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Condom Vending at MadGirlWorld

The MadGirlWorld bathroom hides a surprise!

madgirl condom2
Callithump! Condom vending machines in the MadGirlWorld bathroom

That’s right, Callithump! Condom vending machines! This is an idea we had a while ago, but never got around to finding a location for. Honestly, the MadGirlWorld bathroom is way too upscale for them.

madgirl condom1
The Blame Game and Play Hockney, two condom vending machine games.

Ultimately, I’d like to find a bar to host these, but it’s fun to hang out in the MadGirlWorld bathroom for now! Really, they were designed to be hung in a bar bathroom. The idea behind these is, well, the traditional bar bathroom condom machine is really kind of an odd thing. It’s a very singular set of circumstances. You went to a bar. You weren’t planning on having sex, so you don’t have any condoms with you. Suddenly, you’re going to have sex, and you don’t have time to swing into a drug store to buy decent condoms, so you have to pay exorbitant prices for crappy condoms with tacky names that have been sitting in a barroom bathroom for who knows how long… Anyway, it seems like a pretty unlikely situation! I wanted to create something a little more all-purpose to have on hand in a bar.

Lets not play The Blame Game!
Let's not play The Blame Game!

There’s Play Hockney, which lets you pretend you’re photographer David Hockney while you’re sitting around waiting for someone to show up. There’s The Blame Game, a game designed to stimulate conversation once they do. The Blame Game was inspired by the late president George Bush Jr.’s constant whine, “Let’s not play the blame game!” whenever someone suggested he take responsibility for himself. Since Republican’s believe that all fun should be prohibited The Blame Game must be something really fun! So I had to make it exist! There’s Good Question!, a set of questions to ask on a date, or if there are just too many awkward silences during an evening’s outing. For this, I scoured all the websites purporting to have the best questions to ask on a date or in a job interview. I decided that they were all lame, and came up with a much better set of questions, for example:

Who do you think is the worst person in the world? What would it take to get you to have sex with that person? Would it make a difference if you got to be on top?

Finally, we’ve got The Right Words. This is something I’ve wished I had on many occasions. You know those moments when you wish somebody’d said something to you? Like when you spend the whole day with your fly unzipped? And then you say, “Why didn’t you say anything?” and they say, “Well, I didn’t want to embarrass you.” As if that would have been more embarrassing than walking around for hours with your fly unzipped! Well, these are cards that say those embarrassing things for you, so you can quietly slip them to someone and to keep them from making things worse. Like, He’s Gay. Really. Or, She’s got a boyfriend and she doesn’t like you.

You can pass the buck for all your problems onto many others in The Blame Game
You can pass the buck for all your problems onto many others in The Blame Game

You can find all this fun in the bathroom at MadGirlWord!

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News

Possible Truth?

Now this is some happy news! Decades ago, Matt Jasper’s Tray Full of Lab Mice publications lit a spark in my imagination. He showed me it was possible for self-publish. This was before the WWW, before affordable computers and desktop publishing. Getting your voice out there at this time pretty much meant that you either had a whole lot of money, or corporate backing. Matt showed me that with little more than scissors, glue, staples, imagination and a photocopier, you can put together a magazine. With a little perseverance, you can publish something that looks professional. He inspired me to create my own zines, which ultimately led to Callithump!

Now Matt’s kids are following in his footsteps. His 7th-grade son Max is publishing a magazine called Possible Truth. It’s available on Issuu:

[issuu layout=http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Flight%2Flayout.xml showflipbtn=true documentid=090913143622-9a7e15dbcc574740a1d0aa68f6a54a49 docname=possible_truthissue2 username=jasp555 loadinginfotext=Possible%20Truth%20%232 showhtmllink=true tag=zine width=420 height=272 unit=px]

I wonder what a new generation of Jaspers will inspire?

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News

Callithump! at MadGirlWorld

Callithump! at Madgirl World
Callithump! realy looks at home in its new location!

Callithump! has a new home! You can find it at MadGirlWorld, at 275 Commecial Street in Portland, ME (at the corner of Cross & Commercial Streets).

