Near my house there's a sort of memorial that's been erected in honor of a bicyclist who was killed by a truck in that intersection a few years ago. It's in the front corner of someone's yard, right near the sidewalk. When I first moved here, the shrine was modest and thoughtful, and invited a moment of contemplation. There was a simple plaque and a couple of personal objects placed in remembrance. Since then, however, this thing has grown in a terrible way, by slow accretion of dozens of parts, into a kind of horrible kitsch. Whereas at first the few symbolic elements were items associated with either bicycling or the accident victim himself (one assumes), now it looks like a random collection of tacky bric-a-brac, all glued to this strange altar-like object that has the air of having sprouted from the floor of a sinister forest in a fairy tale. I understand the folksy sculpture put together from bike parts, but why is there a bottle of bubble-blowing soap? A stuffed animal, a pen, a Playstation controller, other miscellaneous objects. When will it stop?

It's none of my business, and I don't object to it really since I don't have to see it very often, but I hope if I die in a similar way I will be remembered with more tasteful restraint. Like perhaps a golden statue of me in a heroic posture, striking down my enemies.