An Encyclopedic Project

(literally.)

I was sitting here thinking the other day.

(I do that sometimes. Rarely, but sometimes.)

Since Coddiwomple went away, I’ve been kind of floundering. I’ve been really missing the regularity of it — knowing what I needed to do and by when. Even though the content of it was open and variable, the process every month was mostly the same. Draw things. Write things. Get it printed. Send it out.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

I hadn’t really realized how comforting it is to have a rhythm to my days, even if it’s less rigid than most folks’ might be.

And, as sometimes happens with me, all the sitting and thinking went a little…sideways.

(Look away now, Minnie, since this next bit might set off your PTSD¹.)

I got…an idea.

An idea that involved this:

This, my friends, is a full 20-volume set of The New World Family Encyclopedia circa 1955.

I had to buy it online, because even though I see sets of encyclopedias all the stupid time at thrift stores and used book places and library sales, I could not, for the LIFE of me, find a set over the past month. It was like they’d all been beamed up by aliens to keep the human race from knowing literally everything².

But I battled my way through the encyclopedia desert and found this set on eBay, intact, from some guy in Pittsburgh who sent it by two-day FedEx³ for free (the shipping, not the books), and the price was still lower than anyone else selling a volvo-sized brick of books over mostly the whole country. They landed on my doorstep two days later⁴, and the musty smell of victory was mine all mine⁵.

So now, you’re probably asking — and rightfully so — what this idea might be.

I’m glad you asked.

I have no clue.

Well, that’s not exactly true. I have a vague vibe of a thing I’m thinking about, but which hasn’t gelled up with any kind of jell-O jiggler kind of firmness, but is knocking around like the vague vibe it is.

I know that I want to follow each encyclopedia volume in order, from A to Z⁶. I also know that I like doing a lot of things. Like:

• drawing stuff for prints and such

• drawing stuff for stickers, because stickers are awesome

• making zines and zine-shaped things

• making oracle cards that will, presumably, eventually be full decks of things if I start finishing them

• making easy little games, intended to bring more joy into your wanderings

• making books, usually mixed-media interactive magpie books

The thought of only limiting myself to one thing made me feel like a frog in a jar, so the abecedarian project has to either allow for or encourage any or all of the above.

It’s still largely unformulated and squidgy about the edges, but here ‘tis:

William H Hendelson had a bit of a job-hopping problem, it seems. My mom would say this is indicative of a shady character, but I think it just makes him a well-experienced word-nerd, personally.

My plan⁷ is to take a few weeks with each volume. I’m writing down entries that are particularly interesting, or photos that might be fun to draw, etc., and separating those into the aforementioned categories of Stuff I Might Do With That Word.

I’m letting myself write down multiples for each, since sometimes things go all pear-shaped and if I want to burn the first draft of anything, I can. This is stuff like ANT: oracle: teamwork makes the dream work., or ANTHROPOMETRY: height and other bodily measurements as indications of other mental or psychological traits: game: the measure of a man. Notes that probably mean nothing to the casual peruser, but give me a quick overview of entries in that volume that could be made into A Thing™, in any number of formats.

I’m giving these a time limit, to keep it from getting crazy⁸. I’m tentatively thinking two weeks per volume with a break every few for catch-up or disconnection to relax my Do All The Things muscles⁹. I figure I can pick and choose which to play with instead of forcing myself to do all six types for every volume. If it ends up not feeling good or I’m not having fun, I’m only out the cost of the encyclopedias¹⁰.

No matter how it all comes together, y’all will be the first to see it.

It should be a glorious mess of creative glee. Or too complicated and I end up donating the encyclopedias to the library. Or somewhere inbetween.

And since the inbetween is usually where the fun is, I’m ready to test it out and play a little bit¹¹. :)

1. The poor thing was my admin assistant and learned that my ideas = a whole slew o’ chaos, and to this day, when she hears “I have an idea!” her left eye twitches uncontrollably and she starts to sweat. Sorry, Minz. Love you…?

2. Well, everything from 1955 and before, at least. Those aliens are crafty buggers.

3. Those of you who’ve been with me for a while know why, when the tracking updated with FedEx as the carrier, I may have let out a groan that rattled the windows. FEx in our area is…let’s just say unreliable. I’m still waiting for a box of meat from 2018, and for a while, they were at a 0% on-time rate. That’s not a typo. Zero packages got here on time. 40-ish% never make it at all. A local news station actually did an exposé on the local hub to find out why they were so incompetent, even. I was understandably nervous.

4. See #3 to understand why, when it happened, I became convinced that the seller is an actual wizard.

5. (insert here an off-key version of We Are the Champions being sung by a pantsless middle-aged woman who is also doing a very awkward victory dance through the house, while the dog looks on in a mix of horror and second-hand embarrassment.)

6. Or, as in the case of the first volume, AA - ARC. Fun fact: Aa is an actual name of about 40 rivers, from the Teutonic Aau. The Teutons just wanted to claim first on every dictionary ever.

7. if, by “plan”, you mean “nebulous intent to mosey through a bunch of iterations to see if anything fits and keep what works and jettison what doesn’t”, then this is totally a plan.

8. And trust me, if anybody could make a fun project into something with project bloat/scope-creep, it’s me. My inner muse is a bit of a drama queen and was probably a theater nerd in high school, who wants everything to BE REALLY BIG. (You must read that in a deep, booming, theater-projected and very serious Acting Voice. Think James Earl Jones, but with a megaphone.)

9. A month is probably more realistic, but why let reality ruin a good project fantasy? Pshaw. Not us, dear reader. NOT. US.

10. And I’ll probably learn a bunch along the way anyway. Like the existence of Alexander the Paphlagonian, who was a famous 2nd century soothsayer who dramatized the telling of his supposedly superhumanly-divined prophecies by wrapping himself in a giant snake while imparting his wisdom to the masses. He died at age 70 after amassing a truly enormous fortune. Apparently, 2nd Century Paphlagonians were really entertained by snake-wearing fortunetellers.

sidenote: why did my guidance counselor not tell me this was a career option? I like snakes.

11. At the very least, I will probably kick ass at pub trivia games, provided they ask questions that are roughly 75 years old. I will be utterly obnoxious with my weird knowledge bits. It’ll be awesome.