Art Swap 2013: The Twentysomething Road Trip

Last spring, Chicago native and podcaster extraordinaire Brad Stasell set out on a birthday road trip through Wisconsin and Minnesota to grow up, go someplace he'd never been, and find out what being twenty-eight was all about.

His Art Swap project was a half-hour long podcast about the experience, the Best-Worst Day of his life, assembled from journal entries and on-the-road video diaries, and featuring music from Metric, Daft Punk, Architcture in Helsinki, Band of Horses, Imagine Dragons, Rihanna, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and lots more. In the spirit of Jack Kerouac, sometimes being on the road gives us the perspective we need to figure out what really matters, and Stasell's trip is no exception.

Plus, there's a hot tub.

Listen to Stasell's road trip podcast here, via streaming or download.

Stasell is also the man with half a plan behind Easily Distracted, a biweekly/monthly/every so often podcast where he and three friends (including fellow Art Swapper Jon Trainor) discuss news, roller coasters, and horror movies, but mostly just make a lot of jokes.  In true Easily Distracted spirit, here's some out of context quotes from the show:

On a scale of one to ten, how naughty were the nurses?

Stasell's definition of being smart is catching herpes.

I always heard that summer camp was a good time for first kisses.  I heard that after I went to camp, though.

So, I had given this stripper a lapdance earlier in the night....

Oh, you like water?  Here's some fire.

Trainor: It's different though, because white people don't have a history of lynching.
Stasell: ...I think you mean a history of being lynched. 

Check out Easily Distracted here, or follow them on Twitter at @distractedeasy.  You won't regret it.

Every Monday for the rest of the year I’ll be highlighting a different project from Art Swap 2013. Interested in sharing something of yours next year? Post in the comments section, or e-mail ianmrogers[at]hotmail[dot]com.

Art Swap 2013: The Many Faces of Nicholas Cage

"I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther." - Painting by Sam Roman

Illustrator, painter, needlepoint artist, and fellow Leighite Samantha Roman's contribution to the Art Swap shows her love of humor, pop culture, and vivid colors.  I'm not sure which is scarier - the bees, or the middle Cage face.  In addition to her illustrations and comics, Sam's also done paintings based on characters from The Simpsons, High School Musical, and The Office.

For those of you interested in having a wild-eyed Cage to call your very own, prints of this painting are available for a mere $25 - which includes shipping!  To get yours e-mail Sam at samantha.k.roman[at]gmail[dot]com, or visit her website.  You won't be disappointed.

You can see more of Sam's paintings, illustrations, and other artwork (including an Adventure Time themed cross-stitch!) on her website, an unmistakable cone of ignorance, or at her art blog, Drawn in a Hat Store. 

Oh yes, and among Sam's other talents, she's also well-versed in the hats of The Great Gatsby.

Every Monday for the rest of the year I’ll be highlighting a different project from Art Swap 2013. Want to throw in your own metaphorical hat for the event? Post here in the comments section, or e-mail ianmrogers[at]hotmail[dot]com.

Art Swap 2013: Japanese Calligraphy

Every Monday for the rest of the year I’ll be highlighting a different project from Art Swap 2013. Interested in joining next year’s fun? Post in the comments section, or e-mail ianmrogers[at]hotmail[dot]com. 

 I didn’t make this – Yukichi Fukuzawa did.

I’d originally planned on writing a short story for the Art Swap; but wouldn’t it have been more fun to try something new? 

Japanese calligraphy, or shodō, is a Japanese art form dating back over 1600 years, though it’s now practiced mostly by elementary school students as a required course. The country is proud of its calligraphic writing: one sees it inscribed on pottery, hung over restaurant doors, framed in museums, and sold on the street.

When I was in Japan, one of my students gave me a calligraphy set and showed me the basics: air-tracing kanji and hiragana letters over paper, pouring the ink, holding the brush straight over the paper, then, and only then, drawing the strokes that make up the letters. The strokes follow a strict order, and you can lose yourself in the pattern.

In calligraphy, setting up one's work space is an integral part of the process. I’m getting there.

But that was three years ago. Earlier this summer I set out with my ink bottle, instruction book, and plenty of scrap paper to learn enough calligraphy to make an Art Swap project. The strict posture and rigid brush handling feel unnatural at first, but your hand soon becomes used to holding the brush while the other steadies the paper, and, with practice, it soon feels like writing anything else.

I did make this one though. Try to guess whose name it is!

