Crafty Creations

[wizwor]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/catesish/the...raft-idea-ever

The comments are more entertaining than the video. The only way this young lady could have caused a bigger stir would have been to cut up a Qur'an, a Bible, and a Torah.

This is a travesty. Has anyone noticed the eerie similarities between this "art project" and her entire existence?

Just an empty box, superficially decorated to seem more special and deep than she really is. That is to say, not at all special or deep... or intellectual.

I'm a writer and I have no patience for dog earing, breaking spines and bending soft covers. This is much worse, much much worse. It's like personally spitting in the face of the author. If she did this to my book collection I would do the same thing to her face.

I'm just going to say it -- this is a pretty good idea. You could stash a cash box behind some books or simply create an inconspicuous storage area for an e-reader or two.

[cjr72]

Bradbury really was a visionary; he was just a little off on the method of disposal.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Some of the comments had me laughing though. The one that made the craft idea even "hotter" was hilarious. Fahrenheit 451 covers to a metal box so you could burn things in it. Ouch.

[steven522]

"Crafting 101" is a new scifi novel about a dystopian future where "crafters" are called out to take books and re-purpose them into something non readable.

[RainingLemur]

Oh, the comments on that are great.

The box idea, however, is pretty good. I have done something like that with a single book and had a little hidey-hole in that book. But, not using a bunch on a box. I may have to do that the next time we move. I've got an old series of encyclopedias that I could destroy without feeling bad.

[wizwor]

If you do something amazing, post a picture here -- just don't use your real name of address

[ebusinesstutor]

There are many artists who make art from book, so she isn't any different other than it is more crafty. Here are some others:
http://inspirationgreen.com/art-from-old-books.html

Don't know what the fuss was about.

Of course, she should have used "Twilight" books...then there would have been only a few million more to go. And we could have all worked to make the video viral.

[JoeD]

I may be having a dense moment and having not seen the video have totally the wrong idea, but are people honestly up in arms because someone cut a book or several up? I see that as rather sad.

I treasure my books, devices and gadgets as much as anyone, but if someone wants to blend their new iPhone and post it on youtube or make art out of a book, doesn't matter to me, just keep your hands off mine

If I've got the wrong end of the stick, please don't bash me with it whilst turning it around

[Ken Maltby]

This may not be the place to express this opinion, but the "book" as in the story/ideas
contained and disseminated by all the physical books can no longer be destroyed, a la
"Fahrenheit 451" or a Nazi book burning. They need not even be kept from readers by
a publishing house's view of what's marketable. The loss of some paper, cardboard and
fake leather should no more cause the intellectual angst, displayed in this thread.

Another reason to keep the internet free.

Luck;
Ken

[pisceschick]

Hmm. I can't, as a crafter and lover of all things re-purposey, get behind destroying something perfectly usable in such a fashion. I could support using a beat up book with a section of pages missing, or a scratched cover. Or spines from mass market paperbacks that have had the covers stripped for return. This just seems frivolous and wasteful. I don't think I'd object if the books were lined blank journals, though, so maybe my objection has to do with the fact that the books looked perfectly readable.

Not that I haven't bought things with the intention of turning them into something else, I certainly have! Off the top of my head, I bought some wooden cutting boards and football/baseball shaped cutouts from Target's $1 Spot and decorated them to hang on the wall. I've picked up AOL mailers from the stacks at the grocery store to use the discs as a paint palette, ceramic tiles from the local Freecycle group to pretty up with photographs and paint, etc. I've purchased vintage dictionaries and encyclopedias at the UBS and library sales with the intent to "do something with them some day."

So back to my earlier point: This just seems frivolous and wasteful, as is. Maybe she explained in her commentary what she has planned with the stacks of pages and covers? My sound wasn't cooperating.

I have seen some pretty amazing things done with books that didn't cause my inner alarm to go off, for example: Edinburgh's Mysterious paper sculptures

And I'll leave you with a snap of something I re-purposed, a small wooden (particle board?) box that AOL mailed a CD to me in several years ago that I turned into a tabletop photo frame.

[wizwor]

I think a lot of these feelings date back to a time befor ebooks were a commodity. When books were pressed or hand copied, the time and labor requried made each something of a treasure. As such they were well cared for and passed from generation to generation. Modern printing technologies eroded a lot of the value of books, but, even ten years ago, out of print books and early editions retained value. Today, it's possible to print out a single copy of a book at a reasonable cost. It's possible to download a lot of books for little or no money.

For all these reasons, the value of books is less today except to a dwindling number of collectors. Collectors, IMO, is different than hoarders in the same way a stamp collection is different from a roll of stamps.

I'm a Reduce-Reuse-Recycle person. Applied to books, I prefer e-books to printed books, donate or give away used books, and would be happy to repurpose unwanted books in this way.

I attribute the whole, "burning my words, is burning me," argument to the dimentia that makes authors interesting.

I have been known to start a campfire with the pages of an unwanted book. Some books are good for little more than starting a fire.

[Requiem]

I can see an author's disdain for things like this, if you have ever written a book of novel length, or even attempted it, you realize quickly that it is a hard labor. Much the same as birth, and some author's feel that the two are very similar. So if you were to destroy a book, though not with the intent of keeping it from others, then some author's may see it as a disrespectful thing. I would have to agree with them on that one.

But as someone else pointed out, the problem is not that she created the box, but that she created the box with perfect condition books. Seems very wasteful.

If this was an ode to reading type project, rather than an "I want people to think I read" one, would the reactions be the same? For example, if it was a container that celebrated The Grapes of Wrath, and was filled with family items from the great depression, would it be more or less offending to people?

[teh603]

So am I the only one who got a laugh out of Lemony Snickett's reaction to the video?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by steven522

"Crafting 101" is a new scifi novel about a dystopian future where "crafters" are called out to take books and re-purpose them into something non readable.

Most excellent

[tubemonkey]

to the crafty person. I see absolutely nothing wrong with what she did. It's her property to do with as she pleases.