for the good idea book
February 29, 2012
File under: ideas to be executed by others.
1. Nathaniel Hawthorne Theme Park. Now, I can’t remember why I originally thought this idea would be so funny awesome but it came out of Peter and Claire reading The House of the Seven Gables while we were camping last year. The Nathaniel Hawthorne theme park would have lots of dark clothed dour people in it, creepy old houses, major guilt trips, and of course the main attraction, the Tunnel of Adultery ride. I’d have to actually read some Hawthorne to come up with other ride ideas but realistically you can expect visitors to want to ride the Tunnel of Adultery at least three or four times, right? So that’s a mini goldmine right there.
In researching this article, staff at jodi’s weblog have discovered that this idea is such a good one that apparently there is a Nathaniel Hawthorne Theme Park already! But sadly no Tunnel of Adultery. So clearly there’s some room for improvement here.
2. Neko Case and Neil Young should trade bands for one album (each) and accompanying tour (each). Just think of it: Neko Case and Crazy Horse; Neil Young and Her Boyfriends. That idea is PURE GOLD you guys.
3. Along the same lines, Meatloaf should record a cover of Total Eclipse of the Heart and Bonnie Tyler should record I Would do Anything for Love (But I Won’t do That). Besides the fact that they’re so perfect for one another, check out the videos for the songs: they are practically the same. And that lady in the Meatloaf video is wearing Bonnie Tyler’s dress. Bonus if these two tracks are released together on a 7″ single.
4. Peter and I recently had a great idea for a supergroup, originally inspired by Jian Ghomeshi interviewing an asexual activist named David J. on Q, who is apparently NOT the David J. from Bauhaus. BUT: Davy Jones, David Bowie and David J. I know, right? Sadly we just heard that Davy Jones passed away today, so this is just another guaranteed platinum idea that will have to be shelved.
5. Jones is also sadly now out of the running for the other supergroup idea we’ve been working on here at jodi’s weblog (yes we are working on it shut up): the one made up of Last Surviving Members. So far this group consists of Tommy Ramone, Otis Williams, Michelle Phillips and Betty White. With luck Ringo Starr will be freed up to join soon and then this band is a go.
Posted by jodi on February 29, 2012 at 7.14pm
the good idea book (pennsic edition)
August 18, 2011
I have a habit of carrying more than one notebook at once, writing down important reminders or excellent ideas and then forgetting where they are, eventually forgetting they ever existed at all. While queued at Troll to get into Pennsic, I pulled one such notebook out of my purse in hopes of finding our trailer’s license plate number written there, as we needed to provide it, have completely failed to memorize it, and had left the trailer behind at the hotel. The number was there right on the first page along with other notes about things in Windsor I wanted to go back and photograph, dated July 24 2009 (whoops, are those things still there, I wonder?).
Further page-flipping revealed a forgotten to-do list for Pennsic XXXIX (that’s 2010, for the non-nerds), detailed notes on F-stops and whatnot for a roll of film shot in 2009 that is still sitting unprocessed in the fridge, recipes I have yet to try, and various other small shames. None of which, of course, stopped us from filling up a few more pages with new ideas we came up with this year. Let’s see if putting them here will make the difference in whether any of them come to fruition (no, I won’t be looking back through this journal for forgotten ideas, because yes of course it’s full of them. Thinking is faster than doing).
Since we had SO MANY GOOD IDEAS (hah), today is just for Pennsic related good ideas: improvements to our camp setup, silly Pennsic projects and at least one absurdly huge life-changing dream project.
-Okay, right off the bat, good idea #1 is not necessarily Pennsic related, but: in the event that our dear friend Ghita were to become queen of the Middle Kingdom, we’d need to find silly ways to celebrate that in style, and there’s always a chance it could happen at Pennsic. So: Midrealm Royal Grilled Cheese Party. Wherein we will create hot irons in the shape of a dragon (Middle Kingdom badge) and a jaguar spot (emblem of Gh.’s consort, Ix) with which to stamp our sandwiches, which will be cut in four because that’s classy, yo. If it never comes to pass that our dear Gh. gets to bask in the royal attention she so richly deserves, well then, we’ll just have a grilled cheese party in celebration of something else, because the sandwich branding thing is obviously going to be amazing.
-Bog Bingo: bingo cards containing common sights and sounds of our neighbourhood (The Bog, obviously). Things like men walking by shirtless in SHORT kilts (Catholic schoolgirl short), a whole raft of fake accents (English, Scots, and Pirate being probably the most common), Scotland the Brave played on bagpipes, people running around warning of tornadoes that never materialize, references to famous people who are rumoured to be part of the Great Dark Horde, people walking around in nothing but their underpants. Et cetera.
-a Scrabble board embroidered on fabric that we could roll up for travel. This is actually one of those forgotten ideas from about 15 years ago that we resurrected for this year’s list. I will probably sew this on the machine rather than by hand to ensure another 15 years don’t go by before we can play.
-this one is very important: get a shower cap so that my delicate curly hair never, ever has to touch the horribly iron-rich Cooper water ever again. After 18 years at Pennsic I’ve finally figured out that I could save myself a lot of grief and frizz and just wash in bottled drinking water.
-start using oil lamps on the dining table instead of candles, to avoid the wax mess everywhere. We’ve already started implementing this one by purchasing a lovely ceramic oil lamp from a Pennsic merchant.
-further to the oil lamps idea: build a small folding table the same height and width as a picnic table that can be set at one end and hold all of the candelabra, which we still want for ambiance even though we’re tired of the mess. This table can get waxy as all get-out, we don’t care. I might add a shelf below to hold the spare candles as well as all of the decks of playing cards we like to keep out but which clutter up the dining area. For reference: the picnic table we used this year was 84cm (33″) high, 71cm (28″) wide.
-from last year’s list of abandoned projects, I still want to produce a broadside that we can distribute as a fun alternative to the Pennsic newspaper; called The Bog Standard. This might not happen because of our next idea, which is HUGE:
-create a Pennsic-based environment for a Zelda-like game. Yup, huge. This is one of those ideas that is fun to get totally into planning while on vacation but doesn’t fit practically into real life afterwards, but serendipity and networking are already on our side. Peter, Claire and I spent many hours working with one of our campmates on ideas for this, so stay tuned. Provided it doesn’t fizzle, I’ll create a separate category for updates on this project. Right now all we have are pages and pages of notes and a line on some software. Also: in our game the Pennsic newspaper will be called The Bog Standard.
-Peter needs a white linen hood with a cowl that he can throw on to protect his neck from the sun on hot days. I will make that hood this year and next Pennsic will be mostly overcast and cool because that is how things work.
-we need to put a few stitches in the decorative dagging around the edge of our pavilion roof to prevent them from flipping upside down so often. This one will get done on Labour Day weekend while the pavilion is set up at Pinery Provincial Park (because we want to camp in ostentatious style even when it’s only for three days, folks).
-also for the pavilion, we want to find some onion dome shaped wooden finials we can put on top of all of the wall poles.
-some notable items missing from our kitchen kit: spatula, measuring cups and spoons, lemon juicer, wire strainer, potato masher. This is pretty far from wilderness camping, in case you didn’t figure that out already.
-for next year, a reminder: after crossing the border, if we stop in the Kroger in Detroit and pick up some groceries then we can wait until the first rest stop on the Ohio Turnpike to eat a healthy lunch of whatever we want instead of stopping like we usually do at the Iron Skillet (ugh) near Toledo, where the only thing on the menu I can eat is a baked potato. Holy crap you guys, I’m really looking forward to not eating that baked potato already.
Posted by jodi on August 18, 2011 at 8.41pm
