on the top of the headrest. She looks back at him and pets his paw.
The Angel in Angel in America, saying "My wrath is as fearsome as my countenance is splendid."
Meryl Streep in Angels in America saying "So, I'm sorry that you're psychotic, but just make an effort."
"avec le vide, les pleins pouvoirs" written by hand on a notecard by Camus
Madam C. J. Walker, cruising with the top down on the streets of Indianapolis in 1911. A hundred and fifteen years before some stupid fucking racist cops ripped another happy, proud black woman from her convertible and knocked her teeth out. Why won't it fucking stop.
A turtle named Rafa is climbing on a car seat surprising it's owner
Linda Belcher's rival bragging about her Ziti
Mr. & Mrs. Towne on their wedding day. They are holding hands on a porch, her in a white wedding dress and a hand made paper craft orange fox mask, he is in a wrinkled blue suit and a hand made paper and faux fur bear mask.
A pack of raspberry-filled Paczki donuts, cropped in quite a bit to try to hide some of the chaos on and around my stove
South Korean vice skip throws a perfect run-back take-out that clears all Japanese stones from the house.
Rep. Ilhan Omar touching the face of her security guard.
Screenshot from Grokipedia: "Prior to focusing on anthropology, Towne trained in theatre arts and worked as a professional actor, which informed his interdisciplinary approach to performance and cultural analysis."
Your 2026 word: "out of pocket"
Cute little porcelain cheetah fiercely stalking around our Christmas tree
White faced unicorn man's back, emblazoned with "LOVE THAT FOR YOU" in red letters
Mr Towne himself wearing a white hoodie with holes cut in the hood to accommodate the ears of his white, faux leather, full face unicorn mask
A pig driving a convertible car shaped like a pickle. Text below reads "pickle car". Art by Richard Scary
A large sign advertising a current production waiting for Godot, starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter
A large sign advertising a current production waiting for Godot, starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter
A pair of tweezers with a notch cut in the end
Picture of two feet on a beige carpet, wearing pride converse-style shoes with black toe caps and black soles. There are rainbow and trans pride color motifs.
A screenshot from the Atlantic's LibGen search feature. I have searched for my name "Schuyler Towne" and am surprised to discover 4 entries, for the 4 issues of "NDE Magazine" a journal of the locksport community that I used to publish.
Rudimentary Treatise on the construction of locks edited by Charles Towlinson with illustrations. It only has the editor's name, but it was actually written by Alfred Charles Hobbs, the American lock picker who went to the great exhibition in 1851 and fundamentally changed the culture of security for the English-speaking world. Oddly the change came not in universal ways, but through a bifurcation of culture after the death perfect security.
Tim: Avi Ben-Zeev is a trans man, and his stated reason for staying in is that he will not allow his trans voice and an explicitly trans Memoir to be silenced by the proximity of a transphobe. Whether we agree with it or not, I can respect that stance. Aida: and we can also not respect people and stances which legitimize open transphobia.
Screenshot of the ko-fi donation page for Bex with a waiting overlay of an incomplete red circle spinning forever
A colorful skelebones with a bright pink wig, holding a delicious frozen bev, the text on the image reads: "the horrors persist but so do the little treats"
Cover art for Lazarus. It features five characters in color-blocked rectangles.
Modern poster for the french film "Rififi" with the star in black & white on a flat yellow background and the text RIFIFI up top.
Scene from the pilot episode of Murder She Wrote in which Jessica Fletcher attempts to pick a lock with a nail file. She makes a hash of it, clearly doesn't know what she's doing, and after failing to open the lock, is caught by the murdered. In my following skeets I will argue why this rules.
A few "Boudoir" safes from the Guy Zani Safe Collection, photo taken just prior to his collection being auctioned off. Boudoir safes were effectively very secure little end tables for your bedroom. As secure storage in a bedroom setting may have implications, there is a salatious stigma attached to these, but really they are just a gorgeous bit of very secure home decor.
Large, hobnailed chest sitting on a wooden floor from the Mossman Collection titled "Armada Chest". It has an opening for a key on top of the chest, and two hasps on the front to optionally attach padlocks.
Schuyler at 19 with a very tall liberty spike mohawk, bloody apron with roses in the pouch, no shirt, holding a mallet and smirking at the camera.
Two kids walking past the camera, the smaller of which is dressed as a bear, holding a ball pump in a menacing way, walking on an early winter day.
Bob Newhart on a phone at his desk
Three boxes of "bubble gum juice", grape on the left, orange in the middle, and apple on the left.
A page of results from a personality test that provides a physics particle as representation of your personality. This one is "electron"
2 year old girl with long brown hair standing in a doorway with several marker caps on her splayed out fingers, growling.