You’ll also find Jess’s cards and buttons at MadGirlWorld. Jess isn’t MadGirl, though. That’s Meredith Alex, who moved to Portland from Belfast to pursue a career in fashion design. Her work is far from tradtional:

Max @ Madgirl
Meredith's daughter Max, modeling one of MadGirl's dresses in the window of MadGirlWorld.

MadGirlWorld is part store, part studio, and all fascinating. It’s well worth the trip!

It’s an exciting venue for Callithump! too. We’ve never been in such a high-traffic area before! Thus far we’ve put ourselves in out-of-the-way places just because, what with having a day job & all, we don’t have time to keep up with heavy demand! We’ve already had to create extra material just for MadGirl! Success is a lot of work!

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Opinion

Your Quarters in Action

We have our occasional setbacks. For example, losing the key to the Callithump! Totally Buttons machine up in Orono. It meant we couldn’t refill the machine, or get the change out. It was our intention from the start to put out “issues” where contents would be available for a limited time and would go away, but this time it was forced on us prematurely. We took away the machine and didn’t have another one ready to go, so we went “on hiatus” from Orono for a while. That hurt!

What also hurt is that we couldn’t get into the machine! Unsurprisingly, these things are designed to be very difficult to get into if you don’t have the key! It really took a long time to figure out how to do it without destroying the machine. Then I discovered its weakness and….

Riches!
Riches!

Before you go jumping to the obvious conclusion that we spent all this money on drugs and hookers, let me remind you: Callithump is a non-profit organization. All the money we make goes toward the mission. The mission, it’s worth restating, is 1) to provide new venues for artists to reach audiences, 2) to create new ways for audiences to interact with art, 3) to explore the future of physical publishing in an electronic world.

The quarters when directly into paying for this:

Coming soon to Lord Hall, Orono...
Coming soon to Lord Hall, Orono...

Sometimes setbacks are good things. In this case it gave us time to stop and think about what we were doing, and how we could do it better. Totally Buttons was very well recieved, but it was too much about buying and selling buttons and not enough about art. So, we’re changing it.

This time around the idea is to create wearable gallery. One machine will vend a series of works by one artist at a time. You can literally wear an art exhibition (or put it on your backpack, or whatever). We have two machines (or “heads” as they say in the industry) and we’ll introduce a new artist every month, so each artist will exhibit for two months before moving on.

This is all just a very roundabout way of saying Thanks! To anyone who’s bought anything out of any of our vending machines, thanks! You’re helping to sustain something cool. Also, thanks to all the artists who’ve contributed. Yes, we’re asking you to contribute your work, paying you back in contributor’s copies for work we’re selling. None of that money goes into our pockets, though. It all goes back to the cause! Hopefully that means that all your hard work hasn’t been in vain for nothing.

This is also an even more roundabout way of saying, we need contributors! We’ve got more demand than we can keep up with! Drop us a line if your creativity can fit into a 2″ capsule or onto a .875 inch button. It’s a worthwhile cause, and we give you stuff in return!

Okay, pledge break is over, now back to our originally scheduled program.

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Uncategorized

Thanks, UMaine Today!

UMaine Today wrote an wonderful article about us! If you live near the UMaine Orono campus, you should check out the real deal because they gave us a lovely two-page spread, and it’s all big and glossy and beautiful. But if you don’t live near there, check it out online!

There’s also a really nice gallery of photos by Jess.

You know what? Getting good press is really energizing. Since the article came out I’ve felt a lot more inspired to create newer & cooler things. So, big thanks to Jessica Andresen, Margaret Nagle, Peter Buehner and anyone else who may have had a hand in making this happen!

For some reason they didn't use this image in the article... (photo by Lingering Light Photography)
For some reason they didn't use this image in the article... (photo by Lingering Light Photography)
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Uncategorized

Callithump! Goes Back to School

Callithump! has returned to its old home in Lord Hall, just in time for fall classes.
Callithump! has returned to its old home in Lord Hall, just in time for fall classes.