My end result was sixteen names written in katakana (Japan’s special alphabet for foreign words and names – think of it like Japanese italics) for everyone in the swap. They weren’t bad for a first try, though the later names were marred by brush flattening and humid working conditions. To help people decipher their altered Japanese names (mine, for example, is pronounced ian rojāsu), I printed up How-To reading guides to accompany each one. (Not to Art Swappers: There’s still a prize out there for anyone who can solve the final quiz!) 

My first attempt at hiragana.

As a bonus, last weekend I made my own 5x7 card for Bennington’s alumni weekend exhibition, to be hung with the rest of the cards in the Deane Carriage Barn in their yearly alumni project. It occurred to me that this was the first creative thing of any kind I’d done for Bennington since graduating, which gave me the pleasant feeling of contributing to a community that, though it now feels decidedly foreign, once meant a lot to me. And if it not for the Art Swap, I doubt I would have done anything at all.

(Special Note for Bennington Alum: If you’re interested in the 5x7 exhibition, the received-by deadline is this Friday, September 6!)

Art Swap 2013 - The Lowdown and Story

Sorting the goods from the Art Swap, pre-mailing.  It was difficult to walk around for those two days. 

After college ended, the loss of both a community to share my work with and the structure to guide it bothered me for a long time. School had structure: teachers giving out assignments and a degree that needed to be completed and friends down the hall working on cool stuff that made us want to work on cool stuff too. The working world lacked community to an extent I found alarming. Somewhere in the post-college abyss, I was fairly certain, there existed young people doing paintings and sculptures and operas and comedy acts and lyric essays who were willing and eager to read, watch, listen to, admire, critique, and discuss their own work, but I wasn’t sure where they were or how to find them. I did, however, find a lot of people who felt the same way I did, both those who were unemployed and those who worked day jobs they weren’t really interested in.

I was inspired to do the first CD Swap back in 2008 while (voluntarily) sequestered in a sleep research study in Boston without windows, internet, or phone for two weeks. There were, however people: twentysomething interns and college students working at the sleep lab for science credit, medical experience, or weekend cash. They were bored of taking blood samples and delivering cafeteria meals, and wanted someone interesting to talk to about Woody Allen movies and feminist interpretations of male behavior, or the experience of working in the lab itself. It was the first time in months I’d met new people who had something to say, and the experience inspired a new feeling of optimism. I wanted to do something collaborative. I just needed something to do.

I remembered my friend Trainwreck talking about a CD Swap at his company where everyone made a mix CD, burned enough copies for the group, and exchanged. Though Trainwreck hadn’t gotten much out of it, I was pretty sure my friends had better musical tastes. New music was also something I hadn’t gotten a lot of since college. It was as good an idea as any.

Organizing the CD Swap, the people involved (friends from college and high school, and a few friends of friends), plus my own mix kept me busy and focused in a way I hadn’t been for a long time. My own writing at the time wasn’t going well, since I found myself unsure of my audience. Having an outside project, a kind of community, made the project more rewarding. The others as well gave the project their best: they designed elaborate covers, thought up clever themes, included bonuses, and even created original song mash-ups. Seeing them put in so much thought and effort made me push harder, and in retrospect partially replaced the more direct criticism I was used to from college.

The CD Swap went so well that we did another, then three more, totaling five years and well over a hundred CDs (for those involved in all five). By the end, though, the Swap had developed problems too big to ignore: higher than ever numbers of people and CDs, waning interest among veterans, and an alarmingly high number of last-minute dropouts. The CD, as we know it, is also nearing the end of its days, and doing an online swap seemed so banal as to not even be worth it. I also found myself remembering something Randall told me after he burned his final mix: “There’s only so much you can do with other people’s music.”

The solution then was to expand. Taking again an offhand idea from Trainwreck, I planned out an Art Swap, where instead of burning mix CDs, people would make well, something else. The swap was open-ended enough to appeal to anyone creative (be it in writing, music, drawing, video, sculpture, needlepoints, computer programs, websites, food – I used a lot of lists when I sent the e-mails), yet required enough effort to scare away those likely to flake out. The result, as seen in the above photo, was an assortment of projects unlike anything I expected: calligraphy, jewelry, re-usable shopping bags, an online scavenger hunt, even a board game. I also received a lot of messages from people who were happy to get their packages, but happier still to find the audience and the motivation to make something they were proud of.

For the next sixteen weeks, I’ll be featuring all of the Art Swap projects on this blog, with a different one posted every Monday. You’ll see pictures, audio files, a scavenger hunt, and other fun stuff, each project different than the last. I encourage you to check out their blogs, listen to their podcasts, and follow up on things you like. And if you’re sitting there reading, excited about this whole thing, wondering why you never knew about this before, post in the comments or send an e-mail to ianmrogers[at]hotmail[dot]com, and I’ll let you know when we do the next one in 2014.

