While watching Creature Comforts again recently, I couldn’t help but think about O’Reilly‘s own blinking tarsier when the bit with the animated bush baby came around:
So, in a few idle moments one evening, I decided to remix it into a speaking O’Reilly mascot, delivering at least part of our company’s mission statement:
Thanks to Daniel Steinberg for the audio (grabbed from the intro to his Distributing the Future podcast) and to Tim O’Reilly for being a good sport.
Last night, around midnight, I had a vivid, hauntingly spooky dream, in which my toddler sang “With God on Our Side.” Before the dream ended, I awoke to hear him crying. I went to his room to comfort him, to tell him everything was all right, though of course that isn’t really true, is it? I wonder what he was dreaming about?
“I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in your yours.” Bob Dylan said that.
I’ve been looking for a serviceable and effective panorama-creation tool, preferably free, but I just might need to bite the bullet and drop the $16 for DoubleTake (Mac OS X only). It’s amazingly easy to use, and it produces excellent results.
Take, for example, this image, which I carefully stitched together in Photoshop (a time-consuming process) and still couldn’t get rid of the transitions between individual photos:
Now, check out the DoubleTake version, which I did in just a couple minutes of dragging, dropping, and saving (best viewed Large or bigger):
Here’s another example of an attempt at a panorama with Photoshop:
and its DoubleTake counterpart (again, best viewed Large or bigger):
Though it’s true that the Photoshop versions would look a lot better if I had any skills, that’s hardly the point. DoubleTake is easy without skills and produces brilliant results.
Though Merlin was kind enough to leave my name out of his 43 Folders podcast on “the perfect apostrophe,” I am, in fact, the “very nice man whose life [he] temporarily ruined.” While he overstates the damage done by just a tad, his depiction of me as “a character out of a 30s screwball comedy” is uncanny.
But beyond my obvious involvement as a character in his story, it resonated with me on a number of other levels as well. For instance, I went through a remarkably similar process when planning to write this book:
My problem wasn’t with the apostrophe, since I just copied it from another Hacks cover. My problem was getting the drop shadow on the title right–that, and not being able to get the fonts right on the tagline and byline, even though you’d assume I’d have access to the originals (you’d be wrong).
Anyway, I’ll also have to note that my book idea didn’t get beyond the cover stage either.
Nice!
Now I can feel better about the time I’ve spent on hacks books parodies; at least that project was “done” when the cover was finished and I didn’t have to write anything to back it up!
As a happy subscriber to ReadyMade magazine, I was thrilled to hear about the release of their first book. Unfortunately, my brief assessment is that there’s a huge opportunity for the book this could have been, but ReadyMade has largely missed it where it counts.
The description of this book is exactly the sort of thing I’m looking for as a craft enthusiast:
From the pages of ReadyMade magazine appears this compendium of more than 30 projects making the most of recycled paper, plastic, wood, metal, glass, and fabric.
Okay, I’m hooked. How soon can you get the book to me? But perhaps I should actually check out a copy in the bookstore before buying it. You know, just in case.
So, here it is in the flesh. What a beautifully and creatively designed book! I love when design meets content, and the look and feel of this book perfectly match the edginess of the scope of projects. Basically, it looks like a handbound book, but the production goes straight from my step 8 to step 10, without ever covering the binder’s board with paper. The yellow cloth used to cover the spine board is marked as a ruler, which is pretty cool (even if this flourish would end up being the potentially most useful feature of the book). This makes for a cover that really speaks to paper crafters on a gut level. Truly an inspired idea, executed perfectly.
The design combined with the pitch almost got me to buy the book without even opening it. But I was standing in the bookstore anyway, and I couldn’t help peeking. I was glad I did, because it saved me my money. A chopstick clock? A colander light sconce? Waterbottle loungechair? A CD rack made out of FedEx boxes? A coat rack made out of plastic detergent containers? The list of “playful” and “interesting” project ideas goes on and on. Though the book might have a lot in the way of “inspiration” for crafters, there’s not a single project in the book I’d personally want to make (or have be seen in my house).
As I write this, the two one-star “Spotlight Reviews” on Amazon say it all:
Unappealing projects, January 1, 2006
I expected this book to show me how to make projects comparable to those found in the “ReadyMade” magazine: Practical, attractive projects that make good use out of cast off items. Instead, this book shows projects made out of junk that look like nothing more than projects made out of junk. A coat rack made out of laundry soap bottles looks like a stack of laundry soap bottles. The cd racks made out of shipping cartons look like shipping cartons. I was very surprised to find not one item in the book that I wanted to make.Tastes being what they are, you may enjoy this book more than me. All I’m saying is that you’d probably want to look at a copy of it before buying, to make sure.Terribly Disapointing, January 30, 2006
I bought the book a few days ago, with hope in my eyes, and I’m re-selling it on craigslist today.I can only define it as a “book for people who shop exclusively at WestElm and have an urge to “slum it” by occasionally making things to keep up their egos and illusion of street cred at parties.”
So sorry, ReadyMade. You used to be the coolest thing, but you lost your way.
A lot of people have felt passionate enough about the promise of this book to leave rather emotional critiques like this on Amazon. People want the book that this book could have been, but ReadyMade fulfilled their promise only halfway, with, frankly, the less important half. They nailed the design and concept, but slipped on the execution of the content.
