Banana Surprise…

Can I just say how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE meeting readers face to face? This past Friday, I had the opportunity to meet Miss Direction (aka Marcia Wiley, the artist who is fixing up that old Checker cab) who was visiting the Bay Area from Seattle.

She came by and I gave her the grand tour of my home — the House of Flufftown Follies — and the nickel tour of Alameda. We had a blast! (Getting together IRL is so much more rich and nuanced than any kind of digital communication, don’t you think?}

Anyway, she turned me onto some really cool things. I’ll tell you about my most favorite one. She said a friend of hers, a Washington artist by the name of Tim Klein (Hi Tim!), makes puzzle montages. Apparently, some mass-produced puzzles are cut with the same pattern which means the pieces are interchangeable… which means you can make art with them!

Then, she showed me an image on her phone of Tim’s work. I was blown away — sooooo cool! It was a vertical puzzle… a blend of Big Ben and a redwood tree. I’ve never seen anything like it. See an example of his work below and hit that link so you can see even more.

[Quick update, added just before publishing: Tim’s work has since gone viral in a big way! It’s hit reddit (71K upvotes), MetaFilter, Hacker News, Now I Know, and a whole bunch of indie blogs. Stephen King even tweeted about it! Tim has been fielding fan emails from around the globe. People are making offers to buy his montages. It’s been super fun watching it explode across the internet. I was telling Tim I haven’t had a post go this viral since Adam West died.]

Now, I got to share something cool with her too (which I learned from Seth Godin who learned it from Kevin Kelly). It’s a geography game called GeoGuessr. It uses Google Maps and to win you have to use your pre-Internet brain. Remember that? I got so into it that I’ve already curated my own map for others to play. Give it a try, if you DARE.*

— Rusty Blazenhoff

P.S. I’m taking the next TWO weeks off from the zine because SJ and I are gittin’ out of town for Thanksgiving. But, let me say THANKS to all of YOU for being RED readers! I appreciate you all so much.
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*(“want,” not “DARE”)