After all, what better use is there for the internet than sharing cool stuff?

Canadian Observations

Top 5 Distinctly Canadian Experiences From My Trip to Ottawa:

5. Took pictures of takeout chains featured in the movie "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World."
4. Played cribbage for a toonee.
3. Heard The Tragically Hip on the radio - twice.
2. Saw Gord Downie dance.
1. Ate poutine. Delicious, delicious poutine. 

BONUS: Ordered a double-double from Tim Horton's. 

I drove to Ottawa to see the Tragically Hip in concert and to visit my old co-worker from Japan.  Despite the Tragically Hip's being absolutely huge in Canada, with multiple hits, lots of radio play, and a cultural ubiquity yearned for by bands everywhere, no one in America seems to know who the hell they are.  Check out their stuff here.

In a roadside Tim Horton's parking lot I saw this large truck proudly brandishing a Confederate flag. This provoked a slight mental breakdown as I attempted to figure out why citizens of another country were supporting the Confederate South.

Barely visible on the dash is a model of the General Lee from Dukes of Hazard, which explains pretty well how fans of the show, or of Southern outdoor culture in general, could use the Confederate flag not to represent issues of white supremacy, states' rights, or hometown pride, but to fit in with social fandom.

Parkways like this one run around the city of Ottawa and through its center. There was never a lot of traffic anywhere, and it seemed like most people lived in the city limits, rather than in suburbs. I also saw a lot of people of all ages walking, riding bikes, and taking the bus. Compared to places like Boston, New York, and Washington, most of the area around Ottawa and Gatineau (on the other side of the river) is empty space, with a large national park about twenty minutes from the city.

Bell telephone booths with swinging plastic doors, two of the many I saw on the trip. I'm not sure if pay phones get more action in Canada, if they're unused and waiting to be removed, or if public phones receive some sort of government subsidy.

Pizza and poutine place inviting viewers to combo it up.

Rideau Hall, and home of the governor general of Canada. The governor general (a job that doesn't exist in the states) acts as the queen's representative in Canada by signing bills and convening with the prime minister. (Canadian readers: feel free to correct my oversimplified and possibly erroneous explanation in the comments section.) The hall is free and open to the public, and the tour guides provide a pretty good crash course in Canadian history.

One thing that struck me overwhelmingly about both Rideau Hall and the museums I visited was that, while the museums in America's capital cater to a wider audience of domestic and international visitors, Ottawa's tourist attractions warmly celebrated Canadian pride. Hanging flags with the providence names abounded, and signs reminded visitors that this was your museum, to celebrate your country. Bilingual signs in English and French formed the impression that all Canadians were welcome. Ottawa's tourism website even declares that the capital region is "Canadian, just like you."

Far from making me feel unwelcome as a foreign visitor, the distinctly Canadian warmth seemed sprung from necessity rather than xenophobia: the city, unlike DC, was simply not expecting many foreign visitors, and had focused its efforts of welcoming domestic ones. Rather than viewing the sentiment as quaint, I found their nationalism inspiring, and unlike anything I've seen in America in some time.

To Sum Up: Ottawa is awesome and you should go there. You should also listen to the Tragically Hip.

Morning Walks

In the mornings before work I walk down Milford Street to where I park my car. The morning air is cool and my mind is calm without the demands of the day to overwhelm me. I notice details like the raised carvings on a neighbor’s porch, or the electric lamps sticking crookedly out of a garden, things that make the world a more interesting place.

It is during these three minutes—the elongated stretch after leaving the apartment but before putting keys in the car’s ignition—when the day’s opportunities are open and waiting. I do not have to drive to work if I do not want to; I could easily go somewhere else where I could discover something new or pursue some goal I would like to achieve. Now that summer’s begun and I no longer wear my button-down shirts and ties, the morning walk could easily be the start of a long journey to a place I have never been.

The feeling exists for those few minutes and is gone, because the drive to work is familiar: I know where I’m going and I’ve been there before. The feeling does not exist on the way home, when the workday is complete and tasks accomplished. Evenings abound with other possibilities, but I think about the daytime ones most.

Mail-Order Rebates: There'll Never Be an App For That

Filling out a mail-order rebate is a concrete test of skill. Think about it: in the digital age, everything that companies do (job applications, car registrations, college registrations, college classes, classified ads, telephone listings, funeral arrangements, pizza delivery, bill payment, package tracking, ink cartridge refills, ticket reservations, and photo printing, to name a few) is online except mail-order rebates. Why is this, you ask?

