Rob Walker's Blog
December 8, 2009
Object No. 6 of 50
[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Sarah Manguso, here. Significant Objects will donate the proceeds of this auction to 826 National.]
When the old lady died, my brothers and I were told to take away everything that was left.
The knickknack shelf was dusty. The porcelain things were gone, and so was the tiny violin. There were some pastel-glazed animals, a jar of flowers, a clay thimble, and other things of no value. I looked at the little paper man, his paper...
December 7, 2009
Object No. 5 of 50
[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Dan Reines, here. Significant Objects will donate the proceeds of this auction to 826 National.]
I think it was Ted Spain's to start with, though I'm not sure. He used to take it to meetings, and on Fridays before the all-staff I'd see him filling it with gin from a bottle he kept in his second drawer.
No, serious! He knew I knew, too — he looked up once and I was staring at him like you're looking at me, and he just sort of, you ...
December 6, 2009
Last month, I said that if enough of you wrote a six-word story about the Scottish Doll, an object purchased for Significant Objects but then thrown into the garbage, I'd pick a winner and issue a prize. Forty-odd stories later, we have a winner.
In the end, there was one obvious winner, in my judgment: Diane Kimbrell. Here's her story:
A Highland "Fling" into the garbage!
Diane wins a Significant Objects Mug mug. Congratulations to Diane, and thanks to everyone who entered the contest. Let's...
December 5, 2009
According to our highly scientific Adjusted Sales Rank table, the following objects were the 25 most significant of our experiment. Let's consider these significant objects visually — i.e., without mentioning which authors wrote which stories, and without reference to the stories. What do you see here, readers? Is there something inherently more significant about these objects than the other 75?
1. Russian figure
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2. Indian Maiden
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3. Wooden Animal
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4. "Hawk" Ashtray
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5. Pink...
December 4, 2009
Object No. 4 of 50
[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Amy Fusselman, here. Significant Objects will donate the proceeds of this auction to 826 National.]
11/21
Hey Snit —
Guess what I found, the tiny carpet of wooden balls!
It was in her linen closet, wrapped in a couple of those tea towels with the bluebirds on them.
You remember this, right? When she was trying to improve our "perceptions"? And we stood on the floor in the kitchen and held carrot sticks in our hands and told her...
December 3, 2009
[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Alexander Chapman, here. Significant Objects will donate the proceeds of this auction to 826 National.]
So Mel liked to call himself "The Hammer." It was sobriquet few used except Fran who worked at the Texaco. Every other Friday night, after a few shots of Mel's plastic bottle scotch and a joint she herself sold on the side to a few customers not named Mel, Fran would holler "Hammer me!" while Mel was on top of her. Mel took his name from a...
December 2, 2009
[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Mark Binelli, here. Significant Objects will donate the proceeds of this auction to 826 National.]
Shortly after I made my First Communion, my cousin Rodney showed up at my mom's. He'd also just made his First Communion, though at a different church. It was so recent, I still had this plastic First Communion cross, a gift from my great-aunt, propped on my bookshelf. My mom always disliked my aunt, and had commented in some oblique way on the...
December 1, 2009
Object No. 1 of 50
[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Neil LaBute, here.]
Instead of walking home the way I usually do — past Maple and cutting over on Ivar before getting to the river — I decided to save a little time and turned right, going down toward the church instead of around it. They were having a yard sale on that scruffy patch of grass on the side of the rectory, near where the old chestnut tree had fallen down back when I was in the third grade. The stump is still...
Thanks for volunteering your efforts! As we move ahead into the next phase of the project — we're calling it Significant Objects v2, at the moment — we are indeed lining up a new roster of writers. But before you write in demanding an assignment, please read this.
Significant Objects was originally intended as an experiment exploring the relationship between narrative and value. (In fact, we didn't think many writers would want to participate — before we launched the experiment, we listed 100 ...
