holiday newsletter: xmas in the crick 2009

Dear friends,

Holiday greetings from here in Tennessee! I guess I can deem the season a success since I have thus far managed to avoid the Sears Portrait Studio. Still, it just wouldn’t be Christmas without my parents driving me batty. As soon as my dad rolls into town for the Holiday Proper mom comes down with sympathy deafness and they just sort of yell at each other all day. They're not even that old yet! I fear it doesn’t bode well.

Luckily, extended family obligations have been minimal due to uncle B’s well-timed adultery scandal (well done, sir!), so there has been plenty of time to make merry. Two nights ago I found myself in this bar in a chain restaurant with my friend W, her brother J, and three tables worth of children who work for J’s store at the Johnson City Miracle Mall. The other patrons were (literally) a retarded alcoholic, a fat lady reading a book, and a table of people who played Kid Rock songs on the jukebox. Two of the girls were pregnant and I suspect that all of them were Juggalos.

I didn’t think much of it when they gave me and W the stinkeye when we played the Misfits, but I was a little surprised when one of them marched up to me as they were making their exit. Much to my surprise, she said, “The next time you want to talk shit about my sister, you’d BETTER NOT!" Then she ran out the door before I could say a single word.

You guys, I was burning with unanswered questions. First and foremost: WTF kind of sentence construction was that? I mean, I’m not trying to be a pedant in the middle of some bar filled with children, pregnant ladies, and a drunk re, but it was totally a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma squeezed in the fugliest flannel shirt you’ve ever seen in your life. Q2: If I'm parsing it correctly, that was an implied threat involving a (highly unlikely) hypothetical situation based on an event that never happened in the first place, right? Q3: Or perhaps she’s a mind reader who could just tell I was *thinking shit* about her sister? I was definitely thinking shit. Q4: Really?

But those fascinating questions were nothing compared to my urge to yell, “Fuck you AND your sister! Whatever! I do what I want!” and maybe ordering a round of paternity tests for her companions. On one hand, anyone who knows me has heard my rant re: how the Dumb Southerner is the last acceptable stereotype among people who are otherwise politically correct to a fault. On the other hand: OMG my hometown is teeming with dullards. And on the third hand: because I myself am a redneck in my secret heart, I wanted nothing more than to pull that lady’s hair.

So that was awesome, but the night before was even better. Let me pause to explain that having a blog is weird and fascinating and creepy and delightful in so many unexpected ways. For instance, it has resulted in a handful of saucy solicitations, most recently from one reader, a Facebook friend, who sent me a really nice message about ze blog which eventually devolved into him asking me to send him a photo of myself topless(!). Before I explained to my Gentle Reader that I’m only hot for nerds, I seriously considered sending him a pic of some Internet strumpet’s hoo-ha. Of course, I quickly realized that I (a) didn’t actually want to troll the web for crotch shots and (b) fervently wish to avoid a future in which my mother googles me and conjures someone else’s cybercunt. All the same, I was pretty impressed with myself since I basically just invented ironic sexting. Let me tell you, it feels great to close out 2009 with this important contribution to society.

Believe it or not, though, solicitations are not my favorite thing about blogging. No, my favorite thing is the very particular look of panic in my friends’ eyes when they realize they are participating in something that might become blog fodder. Due to advanced shame-loss, I live a life that involves a daily diet of silly and ridiculous acts for which I actively recruit any and everyone. I guess that explains how I convinced my dear friend R to shake it for hours in the subterranean dance floor in the bowels of the bar where we were drinking, a place that may or may not be known to locals as “The Boom Boom Room.” The BBR was populated by some really skanky lesbian grinders, me, R, and two guys with long hair embroiled in a strangely solemn dance-off that involved some sort of modified Vogue moves.

Oh, and it was Christmas, which is when we gather for that time-honored tradition of Drinking Away the Family. (Which, due to alumni at said bar, seems to have spawned a sub-tradition called Dancing Away My High School.)

After one too many R. Kelly songs, I approached the deejay to make a request. “Do you have any 80s hits?” I asked, suggesting Madonna as a nod to the dance-off fellas.

