From the depths of my imaginary world, to you.

I am hugely flattered. Love the crane dispenser!

I think that means you can get one too!

I’m off to find some things…

“…And with these the sense of the world’s concreteness, irreducible,
immediate, tangible, of something clear and closer to us: of the
world, no longer as a journey having constantly to be remade, not as
a race without end, a challenge having constantly to be met, not as
the one pretext for a despairing acquisitiveness, nor as the illusion of
a conquest, but as the rediscovery of a meaning, the perceiving that
the earth is a form of writing, a geography, of which we had
forgotten that we ourselves are the authors.”

–Georges Perec, “Species of Spaces”

(Excerpted from the Focus Taiwan News Channel)

Taipei, Jan. 16 (CNA) The Taipei Book Fair Foundation has said that it is hoping to attract 10,000 people to “walk” their books at an event in Taipei Jan. 30 to promote an upcoming international book exhibition in the city.

Visitors to the Taipei International Book Exhibition, one of Asia’s largest book fairs, are encouraged to bring one of their books to the event and present it in a creative way, such as turning it into headwear or a handbag, said the foundation, which organizes the fair, on Tuesday.

The first 10,000 participants to sign up will receive free tickets to the exhibition, scheduled to run Jan. 30-Feb. 4, it said.

The event will be held at the Taipei 101 square.

The “book-walk” concept was inspired by Canadian author and artist Keri Smith’s book titled “Wreck This Journal,” which encourages readers to draw outside the line, the foundation said, expressing hope that the event will promote creativity and stimulate reader’s imaginations about their relationships with books.

Readers can also take pictures or make videos of their creativity and upload them onto the event’s Facebook page. The 10 participants to receive the most Facebook “likes” will each win a free buffet at a local hotel.

The foundation said it will also set up donation boxes at the exhibition so that the public can donate books for distribution among schoolchildren and citizens in remote areas.

The exhibition, now in its 21st year, will feature Belgium as its theme country this year, as well as hosting booths and pavilions featuring countries including France, Australia, Turkey, Mexico and Peru.

It will also include a variety of seminars and workshops on topics such as international publishing, digital reading and the development of digital content applications to improve exchanges in the global publishing sector.

This year’s fair has received over 800 registrations by publishers, and 500 writers from home and abroad are expected to attend. It attracted a record number of 600,000 visitors last year.

(By Christie Chen)

Now you can see what I’ve been working on for so many months. Due out officially in May! You can read a bit about it here. It’s going to be good! Collectors of the world unite!

I’ll write more about it as it gets closer to the release date. I wish I could give it to you right now!

…just released yesterday. I am very happy (read: thrilled) with how this turned out, thanks once again to the brilliant folks at Citrus Suite (they so “get” my stuff). As many of you know, while I am not anti-technology I do believe strongly in limited screen time. But I also feel that since technology is not going away anytime soon then we need to use it and shape it for the good. And I so am working on creating tools that activate people (instead of turning them in to passive users). It is my hope that “This is Not an App” does just that by turning you into the master of your device. No longer do you have to wait for an app to tell you what it should be used for! Now YOU can choose what it becomes, and imagine what it CAN become, whenever you wish. I always loved the idea of a piece of technology that was formed in the present moment by the user’s imagination. A kind of Borgesian device that transforms into whatever you can conjure up in your mind’s eye. This is as close as I can come at this point.

I am reminded of the words of my magician friend Ferdinando Buscema in his Three Secrets of Magic, (which you, dear reader, should always remember):

1. Reality is not always what it seems to be.
2. Imagination creates reality.
3. Reality is made up of words.

This line of thinking is continued for me by Wendell Berry in his 2012 Jefferson Lecture, (which I am still thinking about every day, I confess that I have a bit of a Wendell Berry obsession of late),

The term “imagination” in what I take to be its truest sense refers to a mental faculty that some people have used and thought about with the utmost seriousness. The sense of the verb “to imagine” contains the full richness of the verb “to see”. To imagine is to see most clearly, familiarly and understandingly with the eyes. But also, to see inwardly with the minds eye. It is to see not passively, but with a force of vision, and even with a visionary force.

I love that phrase “visionary force”. It makes me feel powerful and invincible! And so, let us go out into the world, re-animating and re-imagining every nook and cranny with our own personal visionary force!

(I forgot to add, you can find them here: itunes, android)

-Francis Hodgson Burnett, 1911