Rob Walker's Blog
November 11, 2009
Object No. 98 of 100
[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Stacey Levine, here.]
I'm not a collector, but really a purloiner, and there's only a brief backstory to these novelties.
When my second wife died, I sought companionship. So I installed a soda machine in my bedroom — it would be a conversation piece and might make me more attractive to the ladies. I disabled the cash acceptor. I started going for walks to the little square in downtown Orange, and I thought: Why is no one...
Object No. 97 of 100
[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by (Six-Word Story Contest winner) Rob Agredo, here.]
"You lose," she puffed.
True.
Again.
We'll be posting the SmithMag/Significant Objects Six Word Contest winner momentarily, and publishing the five runners-up tomorrow. There were about 430 submissions, which make for fun reading, here. Once again it was a very tough choice, so big thanks to all who participated. We think you'll like the winner, but we'll let it speak for itself — concisely! Stand by for that.
And we'll have another Significant Object and its story late this afternoon, as well. Big day!
Click through to read the Significance of each pictured Object
Later today we'll publish the winner of our Six-Word Contest with SmithMag. And later this week we'll post our 100th Significant Object.
And then what?
People have been asking: Is there a way to keep Significant Objects going in some new form when the original 100-object experiment ends? We've been giving this question some thought. It's not anything we'd figured we should worry about when we started this adventure back in July. But ...
November 10, 2009
Object No. 98 of 100
[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Stacey Levine, here.]
I'm not a collector, but really a purloiner, and there's only a brief backstory to these novelties.
When my second wife died, I sought companionship. So I installed a soda machine in my bedroom — it would be a conversation piece and might make me more attractive to the ladies. I disabled the cash acceptor. I started going for walks to the little square in downtown Orange, and I thought: Why is no one...
Object No. 96 of 100
[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Bruce Holland Rogers, here.]
By my third visit to Dr. Peragua, I had decided on what I was going to steal. There were lots of candidates. His office is full of keepsakes from his travels to meet shamans, whom he says are his professional colleagues. There are a lot of objects small enough to slip into my pocket, but I decided on the dish for paper clips that sits on Peragua's desk. It was in the shape of an open, upturned...
November 9, 2009
Object No. 95 of 100
[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Lauren Mechling, here.]
It was during Charlotte Sanger and Georgia Howard's punk period — which actually had nothing to do with music and everything to do with mustard nailpolish and slinking away from Pine Ridge High School 's mandatory double-period orchestra — that Charlotte spotted her mother in the front of the Pine View movie theater, waiting for the lights to dim and the 11:50 a.m. screening of Wayne's World to begin...
November 6, 2009
Object No. 94 of 100
[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Victor LaValle, here.]
Who the hell goes to Portugal? In my family?
The question arose as my sister and I were going through my grandmother's things—her effects. She'd died of old age at Queens General Hospital and she'd been longing for it. Some people never want to go, but not her. She'd lived long (96 years), seen her grandkids and great grandkids.
The old lady didn't own the apartment she'd lived in, alone, for 22 years...
