It all started with a broken coffee cup. “It was a totally
meaningless thing,” remembers Rob Walker [http://robwalker.net/],
“but it happened to be a coffee cup that I had bought on a trip with
my now-wife.” The ceramic casualty made Walker realize that the
stories we attach to objects may be more valuable than the objects
themselves.
With a collaborator, Joshua Glenn, he set about testing the premise.
They bought knick-knacks at thrift stores, and asked dozens of great
writers to create fictional backstories for them. Then the items, each
with its story, were auctioned on eBay. One hundred of the stories are
collected in the new book Significant Objects
[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1606995251/studi360-20/], with
entries by Jonathan Lethem, Lydia Millett, Neil LaBute, and Kurt
Andersen, among many others. You can read many of the stories here.
[http://significantobjects.com/]
NOW STUDIO 360 IS HOSTING ITS OWN SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS STORY CONTEST
[http://www.studio360.org/objects/].
Rob and Kurt visited Vintage Thrift [http://vintagethriftshop.org/] in
Manhattan to find three prime examples of junk. Your task is to make
one piece of junk (or more) significant. Walker will judge the
entries, with one winner for each object. The prize, of course, is the
piece of junk itself.
[http://www.studio360.org/crowdsourcing/listener-challenge-significant-object-1/]
[http://www.studio360.org/crowdsourcing/listener-challenge-significant-object-2/]
[http://www.studio360.org/crowdsourcing/listener-challenge-significant-object-3/]
CLICK ON AN IMAGE TO ENTER THE CONTEST — AND TO READ STORIES BY
OTHER LISTENERS.
HOW TO ENTER: Choose an object. Write a backstory for the object: it
can be in any form you choose — short story, encyclopedia entry,
poem, etc. (Here are some ideas to get you started.
[http://significantobjects.com/]) Keep it short: we suggest around 500
words. (Entries exceeding 1,000 words will not be considered.) Feel
free to write stories for all three objects — but only one story per
object will be considered (the first submitted). The deadline to be
considered for our contest is 11:59 ET April 8, 2012. But you are
welcome to continue submitting your work after that.
Click here for the complete rules and regulations for the contest.
[http://www.studio360.org/objects-rules/]
Video: In Search of Significant Objects