“That’s not really my thing,” he said, but I was not ready to give up. “It doesn’t have to be 80s,” I said. “How about you just play some Lady Gaga?”

I think he took a shine to me, because the next thing I knew I was in his booth scrolling through his list of a dozen of or so pop songs. The rewards were rich: Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, and “Bad Romance.”

I believe it was during the latter, perhaps as I was stomping in a circle around R like some kind of crazed gypsy, when she gave me The Look and said, “Oh my god, you’re going to write about this on your blog.”

Just thank your lucky stars I don’t have a Flip, sugar. I’m thinking about getting one to better document year 32.

Kiss kiss,
KO

update: oh dear

Hey there, guys and gals! I know that many of y’all who have already soulmated are living vicariously through the sexy stories on my blog. The Shallow Brigade is nothing if not the story of a swinging single. Remember how I yacked all over the public sphere and hid it from my suitor a few weeks ago? I know most of you were reading that in your nightshirt and cap thinking that was 2 HOTT 4 U.

I mean, that was an awesome thing that happened that did not force me to consider murder-suicide at all, not for one single second.

But seriously, because I’m neurotic, I’m not one of those people who can just shake off their puke date. To counteract the shame-loss, I make it a point not to lie to myself. So instead of telling myself, “Hey, champ, it’s okay,” I try to keep it real. And, at the time, my realistic assessment of the situation was that things couldn’t get much worse.

Of course, that was before I might have inadvertently started dating a retarded person.

Remember how I wrote that mean-spirited post about my mentally retarded Facebook friend?

Not so long after that, I worried he might actually happen upon that post after I FB linked to this blog re: the gift shop. But then I remembered that res can’t read good, etc., so I wasn’t all that worried about it.

Then, last night, as though conjured by my cruelty and half-hearted concern, the re sent me an instant message (“Hey girl”) after I logged off Facebook that I didn’t receive until this morning. And I was like, whew. I just wasn’t in the mood to have another IM convo with this retarded person. I mean, we’ve already talked about his nephew(?) and everything. Plus, I don’t like res.

Today, I was out xmas shopping and didn’t log on to FB until evening. Immediately, I received another “Hey girl” from the re. I wouldn’t have thought anything of the timing until, a few back-and-forths later, he ASKED FOR MY PHONE NUMBER. Which, coming from a retard, I’m pretty sure is like asking for worn panties.

A struggle ensued. On one hand, I am barely nice enough to IM the retarded; I’m hardly capable of talking to one on the phone. On the other hand, I really didn’t want to hurt his feelings. As a compromise, I gave him my landline with the caveat that “I don’t like talking on the phone.”

So, basically, he’s retarded, we’re together, and I’ll post any voicemail messages to that effect right here just as soon as they surface.

before & after

So most of you know I'm a writer in real life. Most of you also know that, for a variety of weird reasons, I spent the better part of this year also working as a consultant for a gift shop near my hometown in Tennessee. It was the most fun I've ever had working, but there were certain challenges that stemmed mostly from the sad fact that I had to start from scratch. To wit: here is what you would have seen had you walked into the gift shop last March:


BEFORE: The old shop was basically a stuffed animal crypt with lots of fake flowers and shocks of decorative pipe cleaners.

AFTER: Cutting the clutter made the space feel less like an attic and more like a shop.

In the beginning, I saw myself as the store's buyer. And I was--I shopped my little heart out online, at trade shows, and up & down Chicago AND New York looking for products that were made in small batches by human hands. And while it's true that robots and Chinese children made a few of the things I ended up buying, I am very pleased to report that most of the shop's merch was made by individuals I met in person, over the phone, and right here in virtual reality. Woo boy, that part took a lot of time and energy.

What I didn't realize was how many OTHER things would be involved. To take just two examples, I had to work with an interior decorator to spruce up the skeleton and a designer to create a new logo and marketing materials. Maybe some day I'll write about what it was like to do those things, but for now, I want to tell you about what it was like to be a visual merchandiser for a day (well, a few weeks) as I struggled to figure out how to display all the pretty things I picked out.

