Here's Some Weirdness: Runcible Spoon

Reading  DC-based Runcible Spoon is like wandering around the imagination of a curious cook.

Malaka Gharib's humor is evident all through the twice-yearly publication she edits. It's fun, it's whimsical, it's creative, it's weird. And that's a pretty awesome combination, the sort of thing that invites you to expand on your own quirkiness, makes you want to cook something ridiculous or return to an old favorite haunt.

The zine describes itself as:

 ... a twice-yearly zine about food and fantasy based in Washington, D.C. Our goal is to capture the pleasure and playfulness of eating through imaginative, delicious (and sometimes made-up) recipes, illustration, storytelling and collage, submitted by writers and artists across the country. 

And who doesn't love a cheap-eats issue? (Sticker price: $699).

http://therunciblespoon.info/

Obsession & The Bates Boxes

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Obsessions are strange. One day you're going about your life, all of your Priorities and Wants in relative order. And then, BOOM. You own something ridiculous, your thoughts are re-ordered, you think about chess in the shower or Her when you make coffee. You consider flight school or running a marathon or becoming a farmer.

Our latest obsession is the Bates Box.

The Bates Boxes were manufactured in the mid 1920s, and are beautiful examples of craftsmanship and ingenuity. They're essentially an early, art deco rolodex, and a very cool system of internal gears help to smoothly move the list of phone numbers.

Bates Manufacturing made a lot of office equipment and was best known for its sequential numbering devices used on legal submissions. But these little boxes have grabbed my imagination. Stripping them down reveals beautiful steel underneath, and replacing 80-year old phone numbers with poetry is my way of making them new again.

Fun fact: Thomas Edison's company owned Bates Manufacturing for a while.

We're obsessed, and have downloaded the patents on variations and put in research requests on related companies. There's no reason for it, no purpose. Just ... curiosity and focus.  

Obsession.

About a Blog ...

Spending six months on the road was huge, and that's an understatement. But in a forests-for-trees type of situation, sometimes it's tough to know what you're doing and what it means when you're actually in the middle of it.

However, I recently completed a six- part blog series about the trip for Columbia's new #tryingstuff blog. Writing about the trip removed from being in the middle of it was an entirely new experience. Stories emerged I hadn't remembered; arcs and ideas had shape; a sense of purpose emerged from what at the time felt incredibly chaotic.

I'm really happy with the way this turned out:

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Simplicity ...

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I love photographs with distinct pieces and lots of space, where the lack of something physical becomes an element itself. 

Experimenting ...

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Continue reading "Midnight Stroll" here ...

I've been experimenting with some story-telling randomness lately. I'd like to find ways to combine the literary aspect of a story, words, with the physical and visual nature of mixed media pieces. 

This series of 5.5x8.5-inch cards is one idea. This time travel story was another. And I've been looking at taking old office equipment (say, a Rolodex from the '60s) and transforming items into an object that combined a written story with a physical way of interacting.

As if I needed an excuse to order nonsense off eBay. 

Childhood Memories ...

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We'd gone to visit a friend in their home, but I wandered outside into the South Carolina heat. There was no one around, and it gave me such an awful feeling that years later I still hate a midday silence when the heat has driven everyone inside and there is absolute stillness and a cloudless sky.

You Don't Need a Weatherman ...