Pack Rat needs to hug it out.

Most people would find a pitch black tunnel leading off into God-knows-where terrifying. I know I would. But to some people—people braver, more determined, and better equipped to handle themselves than I—have for many years been disappearing into what has come to be know as the Freedom Tunnel. Located under Riverside Park, in New York City, this old Amtrak train tunnel was featured in the 2000 documentary, Dark Days for the community of homeless people who lived inside, in a shanty town beneath the city streets (which, P.S., is a terrific movie). What the documentary didn’t capture was what an amazing gallery of graffiti art that the tunnel has become. I stumbled across some photos that urban enthusiast and blogger, Peter, posted on City Noise (an interesting website, worth a post in and of itself). Peter plunges into the deep to capture some of the ever changing artwork decorating the dark concrete walls. Especially cool are the mural works by Chris “Freedom” Pape (who wikipedia claims is the tunnel’s namesake), one of the foremost graffiti artists. It’s amazing and awe inspiring that this great artwork is made hidden from most eyes: definitely not for mass consumption, but instead for the love of creation.

Heeey-yooooh! It’s magazine time again. Welcome to Issue #5 of Pack Rat, where the fun never ends. This issue we bring you fashion, art, and more crafts than you can shake a stick at. (Well, maybe you can shake a stick at them. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions about your ability to shake sticks at things.) Marvel at the creative prowess of Valiant clothing designer, Mykel Walker. Wonder at the thrifty chic fashion we found, all in the ballpark of $30. Thrill at the grotesque beauty unearthed at the Museum of Bad Art. Plus, we have some cool craft tutorials too.

Pack Rat’s grandma flipped her ‘vette.

I’m listening to Nick Swardson’s Party album as I type this, so I apologize for any typos that may be the result of laughing. So, most of you are probably familiar with the old school internet phenomenon, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. If you are not, here is a snippet from the wikipedia entry:

“The religion was founded in 2005 by Bobby Henderson to protest the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to require the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution. Because intelligent design implies the existence of an intelligent but not necessarily omnipotent or omniscient designer, some, like Henderson, argued that this designer could be anything imaginable…Henderson parodies the concept of an intelligent designer by professing belief in a supernatural creator called the Flying Spaghetti Monster which resembles spaghetti and meatballs. He furthermore calls for the “Pastafarian” theory of creation to be taught in science classrooms.

People took this idea and ran with it. I, personally, never saw the humor in it. Sure, intelligent design has no place in the classroom, and yes, Henderson made his point, but really people, it’s not that funny. That being said, the blogger at HistoryWeaver has provided a crochet pattern for a delightful, bendable FSM stuffed animal. She also, in Flat Stanley fashion, has her FSM roaming the country. My favorite is the one below of her FSM double fisting two pints of beer. Use her pattern to make your own traveling friend.

(photo by HistoryWeaver)

Pack Rat magazine’s alias is Nick Soapdish. It’s French.

Quick update on the magazine. Perhaps unsurprisingly we are running behind schedule. This time we have a pretty good excuse though, as we had a major computer crash and ongoing computer bugs that we are trying to deal with. We hope to have the July/August issue to you asap.

To that end, I’m going to keep these next few blogs brief. I found a “how-to” for these cunning oil cloth lunch sacks over on Martha Stewart’s website. It is actually the second time today that I have stumbled on to a website or article relating to Martha Stewart, and it’s not yet 10 am. I wonder if it’s some kind of sign?

Pack Rat Magazine drove its Chevy to the levee and guess what? The levee–she was filled with whipped cream and booze, man.

I first fell in love with the work of Chris Van Allsburg when I was a wee Meghan. Like millions of other children, I was transported away on the Polar Express and caught up in the game of Jumanji. And my favorite adventure was walking through the wild topiaries in The Garden of Abdul Gaszasi where the shrubs can walk, jump, and run, or so they seem.

Usually, childhood pleasures lose their allure as we grow into adults, but for me, Van Allsburg’s illustrations, with looming, shadowy figures baring down on his children protagonists, are as startling and exhilarating as ever. And one of his books in particular, The Mystery of Harris Burdick, will always captivate me.

The Mystery is a fairy tale told as fact. Van Allsburg writes, in an introduction to the first edition in 1984, the “true story” of Harris Burdick. Many years ago, he claims, a man called on editor Peter Wenders. This mystery caller identified himself as Harris Burdick and said that he had written and illustrated fourteen stories. He presented Wenders with a portfolio of fourteen drawings, captions, and story titles– one for each story–and promised to return the next day with the remaining tales. He never came back.

