Following Edge

(skateboard design linked from
http://tramseven.com
©scott larkin,
used without permission
trusting his love of liquor)

I got the smiling disease sticker I previously wrote about sending for. I am happy to confirm that it's neither a commercial effort or a religious cult, as readers previously speculated. Mostly an engaging artistic and social endeavor, I'd say.

Along with the sticker came a postage-paid postcard to return and a letter of explanation which "jim" had previously called a "manifesto" in his comment to my original message. I wouldn't call it a manifesto. The intro has that flavor in emphasizing the profit-driven nature of American culture which this sticker "campaign" is intended to rebel against. But, the remainder of the letter encourages you to creatively use the sticker and return a photo with, perhaps, your interpretation of the sticker or your explanation of what you did with it. Anne Marie thinks the author, Scott, is motivated by wanting some social interaction, but, while I think that could be part of it, I think he honestly wants to encourage creativity and artistry.

The postcard is blank on one side with encouragement on the printed side to create something there and drop it in the mail back to Scott. You might say the sticker and the postcard are totally different things, but my observation is that in both cases, he is providing you something available only from him which he is encouraging you to be creative with and to get back to him. While I find the letter and the concept not fully developed (because he's an artist and I'm move of an engineer), I find his "experiment" to be honest and interesting. I haven't yet decided how to use the creative opportunities he has offered me, but I'll stop thinking and start creating soon.

Scott provides his web site in the letter and promises to post the returned photos and postcards. While you can find some of the photo's there already, the postcards section is principally empty, but he announced that the first completed postcard was from Nate Beaty at Brainfag, another Oregon blog.

The remaining issue is my registration of smilingdisease.com last week after I saw the ad and decided that "smilingdisease" was a cool name. I have enjoyed over 50 hits resulting from the domain name and people finding me after (presumably) seeing "smilingdisease" elsewhere. I'm enjoying that, I suppose, even as proof of my feeling that "smiling disease" is an engaging name.

Scott wrote on the envelope he returned to me, "May I buy that domain name from you? You beat me to it. Email me". My first impression is that it's disingenuous to say that I beat him to it since he obviously thought about the word(s) before I did and since it's hard to "beat" someone to something that takes only 10 minutes and less than 10 dollars. That aside, I would have to say that selling him the domain name would mock his anti-profit-motive manifesto and I'm not interested in mocking him.

I'm enjoying the new domain name, so I don't think I'd want to give it up for at least six months or more. But, you know I've been looking for art for this blog and while Scott's art is not in the cartoon style I'm wanting for the heading, maybe I can get something else creative from him instead. I haven't emailed him yet. I'll keep you updated.