After an unintentional hiatus, Callithump! has returned to its roots, outside the art gallery in Lord Hall at the University of Maine in Orono. It’s good to be back!

Sorry about the wretched pic. The only camera I had with me was in my cell phone. It looks totally bleak and depressing there. It’s too bad because this is the debut of Jess’ lovely new cover art! Go check it out in person and see for yourself!

We’ve got exciting plans for the Orono machine, including the return of Just Buttons!

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News

Art Vending is Coming to Melbourne!

Nick Ilton is bringing art vending to Melbourne, Australia! He’s put a ton of work into building this beautiful cabinet to strengthen & enhance what appears to be a former food vending machine:

Art Vend, debuting in November in Melbourne, Australia
Art Vend, debuting in November in Melbourne, Australia

Art Vend will debut in November at the Big West Festival.

He’s currently seeking contributing artists. Learn more at the Art Vend blog.

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News

Free! Torture Cards! Get ’em while they’re hot!

Torture Team Collectable Trading Cards
Torture Team Collectable Trading Cards

We really need some new words in the English language to handle the ambiguities of adult life. For example, what do you say to that friend who finally divorced her abusive husband you’ve hated for years? Congratulations? That’s not right, since her heart is broken. “I’m so sorry…” But you’re not, because she made the right move and you’re glad to see that bastard gone.

What do you say about these new Torture Team cards from the Center for Constitutional Rights? They’re free! That’s AWESOME! No wait, they’re depicting one of the darker and more horrible parts of recent American history, a stupid and tragic thing that all Americans should be ashamed of. So now I feel like a jerk for saying they’re awesome. At the same time, they’re taking a common, ubiquitous item (the baseball card) and subverting it for creative purposes. That’s what we’re all about here at Callithump!, so of course I love the idea!

Get your 10 free Torture Team cards here.

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Uncategorized

Station Identification

For those of you just arriving:

Callithump is a non-profit organization devoted to exploring the future of physical publishing in the Internet world. Physical publishing is more commonly known as print publishing. However, we feel that “print” is to narrow a definition to contain the myriad possibilities the future holds. Already, publications are taking new forms, such as cans, t-shirts, and flying discs. This is just the start!

Callithump! is Callithump’s own publishing venture. It’s an artistic & literary magazine that has been vended through toy capsule vending machines since 2006. You can find out more about it here.

Callithump would love your help!

We’re looking for creative talent to help keep our machines filled. Do you have a creative idea that would fit in a 2″ capsule that could be reproduced many times over? Let us know!

Are you now, or have you ever been, engaged in an art vending venture? Or have you spotted one on the street? We’re building a history of vending machine art, and would love to add your story to it.

Do you have a publication that pushes the definitions of what publishing means? Let us know about it and we’ll tell everyone!

Callithump! is about exploring, finding new possibilities and rediscovering old ones. We’d love to hear your ideas!

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News

If at first you don’t succeed…

We’ve actually been doing this since 2006, but you wouldn’t know to look at it. Through a series of software glitches and general stupidity, I managed to wipe out most of the info on this site. That’s a big bummer, since a lot of news, events, ideas, and the general story of who we are got deleted. Pile on top of this a slew of major life changes, crises, and other events that kept our attention away from Callithump! and all other creative endeavors. On top of that, a host sites for one of our vending machines closed. Another kicked us out because someone took offense to something their child bought out of one of our machines (to spite the warning sings clearly stating that these aren’t for kids. Either the locks broke or the keys got lost on two of our machines, so we couldn’t refill them or collect the money from them… It was beginning to feel like the end of Callithump!

Then things turned a corner. UMaine Today magazine published a lovely article about us. We moved into an exciting new location down on Commercial Street in Portland. We managed to get inside the two machines. The recovered funds are letting us expand the Orono installation, opening up new possibilities. And I finally managed to free up an afternoon to start rebuilding the website. Really, it’s a reboot for the website and Callithump! as a whole.

Stay tuned!

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