Wreck It

Spent the weekend hanging out with my lil bro (known as Bubby to me), his awesome wife and the Hubbin.  We got to hang out down in the National Mall area in the worlds most perfect, drizzily, cool October weather WOOHOO!  As we wandered the museums, Hubbin and I headed straight for the books.  One of the books I discovered made me squeal in delight.  It is called Wreck this Journal by Keri Smith and it is so cool.

I love the sheer wrongness of purposely destroying a book.  The best part though is the insanely creative ways people have come up with to "wreck" this book.  I have seen people purposly ignore directions, create art from the ruins, and come up with completley out of the box ways to follow the instructions.  This is an interactive book that encourages all the best part of reading and writing, creativity, different thinking and doing things your own way.  I want this SO BAD!  Happy Reading Everybody!

Renn Fest!

Woohooo!  It's the last day of August, which means in my twisted little brain I can put out all my fall stuff tomorrow WOOOHOOOO!!!!!  I've been waiting for this since July.  To this end I got to do one of my favorite summer to fall transition events The Maryland Renaissance Festival.  This is one of the events I look forward to all year, and go at least twice while it is going.  I love this festival for many reasons, are you ready to hear about them?  Good.
1) People can be whoever they want, you want to do a ton of research and dress in a historically accurate manner...go ahead.  You want to dress like your favorite book character...sounds like fun.  You want to do your own special steampunk, fairy, Dr Who with a jedi sword and green man mask...well why not.  I have seen everything from jeans and t-shirts to the most elaborate and amazing costumes.  It is like walking through a library and seeing all kinds of stories playing out in front of you, pretty awesome.

2) You get to be part of a story.  Seriously, all of the various actors, performers, and shows are pro's at involving the audience.  Wether it be a quick chat with the King while you are walking around, participating in a magic show, or getting heckled by a singer (yep, here the performers heckle the audience as much as it is the other way around), you will always be able to be an integral part of the show.  All of the workers, shopkeepers and artisans also stay in some sort of character or another adding to the feel that you are walking around in a book.
3) Food on a stick and as much beer/ale/cider as one can drink...also turkey legs.
As you can probably tell, I love love love the Renn Fest as us pro's call it.  It does have the side effect of me wanting to quit work and read for the next month or two...but that is most of the time so...anyways I am stoked that the Renn Fest is here, that fall is just around the corner and that I get the opportunity to be a part of a cool, imaginative event and can't wait to go back in a couple of weeks.

Book Art!

Some alternate ideas to you know actually reading books :-)

Octopus Book Sculpture (Shop closed unfortunately)

How cool would this be sitting on a coffee table!

Marko Manriquez

Want Want WANT!!!

Brian Dettmer

Follow link to see how he does this, very very cool

Isaac Salazar

This is just fun, he does this with a ton of words

Su Blackwell

Check you her website she has a ton of these amazing pieces of art!

Book Art

Look an Art Book about Book Art :-)

There are a ton of amazing book art pieces out there, I just tried to put a variety up, but go look on your own and send me your favorites!

Do you think these are the coolest things ever?  Do you think it is sacrilege to cut up any book, even for art?  What ideas do you have that you could recycle an old book for?