Leandro Erlich, Bâtiment, 2004

Things in an unexpected scale are so pleasing

Weirdly giant things return us to a childlike state

Do you remember the surprise you felt as a tiny person when your parents took you somewhere you'd never been before   'ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME THIS PLACE HAS MORE ROOMS?'  when it seemed like the world was one gigantic house that kept on unfolding?

your house, probably i mean, whose else would it be?  you were the main person   

I remember being carried up some stairs in NYC to a cobalt blue room somewhere   and thinking NOW WHAT NOW WHERE ARE WE IS THIS PART OF LIFE NOW  later we were in a large pale open restaurant with a fish tank and several seating areas and I thought WHERE DOES THIS PLACE END

  WHEREAS

things in miniature give us godlike feelings 

This is something we don't take advantage of enough.

Michael Pederson, Wait here

*preamble to the idea I have for us*

I was in the bathtub yesterday, thinking about scale, looking at the corner of the tub near my feet, checking out the pleasant gray fake stone curve of the shower inset where it met the porcelain.  That corner bank of the tub itself looked like a tiny proscenium stage with its tall stoney backdrop   and then I thought

   man, it would be cool to be able to stage an epic play there something grand HAMLET THE MAHABHARATA with actors to scale

and not joke teeny action figure nothing actors but real killer actors a supertight production amazing costumes just...small   but only in size!  GRIPPING THRILLING etc

  That's all. I just stared at the corner of the tub, imagining, thinking how cool it would be, and feeling some inchoate kernel of potential

*the idea I have for us*

This is an experiment and I want you to try it. I tried it out myself today to see if it's good. Verdict = it's good.

 STEPS  1. Think of your life and choose an arena you would like to affect. It can be large or small, global or personal or anywhere in between.   *maybe you have a difficult goal you'd like to accomplish   *perhaps it's the U.S. senate and a vote to, I don't know, impeach somebody  *maybe it's bees, the bees of the world, and how they're doing

you get me—it's whatever it is but it's something you really care about

 2. Pick a staging area representing this arena  *the surface of a piece of paper  *a nearby cobblestone  *bathtub   *stepladder

whatever feels like it'll hold the metaphor

 3. Pick some objects to be actors or representatives of your concept  *pennies  *sticks  *grains of rice (senators? bees?)   *hastily-made paper doll

etc.

 4. Make these things do something, physically, in the arena that represents what you'd like to happen. Move them around meaningfully, with intent.   i.e. a piece of paper is the senate floor left side of the paper is impeach right side of the paper is do not impeach  move 100 grains of rice where you want them to go make it good make it a show

and then have a little celebration

where you call up the feelings you would have if the big-world version happened   Stage this thing up. Choose some songs for a soundtrack. Invoke actual feelings.      

TINA  WHY 

YOU WANT US TO MOVE RICE AROUND AND PRETEND WE'RE AFFECTING THE WORLD?

  NO,

you move the RICE around to allow the part of your brain that doesn't distinguish metaphor from reality to experience itself as a vast, omnipotent being because that is an actual vitamin for your existence

   We are more than happy to cosign all the messages we receive on a daily basis that reinforce our feelings of powerlessness. We do this because it feels sensible and preemptive of disappointment/some kind of extra helping of despair.

I propose taking half an hour to drop an alternative message into your consciousness AND LIVE AS A GOD.

did this myself with a gigantic beloved writing project I've been working on  made five little dinky blank books to represent each actual book in the series and "wrote" them to heroic music (Sibelius) scribble, scrawl BOOK ONE DONE scribble, scrawl BOOK TWO, BOOM     all five holy shit        put the little bundle of completed stand-ins in a place of honor    felt feelings  (can't stress enough how important that part is) (don't even do it if you're not going to try and feel it)

and then!

I went to play this dumb game I love to play on my phone Design Home You design tiny rooms with fake furniture you buy with fake money and last time I'd logged in (EARLIER TODAY SHH IT'S GOOD) I was almost entirely out of my fake money

but after I finished my five entire books and celebrated I logged in and the game had randomly given me huge buckets of fake money to play with! This has never happened before. It showered me with fake wealth out of nowhere.   AND THEN I WAS REALLY CELEBRATING BECAUSE I LOVE THIS DINKY-ASS GAME AND WHAT THE HIGH HELL?! HURRAY!

So I designed this outdoor space in cartoon Cappadocia, Turkey to celebrate the completion of my books  

   It was a long road to get them written 15 or 20 minutes but so worth it   

 Meet me on this stunning rooftop terrace We'll drink champagne together We did it The books, the bees They said we couldn't but we did.              

museum of the moon