I can’t say I’m too surprised, though. I feel kind of conflicted about ReadyMade magazine itself. Though it usually contains more practical projects I’d actually want to do (in that sense, the book actually is kind of surprising) than Make magazine does (as much as I love that magazine, I’m not as into learning to solder or hack on circuit boards as I am with craft projects), when Make handles a project I would want to do, they do it so much better than ReadyMade does (and I’m not just saying this because I’ve written an article for them myself, though I feel I should disclose that, as well as the fact that I work for their parent company).
That’s why I was so excited to hear the announcement about Craft magazine, and why I think so many other people are too. The promise of a whole magazine featuring craft projects done right (which is to say, done by the makers of Make) is quite exciting.
I think projects can be hip without being impractical, cool without being ugly, and clever without being crappy. I think the potential of a Make/Craft book is even bigger than the one faced by ReadyMade before they tried and failed. When and if the good folks at Make put out a competitive book, it’s really going to be something special. And I personally can’t wait to see it.
I was also disappointed when I browsed this book. I was also not too surprised. I subscribed to the magazine for a year then let my sub lapse because so many of the projects were focused on being clever, aesthetics be damned. Often the results were, in my opinion, more suitable to a college dorm room than an adult’s home.
As an aside, it’s also the only magazine subscription I’ve ever had where they didn’t ask me to renew, neither before nor after expiration, so perhaps they could tell we weren’t meant for each other. Or, they’re just crappy businesspeople.
Yesterday, I ventured into the craft of altered books with baby steps: a workshop at a local stamp and craft store.
A longtime bibliophile at heart, I knew it would be tough for me to begin defacing a book, even if it were in the name of art, so I decided to rip that band aid off quickly. I started with a book by one of my favorite authors, though the book itself ended up being more attractive than it was interesting (the first 100 pages or so were great, but after that the narrative dissipated and the story became tedious).
Without further ado, here was my “blank” canvas, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco:
The first alteration we made as a class was a simple pocket, formed by folding a page in upon itself and fastening it to the page below it with brads:
We then used distress ink on the all pages in the spread and stamped a couple shipping tags to stuff inside the pocket. I thought the Mona Lisa fit quite well with the Italian art and pop culture posters featured throughout Queen Loana (which, as I say, made the book quite visually interesting):
Before finishing that spread (which I get the impression might never really be done, but certainly not within a two-hour class), we then moved on to cutting a window through a page:
Again, this was just a beginning. Fleshing out the spread, both above and below the window, is my continuing homework.
The last couple alterations we had time for were a pop-up element and text masking. For the pop up, we used an illustration from the Dover archives. Here it is in the process of popping up:
And here it is fully popped up:
I chose the religious imagery on the page (there’s plenty of that to choose from in Queen Loana) to go with the embellishment, but the text I found to mask was purely a happy coincidence:
In all, the class was quite inspiring. Though I began a little skeptically, due to all my book-loving baggage, I now think I’m hooked. This is going to be yet another expensive and time-consuming hobby, I can tell.
UPDATE: A more detailed how-to, inspired by this post, appears in Craft: 02.
Is this your first try? Looks great. I’m working on pop-ups right now too, yours is great inspiration!
Thanks, hanna. And yes, this is just the beginning of my first try.
I owe the entire idea of the pop-up, from the choice of illustration to the execution of the mechanism, to the instructor of the workshop, whose work I agree is quite inspiring.
Wow, that’s very nice. And you did it with a book by Umberto Eco which makes it even better 
Thanks, fadzilah. Is it better because you like Eco or because you have something against him?
I like his writings. But precisely because of that I don’t dare to create anything out of it, as I’m afraid of ruining it, so I’m living vicariously through what you did.
Heh. I hear you, fadzilah. That was a tough hurdle for me to get over. Of course, there’s no way in hell I’d do this with any of my copies of The Name of the Rose!
UPDATE: A more detailed how-to, inspired by this post, appears in Craft: 02.
Loving it! I have exactly one altered book (done by me and a group of friends), and I treasure it. That said, I have 1000′s of other books. It was soooo difficult to make the first cut (I made a niche), but the book had a gorgeous cover, but was pure dreck (not to mention acidic and deteriorating fast) on the inside, so I actually think I improved it. 
I like seeing someone else in the beginning stages of a new endeavor. I think that altered books are like anything else
that we do in any of the crafts, they require support in the
form of purchases of this and that and often some of the
best things that I have found to use in my book was a simple
item I had used many times before- the matchbook.
I used the shape and design to hide notes in and to assist in making the page interactive…the cost: a few pieces of paper and pen…almost nothing…
I will admit other pages require special paper and so on..
I will watch to see if more of your work shows up on this site.
I like what I have seen so far…’ain’t it fun?’
Anonymous is discussing. 
Anonymous 3:11 pm on June 21, 2006 Permalink |
Wonderful. Wish it was not just for Mac…. I would use this – and the price is nice!
Mom
Chloroform 1:12 pm on August 5, 2006 Permalink |
Try Autostitch. I don’t know if there’s a Mac version but it’s freeware that does the job quite competently. There isn’t a help file so the learning curve’s a bit steep, but worth the time if you’re dedicated.