So that's what this post is about: a before-and-after photolog of the shop I put together this past September. (Let me apologize in advance for all the pictures that look as though they were taken by a drunk person. Maybe one of you lot can teach me how to use my camera someday.) You can even click on the very best/worst ones to see them in their full glory/misery, as the case may be. In fact, I insist; the good ones look way cooler that way.

One of the challenges in putting together the displays (apart from, you know, my profound lack of formal training in visual merchandising) was dealing with the shop's fixtures, which are mainly built-in bookcases. Not only is it difficult to fit things on the shelves (many of which are out of most people's reach); it's also hard to make them visually interesting.

BEFORE: A woozy view of the three bookcases that line the right side of the shop.

AFTER: The same three bookcases, post-makeover.

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

AFTER: One way I coped with the bookcases was to organize them roughly by theme and color. On the left was the nature-inspired case, which had a lot of wood and glass.


AFTER: The right-side bookcase was the case of many colors. I framed some of the Berkley Illustration! animal portraits with cheap matting from the craft store and pasted them at the top of the case. I also played with the levels of the shelves to keep things interesting.

AFTER: The middle case, which was inspired by ghost stories, was my favorite. It was as close as I could come to my fantasy of making a curiosity cabinet. Plus I got to build a shadow puppet theater!

AFTER: These nifty cards teach you how to make shadow puppets.

AFTER: The photographer cut off the top of the display, which was made from things we sell in the shop: a chalkboard sticker and antique light bulb sculptures.

AFTER: And here's a detail shot of the awesome silhouette plates, one of my favorite things in the shop.

We used a little paint here and there to make some of the other fixtures look better.


BEFORE: The shop was overwhelmed by the oogie soft sage color you see on the walls and in the hutch.

AFTER: The walls went pale yellow. Black in the back of the hutch makes the merchandise pop.

AFTER: (detail shot of hutch) I chose a garden theme for the hutch--egg-shaped birdhouses and sidewalk chalk, seed packets that look like matchbooks, bird calls, etc.

I also tried to create displays that had a museum exhibit-feel, esp. for the art we sell.


BEFORE: The boom box really made this display, don't you think?



AFTER: The same area with handmade birdhouses by Tamar Mogendorff.


AFTER: One of the pleasures of buying merchandise was the chance to support some of my favorite local artists. (This map is by Dolan Geiman, who is here in Chicago.) We used placards like the one you see in the bottom right to give the shop a museum-like feel; my writing skillz came in handy for the text, which I used to tell the stories behind featured artists and products.

It was important to me to have products that tied in with the identity of the non-profit the shop is associated with.

BEFORE: Random (expired!) food products didn't have much to do with the organization's mission.



AFTER: These funny vegetable people replaced the old food. I took advantage of the natural light in that same area for glassware. I don't know why the photographer made me prop up those plates for this dippy shot.

Elsewhere, the funereal fake flower display was chucked in favor of art by Blanca Gomez.

BEFORE: Yikes!

AFTER: Plush puppets were corralled in the shelf just below this display.

Another aspect of this epic project was creating branded merchandise. I worked with a designer to create our own line of t-shirts, which I also wrote about here.



AFTER: We sold out of the shirts I designed! We had to reprint them.


AFTER: I wrote a little story to go with each of archetypes we used for the shirts. This is the text for the villain.

The children's area required soooooooo much work.


BEFORE: Pretty much the only children's products we offered were stuffed animals and plush puppets.


AFTER: The same area reimagined, including paper robots and vintage-inspired toys.


AFTER: I heart the Friend Brigade!!


AFTER: I tried to make the children's area look happy.




AFTER: Here's the top of another bookshelf & a detail shot of another favorite, maps of imaginary places.

I used tabletops to display paper goods and other office supplies.



AFTER: I ordered lots of letterpressed cards and vintage-inspired stationary.

One of best parts about working on the shop was having a tangible final product for the world to see. All I have to show on most days is a stack of empty Diet Coke cans and a Microsoft Word document or two.