Pass Along Books

Short answer please! What are Pass Along Books?

Pass Along Books are a form of slow chain mail.

The key distinction is that it’s the contribution to the book rather than the multiplication of the message that is the primary objective. (Sometimes in an established exquisite corpse manner, sometimes not) The longer term objective is for you to have these objects floating around as physical spanshots of the social network. (Like yearbooks, etc)

You may find the Background relevant.

I got one, now what do I do?

Well, what does it say to do? Did the person who gave it to you explain anything? Do you care?

If you’re into doing the assignment or filling out the questionnaire, do so, and give the book to a friend…

If not, either give it back to whoever gave it to you, or just give it to a friend. Maybe write a note in it about why you don’t feel like participating fully. You can do so anonymously.

Consider tracking participating/not on Twitter, (general hashtag is #passalong, each book may have its own) or commenting somewhere here.

I got a book but the assignment/questionnaire sucks.

Make your own book and put an interesting assignment in it. Maybe reading the Starting your own page here wil be of helpful to you. If you ask your friends an interesting question or to do something you care to look at, you will have a compelling object on your hands when it’s even half full.

Consider adding your idea to the Suggestions list here.

I want to receive one.

I can’t say I have a very well formed idea of how you might receive one if you are not immediately connected to soeone who already has one. Consider making your own!

Pass Along Books on Twitter

Follow updates on the overall movement of the project. Will also eventually include information on reports back and book travels.

Suggestions for your own Pass Along Books

Drawing Assignments:

  • Draw the person who gave this book to you (#pab001)
  • Draw your earliest childhood memory.
  • Draw yourself.
  • Draw the previous entry from memory.
  • Draw 3 stills from your favorite movie, and explain why these.
  • Draw today’s weather where you are.
  • Exquisite corpse landscape. (Draw what’s to the right of the previous entry)

Quiz type things:

  • (Rip off your favorite facebook quiz!)
  • The last thing you censored yourself about on twitter/fbook.

Miscellaneous:

  • Exquisite corpse text, controlled, sentence level: Tell the recipient what you wrote, but not any previous entry. Write down for them their contribution and then hand over the book.
  • Exquisite corpse text, controlled, word level: Same, but only tell them the last word of what you wrote.
  • Re-assignment: change the assignment at each turn.
  • Interviews with someone else.
  • Paste in a photo in-response-to the previous photo.
  • Write the entry in the voice of the person who gave the book to you.

More junk:

  • Think about playing with the distribution rules. What would yield interesting results?
  • Must give it to someone younger or older than yourself.
  • Give it to two(?) close friends who must give it back to you, but then give it to a relative stranger.
  • Mail it to an old friend in a different city.

I am actively seeking to expand these lists, so comment away.

Starting your own Pass Along Book

It’s easy! You need a blank, durable notebook, (I like composition books from the dollar store) maybe some idea, and a friend.

Think about how you would like this thing to travel. Will you give it to a friend within a circle of friends, with some expectation that it will stay “around” as it goes from hand to hand, or are you seeing more of an open ended meandering line?

This may influence your content plan.

The basic types of content I have in mind here at the outset are questionnaires and drawing assignments, but it’s easy to see how writing assignments and world-assignments/suggestions can be incorporated. (For example, my #pab002 asks the recipient to create their own Pass Along Book and document it a little bit.)

Once you have decided on the kind of content you want to represent, write your questions or assignment on the first page(s) or the inside cover of your notebook, and maybe put a title on the front.

You may want to use the back cover inside for some other information, like the hashtag, if any, under which you would like to see the book tagged, and maybe instructions on what to do if the book becomes full or damaged. (To document it? To send it back to you? To send it to me to document?)

If you would like to register your PAB here, I’m working on a mechanism for doing that, but broadly, a twitter post with #passalong and #(your-pab-hashtag) will do it. Tagging things with passalong on flickr should also work.

Alternately, don’t register it here or anywhere at all. This is, after all, about doing these things in the slow and intimate way. Only you and those before you will know that book exists.

Background for Pass Along Books

Pass Along Books (PABs) are not a new concept.

In elementary school in 80’s Riga, we had these rubbery toxic plastic bound quad ruled notebooks in used plasticine colors, starting with a questionnaire, followed by the answers of each person previously in possession of the book. They were filled with the kinds of questions and answers you would expect from high single digits kids on the tail end of the soviet era, or probably anywhere, ever.

There were subtle allusions to the names of crushes, band logos, drawings of cartoon and movie characters, and liberal use of every marker in the box.

I had the pleasure recently of coming across a number of these in my packrat maze, and I saw in them a prior incarnation of the same need that populates my Facebook feed with “Kurt’s top 5 movies of all time” and “Joan’s top 5 books of all time” and “Have you been to more places than Bob?”

While I appreciate the efficiency of dissemination of this and every other scrap of information on services like this, it often strikes me as very scentless, very behind glass, less than real, and the tenor of the information carried starts to converge on something very generic across many people I know. I feel that a part of the solution is to get involved with this sort of information on a much more intimate and immediate level.

I also feel that this process is more interesting in a medium that resists mechanization and trawling, and enables a greater attention span and temporal leniency than a status update.

The primary goal is the creation, through the passage of a book through numerous hands, of an object that has a very specific, fragile, and unique social history. It’s an original, not a retweet of someone shortlinking to a blog post about a magazine article about something.

The documentation and tracking of any given PAB suggested around here is secondary, but provided as a handle for those who wish to be involved in that way.

Hello World!

Just setting up the online component to the Pass Along Books.