Free Idea Factory

Turn your friend’s trash into domestic treasure. Over the course of a year as you visit your friend’s homes, pick up any ephemera out of their trash (bathroom, kitchen, stuff on floor). Keep this private. Tuck it in your pocket and don’t say a word. When you bring it home, add it to your collection. Wallpaper a small room in your house with it all. At the end of the year, invite your pals over for a party. Serve drinks from your newly papered room.

You might lose a few friends, or make them closer.

Paper a small room in your house with ephemera found out on the streets of your neighborhood.

That’s all. No deep meaning, other than you’ll feel closer to your neighbors. Maybe.

Some Creative prompts from which to work in any creative endeavor that interests you:

-Is free really free?
-do the opposite of what you want to do
-make something that would appeal to a conservative older woman
-examine your thoughts about formally presenting artwork
-the letter “Q”
-6 variations of a human hand
-’I-centrism’ present in Western Culture

I think it would be great to see a blog dedicated to the origins of nicknames, specifiically detailing the process behind how someone gets a certain nickname.

For example my friend Jim’s nickname evolved as follows:

1. ‘Jimbo’

2. ‘Jimboat’

3. ‘boat’

I’m sure there are a plethora of other more interesting nickname stories and name process stories out there. For several years during my adolescence, this guy named Zeek called me ‘Chachi’. He came up with that nickname b/c I had longer hair and wore a bandana when playing basketball to keep it out of my face and he liked Chachi from happy days.

Would anyone care to share their nickname stories? Also, how did the name, nickname come into existence?

There is a shortage of good writing with the limited vocabularies of early reading levels whose content is geared towards adults. Write stories and books for adults using only the vocabularies of early reading levels. Contact your local literacy council for the word lists. Donate your writings to literacy groups for their use.

Websites and print publications that review books are uniformly about the new, always the new. In my readings I am continually surprised by books that are excellent today, that stand up to today, that are worth reading today and sharing with others, that weren’t ever reviewed when they came out and are thus somehow disqualified from being reviewed due to the fact that they’re no longer new. But if poetry (and by extension literature in general) is the news that stays new, then there should be a publication outlet that’s friendly to new discoveries of old news that’s still new. A blog devoted to reviews of not-recently-published books would be ideal.

A web-based anthology (so, a blog) that showcases the art of the mis-print. When the digital demons wriggle into files and play havoc, the results are often quite interesting. Two examples below (click to enlarge):

Construct lexan boxes of sufficient strength to withstand the detonation inside them of sufficient explosive force to blow apart a book. Coat the inside walls of the box with a clear adhesive. Place explosive charge and a book holy to some religious group inside the box. Make it go Boom. Repeat with additional boxes and other holy books. Let the final exhibit demonstrate that after violence is applied, all the holy words end up looking the same.

A T-shirt that says: Searching for Signal

A new press, or an imprint of an existing press, formed to publish only first books written by people with last names that are already famous. The title list could very quickly include Hemingway, Whitman, Clancy, Atwood, Morrison, and Olds. It’s just be Steve Hemingway, Judy Whitman, Carol Clancy, Bob Atwood, Durwood Morrison, and Betty Olds.