I was bored, had $50 to spend on magnets, and a free afternoon. This is what I came up with:
And on my very first day, not 10 minutes after putting all the magnets on and walking into the Thai Food place to pick up my order, I had my first composition (which can be seen above, but I took all the pics at once, so pretend it's not in the first two and clap wildly for this one):
It's a gigantic simile with a preposition in the middle. I love it.
So this is where I tell you what this is all about whatnot. But really, just looking through a few pictures here should give you plenty of context about what's going on here. So I suppose this section is quite unnecessary, isn't it?
Although, I suppose I could tell you how it all came about... Yes, that seems like it'd be appropriate here, thus justifying having an "about" section.
So I have this friend, Lori. Lori is a poet. Not only is Lori a poet, she is quite an exceptional one. She's one of those people that personifies the description of a free spirit. She's a flower child through and through, and I love everything there is to love about a person, because she's wholly good and a benefit to the human race.
Anyway, Lori used to drive this adorable little Mini Cooper car, and one day, while working on a client site together on a project, she had about two armloads of stuff to carry to her car, but only one set of arms. So, being the chivalrous young man my mother would be proud that I have become, I helped her carry some goods to her car. She popped the back hatch of her car, and I saw a ton of little magnetic poetry pieces laying all over the place.
I couldn't help but laugh. "Lori," I said, "You're the only person I know who could literally haul poetry around in the trunk of her car." We shared a laugh, and then off the cuff, I followed up with "You should place it all over your car and let people say things with it."
Of course, this being the world o' web 2.0 and whatever, we both shot glances at one another and decided this NEEDED to be a thing. A real thing, with pictures and a website and whatever. So I registered the name Automotivetry.com, bought a bunch of magnetic poetry, and ran around town for like six months experimenting with the idea - mostly to see if people would actually participate, or if they'd just smirk and keep going.
Well, as it turns out, there is a healthy amount of both that takes place. Enough people participate that I am perpetually curious when I return to my truck everywhere I drive. Enough people pass right by and smirk, pausing to enjoy the fanciful thoughts of people unafraid to slide magnets around on someone else's car. But virtually everyone I observed who came in contact with my truck were at the very least curious. So I figured I'd go ahead with it and see what happens.
Okay, so poetry on one truck is fun and all, but it's so much more fun when other people play too! So, I'd love some help getting pictures of poetry on cars, trucks, vans - whatever! Whether you choose The Easy Way, The Do-It-Yourself way, or the One-Timer way, email me and let me know you're interested.
The Easy Way
I have put together the "Instant Automotivetry.com Participation Package"... Sounds fancy, but it's just a bunch of magnets. It's the big sign you see
on my truck, plus a starter package of magnetic poetry (the 400 count Original pack). The package costs $35.00 plus $5.00 shipping (so 40 bucks). You can
order it here, and if you want, I'll even include one of my books for free for helping me out (no obligation though... I won't force you to read my crappy book to participate). Just tell me in the "notes" of your purchase if you want one or not.
I am making about twelve cents selling you this package, unless you factor in gas prices travelling to the post office down the street, in which case I'm losing about $288.88. This is a random number. I have no idea how much I'd be losing. It doesn't matter. Let's move on.
The Do-It-Yourself Way:
The Sign: If you prefer to order these things yourself, go to
BuildASign and choose your own sign size. It'll cost you about $22.00 for the size I have (6" x 18"). The only rule for using your own sign - you need to use the same text that appears on the signs already in production. Font sizes and whatnot are up to you, though. Add pictures, make adjustments... It’s your car, make it look the way you want.
You don't even have to use a magnet for this - if you want to buy vinyl stickers and put them on your car or window, more power to you. But magnets have a huge advantage, in that they don't blow off when you drive and you can take them off easily whenever you don't want them on your car.
