Maureen found these tiny cigarette books. Though reprints and mass-produced, I like the gimmick so much that I thought it was worth mentioning. You can give up smoking and still carry something rolled-up in your shirt sleeve. Of course they’re not as cool as Jessica Bozek’s “The Matchbook Fragments” or Alixandra Bamford’s “Measuring Oscillations in Nearby Stars”. (Such are the limits of mass production.)
On a related note, art vending machines– cigarette vendors converted to sell tiny pieces of art. Aura meets techniques of mass distribution.
Jessica Smith
don’t take up smoking because james dean looks sexy doing it. smoking isn’t sexy. it’s just him.
whoops … too late. but yeah, this would seem like an interesting project.
speaking of projects, do you remember our vellum project?
oh yeah– if i ever write anything, like, ever again, maybe i’ll work on it
been thinking about substituting vellum paper for tracing or rice paper. because, yanno, vellum is kinda expensive.
not if we use our own cow.
Extreme DIY.
Okay, but let’s use my roomie’s studio to do the skining. it’s already a mess.
we should probably do it in that room that’s already painted red.
That’s the living room. The cow won’t fit.
Art Vending Machines would be a nice installation piece. It sounds like something Ilya Kabakov would do.
pirooz, they’re cool eh? it would be nice to convert something slightly bigger– like snack machines– for chapbooks. it would prevent them from getting all beat up at the bookstore and i bet people would buy them just for the novelty. plus they’d be better presented than at most bookstores, where they’re just sort of in a vertical pile, people would be able to see them. good for things like tinysides and 4SQ and small things that are very pretty but can get lost easily.
I vaguely remember someone saying that in the library at Iowa you can buy small bookmaking kits out of vending machines, but this seems like something I must have made up. I wonder though, if it’s true…
“Is it because there’s a little part of you that wants to be dead?
Or is it because your life feels empty without some ritual?
Or is it because the rebellion against the adults hasn’t ended yet?
You go smoke cigarettes
And you are young and rich for now,
You have the ritual of waking up each day will fill you…
There’s no excuse to start smoking.
Where is the rebellion in acting like a fuckup when I’m embracing full health?
It’s obvious that there is work to do strong and deliberately
We are the one’s we have to do it,
No more parents or gods taking responsibility
Living in the world on your own there is no punishment
Only knowing what to do, no excuses
The time is now, do not wait, go
Improve yourself right now.”
“Don’t Smoke” by The Microphones
(The ‘quoting song lyrics’ argument is a difficult argument to beat.)