Wenders, as Van Allsburg writes, hung the intriguing pictures in his home and for some time his children, and then grandchildren would look at the illustrations with their captions and story titles and they would make up their own tales, filling in the blanks as they went. Until one day he showed the drawings to Van Allsburg, who subsequently decided that more children needed to admire them. Hence the book.

I have to admit, it has taken me about twenty years to realize that this is all a ruse. Not until I began to write this blog and I went back and revisited The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, did I see with adult eyes that “Burdick’s” style of illustration was remarkable similar to all of Van Allsburgs other books. Oh well. A little of the magic has died, but the intrigue is still there all the same. Thousands upon thousands of children have written stories to accompany “Burdick’s” illustrations over the last two decades (you can read some of them online). And adults are equally captivated. Stephen King wrote a story called “The House on Maple Street,” inspired by one of the Burdick drawings, an animation company has created short films based on some of the images, and a songs have been written in tribute to the mystery.

Van Allsburg may have children in mind when he sets pen to paper, but his stories have captured my imagination for a life time. Enjoy some of the Harris Burdick images below and let me know if they stir you into writing a tale of your own.

Title: A Strange Day in July

Caption: He threw with all his might, but the third stone came skipping back.

Title: The Seven Chairs

Caption: The fifth one ended up in France.

Pack Rat Magazine wonders, what ever happened to Little Cesar’s Pizza?

Hola mis amigos. Como estas? I don’t know the keyboard commands for accent marks, I apologize. I have another camera technique for all y’all to try out. Much in the same vein as Mark McKinney’s famous head-crushing character from Kids in the Hall, SKYplay plays around with the depth perception of the viewer. Artist hb19 says on his (her?) Flickr page that SKYplay “depicts a composition dominated by use of the sky and real clouds at that moment, with another object.” Very powerful imagery.

Pack Rat Magazine just called to say we love you

Some people hate graffiti. I’ll admit that the random expletive or the “Tori loves Jo-Jo” type of written diarrhea certainly detracts from the general ambiance of any given surrounding. Real art, though; people using the faceless, emotionless concrete of our cityscapes as a canvas for creativity and expression? I say bring it on. In the last decade or so, I’d guess that there has been an increase in stencil graffiti in particular (that’s just a guess, I can’t provide any kind of hard data to back that up, so don’t even bother asking for it.) It surprises me how much I enjoy this stencil art. I can get pretty nose-in-the-air about some things for no apparent reason, and normally the fact that stencil artists create their images beforehand as oppose to other artists (taggers and the like) who do everything freehand, I am surprised that I’m not more uppity about the purity of it, blah, blah, blah. But, lucky for me my head isn’t firmly wedged up my ass on this one. I can appreciate stencil art for all its worth. I’m especially impressed when I think of how hard it would be to create some of the complex images out there, and then to think about having to cut out the NEGATIVE space of some of those complex images when making a stencil. It boggles my poor spatially addled brain.

Anywho, if you want to become an aficionado on you own, take a gander at Street Art compiled by Splitbrain.org. A personal favorite is below.

Pack Rat Magazine is on the bus

Story time. Gather round kiddies, pull up your sit-upons. Once upon a time I was a teenager. And because the rules of teenagerdom say, nay, decree that you will think you are a) way cooler than anyone who has ever existed and b) the most boring person to ever shlump around the Earth’s surface, I went WAY out of my way to separate myself from “the pack.” This included such outside-of-the-box thinking as: wearing blue lipstick; sporting socks on my arms (a la Tank Girl); strolling around in Cat In the Hat stripped tights; etc. Me and my Hot Topic wardrobe were beyond the status quo. And of course, like every person looking to rebel, I was all about dying my hair. I bought a lot of Manic Panic in those days, but was constantly disappointed when after a week’s worth of showers my Technicolor green hair would fade to a sickly green wash, the kind that kids who spent too much time in cholrinated pools had. But lo, some helpful person turned me on to using Kool-Aid as a dye. Oh the joy! The rapture! The color was intense and the effects permanent. Plus, it was a million times cheaper then the real dyes.