The Poetry: As for poetry, I have three packs on my truck - the original pack, the poet pack and the erotic pack (I was feeling frisky). Feel free to order more or less than what I’m using, so long as you feel you’ll get the type of messages you want. The more open you leave things for people, the more creative they'll be... But I'll assure you, no matter what you buy, people WILL find a way to make it dirty, so you might as well just accept it :)
You don't have to use the official Magnetic Poetry brand - any brand will do. I've experimented with a few others, and I've found that the magnets themselves are kind of weak on other brands, so it's up to you.
The One-Timer Way
Got some magnetic poetry laying around? Have a car? Want to just slap something together and send it in? Awesome! I'll take it! Submit your profundity here! Make sure to include your name, location, and a clever something-or-another in the way of commentary.
Photos:
Pictures need to be sent in the highest resolution your camera can muster. I prefer 300dpi, or at the very least, 72dpi set to extremely high width and height. If you’re using a cameraphone, please set your size to the highest resolution.
Shot framing: Your very first picture should be the day you set up your poetry on your car. Get a good “wide” shot of your car, then some closeups of just the field of poetry. This will be your “profile” pic on the site.
Every other submission you send can (and probably should) be close up on the message. It’s up to you if you want to include the rest of your car or not, but definitely keep your license plate out of the picture. So long as the message is readable, I’m jake with whatever.
The general guideline is to get one message per pic. If a word or two stray into the image, no biggie. If you capture the very bottom or very top of another message, again, that's fine. But try to keep the picture focused on the communication happening in each message. Th exception here, of course, is if someone makes a "response" message to one already on your car, and you need the first one for context.)
If conversations begin to form in your magnetic poetry, we can always do a "macro" shot and then focused shots on each line of conversation. There's not really any rules here, we're the bosses, so we can do what we want. Submissions:
There are no quotas on submissions. Send one a month or 20 a day, I don’t care. So long as the messages you’re getting are entertaining and original, I’ll take whatever you want to send me. Each submission that gets posted will be credited to you (you can use your full name, or a pseudonym).
Your pictures are your property, copyright you. But they'll need to be licensed to me so I can use them on this site.
Other stuff:
In experimenting with this whole concept the past six months, I've found a few things to be pretty common:
Most people are totally into this thing. Get ready to see people smiling in your rearview mirror, or smiling as they pass you on the side where your magnets are.
Don't run your car through a car wash with the magents on it. They won't be on it anymore.
DO wash your car regularly though. Keeping dirt off your car keeps scratches from happening. I have no scratches on my truck from people sliding magnets around, but I also wash it every few weeks.
This is an instant conversation starter. If you don't like talking to people, you may not want to do this.
People will constantly amaze you in two ways - how astonishingly creative they can be, and how astonishingly UN-creative they can be. You'll see one of two things with each new message - it's either a dirty joke (or an attempt at one), or something you'll be absolutely stunned could come out of magnetic poetry.
Keep a small space dedicated to people's messages, preferably near the big sign explaining the project. Seed with one or two messages left in the space, and when you clean out old messages, leave a few in there. This doesn't mean people will always use the space, so keep an eye out each time you come to your car for new messages hidden amongst the jumble of free words.
I've tried organizing free words into stacks of similiar / same items (nouns, verbs, articles, phrases, etc), and jumbling them up into a massive hodge-podge of words everywhere. In my experience, Jumbling works WAY better. When you stack everything into similar groups, people start with nouns and build sentences from there, so you get "The cat ran in" and "I like your juicy cat" and "Cat ate cat." Boring. When you jumble, though, people start with a concept, then look for words to fit it. They have to look for what they want sometimes, but that's a good thing - they might miss it, so they have to get more creative. But experiment in your area - if you find a way of organizing free words that results in great phrases, go for it.
Take your pictures as soon as possible. I carry a digital camera in my truck specifically for this project, and sometimes, I've forgotten to get a snap of a really good message. I'll go somewhere, park, and come out, only to find someone's cannibalized words from the good message to make their own. So get the pic as soon as you can.
That's pretty much all the guidelines I can think of. I look forward to seeing what comes out of your automotivetry!
