Random Acts of Poetic Bookmarking

Ed Note: Boingboing's current guest blogger Gareth Branwyn writes on technology, pop and fringe culture. He is currently a Contributing Editor at Maker Media. Recent projects have included co-creating The Maker's Notebook and editing The Best of MAKE and The Best of Instructables collections.

I love sites like Bookcrossing (where books are left out in public and their journeys, from reader to reader, are tracked vis the web) and Where is George? (when stamped dollar bills are tracked in a similar way), so I was tickled to have someone send me info about NamelessleTTer, a collaborative art bookmarking project, where bookmarks are made and stashed inside of library books, books in stores, etc.

The goal is to provoke curiosity (to encourage people to visit libraries and bookstores in hopes of discovering one of these bookmarks), to bring a new and exciting aspect to book reading in a world that is becoming increasingly digital, and to interact with other people.

The bookmarks usually offer some commentary or comic relief on the title in which they're placed. Here are a few bookmarks from the site and the books in which they're found: Left in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Left in Where Is God When It Hurts?

Left in: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Gareth Branwyn has been dog-paddling the waters of sidestream culture, as a participant and chronicler, for his entire adult life. He's been involved in the commune movement, the DIY and zine scenes, cyberpunk, steampunk, punk-punk, and has written for bOING bOING (print), Mondo 2000, Wired, Esquire, Details, and numerous other magazines and dailies. He is the editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine's blog, and is currently editing a collection of his work: "Borg Like Me & Other Tales of Art, Eros, and Embedded Systems."

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Jack

I used to find dollar bills and old essays people shoved into old textbooks they resold at the college bookstore.

Can’t have this kind of magic with a Kindle, huh?
Amplifier

I once found a handwritten note inside a library copy of Jeff VanderMeer’s City of Saints and Madmen instructing me to search for a second coded note hidden in another library. Who knows what fantastic journey I might have embarked on had I followed it up, but I returned it intact.
Wish I had taken a photo though.
Maddy

When I was a kid, I would use the last days of the school year, before summer, to make markers to put in the encyclopedias, for next year’s students. Thus, they would open the Letter “A” and find a scrap of paper saying “A is for Asshole — like the person reading this.” Hey, I was in Fifth Grade …
Rezpect

Very clever.
Daemon

Some satanists in my area used to slip little advertising cards into all the books in the occult section of the public library around here.

In related news: The library system still hasn’t figured out that Wicca is a religion.
Anonymous

I leave Moo cards in books almost everywhere I go. I’ve left my website and a random picture in hotels and cafes across Europe and one country in Africa, as well as my usual Canadian haunts.

I don’t know why I do it, but I’ve been doing it for years now.
laneybug

I wonder who printed out the picture of me and what they said.
I’m the queen card.

http://www.modelmayhem.com/laneybug
Takuan

by jove, so you are.
Gareth Branwyn

@Daemon
At our local borders, we had some psychic vampire group that puts cards about their site and… ya know… their whole energy sucking lifestyle in books in the occult section.
Kulia

I love Where’s George and when I have a few moments, i log in bills on the site then write on them with the wheresgeorge.com URL. (Shhh, don’t tell anyone.) I want to buy their little rubber stamp to make it easier.