On Friday, I posted a short story, "The Hardyman," on this blog. It's the story of a man, a robot suit he finds, and what happens when he meets the girl of his dreams and the suit stands between them. Thus far, I'd yet to find a publisher for the story. So, I decided to self-publish the story online under a very liberal Creative Commons license and encourage other creative types (artists, comics-makers, filmmakers, musicians, performance artists) to re-envision, remix, and/or remake the work as they liked. This morning, I got an email from Johannes Grenzfurthner of the Viennese arts collective monochrom. Earlier this year, monochrom had decided to publish a strange review I wrote of a Human E-Collar in the next issue of their magazine. Johannes liked "The Hardyman" very much, he said, and it looks like the story may appear in that issue, as well. In the meantime, Project Hardyman continues. Special thanks to Ed Champion, Corazón de Látex, and J. Orlin Grabbe for mentioning the project. And if you're interested in adapting "The Harydman" for your own creative project, let me know. If you want to get inspired about why information, and robots, should be free, I'd suggest Jonathan Lethem's "The Ecstasy of Influence."
A few years ago someone brought me a strange gift, purchased at MoMA's downtown design store: a copy of my own first novel, Gun, With Occasional Music, expertly cut into the contours of a pistol. The object was the work of Robert The, an artist whose specialty is the reincarnation of everyday materials. I regard my first book as an old friend, one who never fails to remind me of the spirit with which I entered into this game of art and commerce—that to be allowed to insert the materials of my imagination onto the shelves of bookstores and into the minds of readers (if only a handful) was a wild privilege. I was paid $6,000 for three years of writing, but at the time I'd have happily published the results for nothing. Now my old friend had come home in a new form, one I was unlikely to have imagined for it myself. The gun-book wasn't readable, exactly, but I couldn't take offense at that. The fertile spirit of stray connection this appropriated object conveyed back to me—the strange beauty of its second use—was a reward for being a published writer I could never have fathomed in advance. And the world makes room for both my novel and Robert The's gun-book. There's no need to choose between the two.