To use Kool-Aid as a hair dye required a microwave, a packet of said summertime fun beverage, and a microwave safe dish that you didn’t mind staining some ridiculous colors. You dumped the full packet of Kool-Aid (the various red flavors worked best) into the microwave safe dish, added about a cup of water, and nuked it for about two minutes, or until the liquid began to boil. Then you dipped your hair in while the whole thing was still hot and voila, you were part of the resistance movement. The sucky part was trying to get it all the way up to your roots. You didn’t want to burn your scalp, but you didn’t want your streak of fire-red hair to only go half way up. I scalded my fingers many a time, trying to figure that one out. I still don’t have any good answers.

Now that I am a million years older, I some times miss those dyed streaks of hair (and hair wraps. Remember hair wraps?), thus I was totally stoked when I came across this tutorial from Snowangels on how to use essentially the same technique to color yarn. She uses both the microwave (for single color skeins) and the stove top (for a tie-dyed look) to create vibrant pallets for all her knitting, crocheting, needle point, etc. needs. Just looking at the photos takes me back. And then I remember that being a teenager was as much fun as getting kicked in the crotch. I am glad that now I can get jazzed up about dying yarn instead of all that other crap. You know what else sucked? Cafeteria pizza. I’m just saying.

Pack Rat Magazine enjoys a good chocolate covered banana at the big yellow joint.

Okay this…this is pretty cool. Try to imagine this. You’re eleven years old and your best friend is spending the night in your family’s new apartment. You’re just hanging out in your bedroom, when all of a sudden your friend jumps up and points to your radiator. “It’s your name!” he exlaims. You think he’s a wacko because while the cover to your radiator is decorated with random letters, none of them come close to spelling out your name in any kind of combination. But, your friend explains, it is a puzzle. And then before you know it, your whole home has come to life as one big riddle waiting to be solved.

Sounds exciting, right? Well check out the article “Mystery on Fifth Avenue,” from yesterday’s New York Times. The Sherry-Klinsky family got exactly this kind of surprise a year after architect Eric Clough had finished renovating their new Fifth Avenue apartment. Steven Klinsky had asked Clough to put a poem he had written about his family into a bottle and bury it in the wall during renovations. Clough thought about it and did him one better. He, with the help of a battlion of friends and like-minded enthusiasts, devised an elaborate mystery without the family’s knowledge. Furniture was built with secret compartments, walls were left with hidden doors. Clough even coerced author Jonathan Safran Foer to write a novel full of clues that he hid in the wall and Canadian recording artist Kate Fenner created a special soundtrack for the home which was hidden in a secret compartment in the kitchen. There’s more, oh so much more. It seems like an Alice and Wonderland dream, that the home you thought you new actually has hundreds of small secrets right below the surface. Read the full article to find out more. Visions of sugar plums are dancing in my head after hearing this one.

Here are a few photos, but you should really go to NY Times website and get the full effect. What you see below is the radiator that son Cavan’s friend found his name in (each grate contains a poem for each child); the leather-bound novel that held the clues; the custom-built sideboard’s secret compartment; the hidden panel and pieces of a cube which, when assembled, became a sort of magnet. When the family ran the magnet over a panelled wall in the master bedroom, the panels opened, revealing the hidden poem written by Mr. Klinsky.

Pack Rat Magazine separates the wheat from the chaff. And then we ditch it all for some fried dough.

Let me walk you through what a day of searching for a blog topic is like. So I start out with a list of websites that I have on file…stuff I haven’t written about yet for one reason or another. It’s a long list, compiled of many a Stumble Upon and Google search. I close my eyes and randomly select a site. Today I landed on Hello Indie, a shopping ‘zine for indie goods. I really enjoy the articles in this ‘zine and have almost mentioned it a few times in the past, but I hesitated because they look like they haven’t put out a new issue since 2006.

Today I read through their archives, looking for something I could highlight, and I came across their article from Issue #2 called “Out Of Control Photography” about a new trend (movement?) in digital photography. The artists take their cameras and toss them into the air so that the resulting photographs are a surreal blur of light and shapes. The article linked to photographer Ryan Gallagher, so I clicked on his link and went to his flickr page. But I didn’t poke around there very long before I saw that he had his own blog called Camera Toss (The Blog) where he showcases his own “kinetic photographs” and his general musings about photography and life. I found the how-to guide for camera tossing to be particularly interesting. But I wanted to get a better sense of what this technique could accomplish, so I headed back to the flickr pool and I found some photos to share with y’all. They are from left to right: Kinetic 1023 by mtnrockdhh; Cameratoss from the archives by Beer 30; and Toss 109 by AKA33

And that, my peeps, is a sneak peek into the web sluething I do to bring you blog postings every day.