Infrequent Mailing

No. 41, May 30, 2007

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A Letter: School Days

Skip, over this whole next thing if you're just looking for breaking news or, more likely, a cool offer on Jewelboxing or a giveaway or contest. All that is at the very end.

Dear Reader,

At South By Southwest this year, Brendan Dawes and I made a presentation about Making Your Short Attention Span Pay Big Dividends. The talk was well-received, thanks in large part to Brendan's wit and also to the visuals he prepared, which, unfortunately, don't translate to a podcast very well. One of the points that was made in the Q&A session that followed seems to have resonated with many people. When asked about the structure of a typical Coudal Partners' workday (as if there were such a thing), I replied that we were organized more or less along the lines of a Montessori Preschool.

I have three young kids in the Montessori system and I'm a big fan of the way those schools foster a love of learning through an emphasis on personal responsibility and the freedom that comes with following curiosity, as opposed to following a predetermined agenda or schedule.

Perhaps it's impractical to implement that sort of self-directed behavior in a larger organization, or in one that is based on a loyalty that comes primarily from trading hours for money. But in our small group it is surprisingly efficient, mostly profitable and always interesting.

Montessori classrooms full of 3-6 year-olds are amazingly quiet. If you were to turn off the volume while watching video of a day at our studio, you wouldn't miss much. You'd also be bored to tears. Most of the day is spent doing what needs to be done and most of that happens individually, in front of a Mac.

One aspect of the system that sometimes surprises people is the way in which Montessori kids refer to what they do all day as "work." I think that terminology is right on, demonstrating that there is joy and self-fulfillment to be found in work. It's easy to discount the importance of a job that bores you or doesn't challenge you or never changes, but if you see work as a Montessori preschooler does, as a wide-open path where one thing leads to another and the development of one skill allows for another level of things to be explored, then that's a whole other kind of "work." It's not so much about what you make, it's more about what you learn making it.

Call it work. Take is seriously. Just don't be all serious about it. After all, it's the surprises and accidents that send you off in directions you don't expect. The metaphor isn't perfect. We don't hold hands and sing before we have lunch at the studio. At least not every day. I'm not exactly sure how convening a brainstorming session at the local tavern after work fits with the Montessori Method. But perhaps that's the part that the other kids call recess.

--Jim

The Summer They Swapped

The latest on our Swap Meat experiment is that we've extended the deadline for submissions and swapping throughout the summer because we can't bear the thought of not getting cool things in the mail every day. So please, keep Bryan busy and take a moment to read The Four Things That Can Happen When You Send Us Something For Swapping, so you know what you're getting into when you decide to participate.

Some new Swaps of note. The aforementioned Brendan Dawes has created an amazing piece of art with custom coding and imagination. It is a limited-editon homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, a particular obsession of ours. Brendan talks about his Cinema Redux project in a short essay called The Things Around Us.

David Derr, whose last poster, "Stars Motel," sold out quickly, has created a pair of editions of 50 exclusive, half-toned screenprints based on vintage Chicago neon store signs. "Sunny Diner" and "Buy-Low Liquors" have just been posted. Make it a night of drinks and dinner or vice versa and save $25 when you buy them as a set.

A special limited item from Brian Taylor's Candykillers is available for Infrequent Mailing subscribers only, for the next 24 hours. It's a sweet 8" x 10" two-color letterpress print that comes with the right of first refusal on an edition of oversize prints of this image that are currently in production.

Check all these recent additions to The Swapped Shop here.

Got stuff for Swappin'?
Postmark it before September 1, 2007 and send it to:
Coudal Partners Swap Meat
400 North May Street
Suite 301
Chicago IL 60622

Please include a short note describing your project, a link to where people can learn more about it, a way to contact you and a non-PO-Box mailing address where we can ship you some stuff in return.

The MoOM Gets a New Home

The Spring Exhibitions at our Museum of Online Museums have been posted and, as usual, we've curated quite a diverse collection of collections. We've also remodeled the galleries by adding a sorely-needed archive of 'greatest hits' and have announced that seats on the Museum Board of Directors are now available. Much new functionality and, of course, the highest of high culture are yet to come. In the meantime, enjoy exhibits like The Gallery of Nurse Novels, The Cereal Box Archive and The Gallery of Vintage Scooter Calendars.

Contest: First Ever Kern-A-Thon!

We received hundreds of entries to last month's contest in which we asked everyone to set the same headline in the same typeface, color, case, style and size as a way to see what we could learn about letterspacing and individual taste.

We're assembling an online gallery of the results currently and will post them for your perusal in the next week or so. Meanwhile, thanks to our fellow type-nerds at Veer, we have a couple sweet prizes to announce. These were chosen randomly from everyone who sent in a headline. Bryan Kahrs gets $250 to spend on Futura or any other typeface from the deep shelves at Veer and Bryan and Jenna Hazlett, our runner-up, both get the fabulous Kern Zip-up, from Veer's Merch Department. Congrats on that.

Contest: Blurb It Up

We created a mock, trashy paperback novel as a visual to announce that we have extended our Swap Meat experiment through the summer. Here it is, it's called The Summer They Swapped. For this month's contest, write a salacious blurb about the imaginary book for its back cover. Send it to info at coudal dat com with "Hot Swap" in the subject line before June 6th. We'll choose a couple good ones and send the authors $100 each to spend on Swap Meat Exclusives. Kevin Cornell of Bearskinrug started the ball rolling with this one: "Under the hot summer sun, they exchanged more than just fluids."

Offer: Jewelboxing Upgrade

Order a 100pack of our Jewelboxing Kings or a 150pack of Standards before Monday, June 4, 2007 and then write to crew at jewelboxing dot com with "Upgrade Me" in the subject line to tell us that you did. We'll choose one person at random and upgrade their order to the completely complete Jewelboxing Studio (a $764 value). Good luck.

Thanks for swapping, thanks for linking and most of all, thanks for paying attention. Oh, and by the way, get ready to hike up your tube socks. We are yours always,

The Coudal Partners Crew.

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