New Stuff:
- Vol 1 of the HSP (Happy Shiny People) zine is live over here. It’s an honest-to-god, made-from-paper labor of love. I used pens and scissors and glue to make an old-school zine from the good ‘ol days. Same bizarro content as the newsletter but in a much stranger wrapper. Download a copy, print it out, fold and staple, and send me a picture of one of these in the wild. Then go make your own. It’s fun.
- Shelf Project #2 has started- half the hardware is on the wall (the rest needs some modifications first), and the shelves are cut, assembled, and sanded. Finish next, then assembly. I’m really looking forward to these being done- besides addressing a storage problem, the shelves themselves function a bit as an art install of their own- sort of a meta-project, and one of those times when (properly done) the whole can surpass the sum of it’s parts.
- In reference to Shelf Project #2, that means a careful examination of the current book storage and periodical archive. The new shelving is for a particular class of books and artifacts, and I still need to go through the deep storage and suss out and items from there that belong in the new install. I’ve got a small batch pulled currently, but I know there’s a bunch more buried in there.
- Small Parts Storage Project v3. I’ve moved to a new(ish) sorting box setup, and this will be some shelving/racks for them. They’re based on the modular shelving Tom Sachs uses a lot in some of his installs, and they’ll live out-of-the-way in the basement studio area. Casters on the bottom (I think…), and they should also provide storage for some 2nd-line tools (things like the sewing machine, typewriter, soldering iron, usw). I formerly (and still somewhat) used a selection of Plano sorting boxes, but as some of my small parts are don’t work well in those, I’ve had to branch out. Still working on an insert for the new shelving to also handle legacy storage boxes.
- Working on an ancient keyboard for the home rig. It’s a Dell QuietKey RT7D5JTW, and it’s got a pretty decent feel to it- much better than the old Apple keyboard I’ve been banging around on. Problem, though: it has a PS/2 connector (instead of USB), so I found an active PS/2 to USB adaptor, and that’s working great. Next problem: some of the keys are ugly and bothersome legends on them. Easy fix: paint them. Right now keys are slowly being sanded and painted (one by one, god help me) black, but I’m adding silver sharpie to some of the edges, and it starts to look like the keys were made of metal, painted black, and now the worn paint is showing metal through it. Eventually I’ll have to paint the case, too. Third problem: the command key is in the wrong place. It should be right next to the spacebar, but for whatever reason it’s one over from that. Drives me nuts. So, tonight I’m going to make a custom keyboard map and rework all that.