First, consider the reasons that companies offer online services to consumers. They know that online services are easier, as people can avoid the bothers of talking with salesclerks, finding directions, and putting on pants. Those who aren't shy about technology are more likely to choose online services over real-world ones because of convenience, and some will even avoid doing things that can’t be done online because they're so used to the convenience. This is because most people will always take the easiest way out of a given situation so they can extend less effort, save time, and encounter fewer problems. Thus, companies will always have incentive to make their processes easier so they can sell more products and make more money.

Mail-order rebates are the exact opposite. Companies advertise rebates that sound appealing (“Just $49.99 after mail-in rebate!”), and since everybody loves getting money, customers feel like they’re getting a deal and now have incentive to buy the product. After the customer makes the purchase, however, the company is no longer trying to draw in that customer, and no longer has an incentive to make the process easy.  Actually, the company now has incentive to make the process as difficult as possible so they can avoid giving out rebate money.

Consider three examples: an instant rebate, an online rebate, and a typical mail-order rebate, along with the steps required to complete each. Which one sounds more appealing to a company?

Example 1: Instant Rebate
Customers must:

1. Buy product
2. Do nothing – cash register is set to automatically deduct rebate

Customer Effort Required to Receive Gratification: None
Percentage of Customers Finishing All Steps: 100%


Example 2: Simple Online Rebate With Direct Deposit
Customers must:

1. Buy product
2. Keep receipt from purchase
3. Go to website (listed on receipt)
4. Fill in form
5. Enter code from receipt
6. Check off box saying Terms and Conditions have been read
7. Wait for company to send rebate
8. Receive notice of rebate automatically deposited into bank account

Customer Effort Required to Receive Gratification: Marginal
Percentage of Customers Finishing All Steps: Almost All


Example 3: Typical Mail-In Rebate
Customers must:

1. Buy product
2. Keep receipt from purchase
3. Keep form received at purchase
4. Keep box item originally came in
5. Locate pen (that works)
6. Locate flat surface (to write on)
7. Copy information from receipt on to form
8. Locate scissors
9. Cut UPC label off box
10. Locate envelope
11. Put forms and UPC in envelope
12. Copy address on to envelope (Important: Must be done before Step 13)
13. Lick and seal envelope (bitter taste left in mouth)
14. Put stamp on envelope (may require buying stamp from post office)
15. Locate mailbox
16. Insert envelope (may require opening mailbox door)
17. Wait for company to receive rebate envelope

NOTE: Steps 1-17 must be completed by the Offer End Date listed in small print on the order form. 

18. Wait for company to process rebate form
19. Wait for company to send rebate check
20. Open probable junk mail in hope that it might be rebate check
21. Open rebate envelope (letter opener optional)
22. Put check somewhere safe
23. Put on pants
24. Drive to bank
25. Park car
26. Go inside bank
27. Fill out deposit form
28. Look up bank account number (for deposit form)
29. Wait in line
30. Give deposit form and check to bank clerk while answering routine questions about whether there’s anything else you need (there isn't)
31. Take receipt from clerk
32. Optional: Write deposit amount in checkbook

Effort Required to Receive Gratification: Way More than Online
Percentage of Customers Finishing All Steps: Way Lower than Online

Companies know that people will consider the steps, the resources involved (pen, envelope, stamp), the trip to the bank, the trip to the mailbox*, and procrastinate filling out the forms until after the expiration date because it’s always easier to put off doing something difficult than it is to put off doing something easy. Or, they’ll falter somewhere between Steps 2 and 12 (and, occasionally, between Steps 20 and 23). Still others will just plain forget. Even those who complete the process might not get their checks if they’ve neglected to correctly read the instructions (often explained in tiny print or with big words).

* Recently, the phrase “Save a trip to the mailbox” has entered the vernacular as a way for companies to make paperless bill payment more attractive. The trick lies in their using the word “trip” to turn routine mail drop-off into an arduous journey comparable to Hannibal crossing the Alps or Frodo bringing the ring back to Mordor.

Companies know these things, and they’re not going to change. They’ll never be an app for mail-in rebates; for the foreseeable future, the prizes will go to those who follow instructions, have access to envelopes and stamps, check their mail carefully, and manage their time well. The smartest consumers will win out, and those who thrive on instant gratification will pay more and be left behind.

I write about this topic because it provokes a bigger question: is the lesson taught by mail-order rebates an anomaly in a changing world of new technology and ways of doing business, or is it proof that the time-honored skills of accuracy, planning, and being prepared will inevitably yield success?

I wish I had the answer.


For Further Reading: 
About.com writer warning consumers about tricks companies play in offering rebates
US News & World Report article encouraging consumers to smarten up