On The Funway

...I'm glad I took a moment to stop, reflect, and remember that it is sometimes better to miss out on a chance to build friendships and community in order to avoid the appearance (and perhaps action) of mocking the religious beliefs of the very people you're trying to build friendships and community with.

And that's why the mini Easter basket of seasonal treats I took to the folks at the transfer station this morning had three yellow chick Peeps, two standard marshmallow bunny Peeps, and nary a single Cthulhu Peeps. And the same will probably be true of the basket I plan to drop off at the neighbor's house in another hour or so.

But thanks to Andra, who taught me how to make Cthulhu Peeps way back at...Minicon 34, I think...the bowl of Easter treats I'm taking to share with friends I'm having dinner with tonight? That bowl will be amply protected by minions of the Elder God Himself.

Peeps A/b/u/s/e/ Research lovingly detailed in Stingl vs. Peeps. And here I thought I was hard on lawnmowers.

Waiting for a Peep at the iPad

For the traditionalists among us, here's a look at just a few of this year's dioramas:

Introductory article and then photos from the Peeps Show at the Riverfront Arts Center in Stevens Point, WI.

The approach is considerably more sophisticated at the Washington Post.

The Chicago Tribune joined in the fun, too. According to the Seattle Times, who are announcing their winners on Easter Sunday, nearly 30 newspapers held Peeps diorama contests last Easter. My Google-Fu is not strong enough to come up with a reliable count for this year. Only that they include: York Daily Record, the Syracuse Post-Standard, the Mason City, Iowa Globe Gazette, the Fort Worth, Texas Star-Telegram, the News & Tribune in Clark County, Indiana, and non-newspaper-based contests like the History versus Classics Peeps Diorama Contest at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. (Links only provided where I could find entries and/or winners.)

Best in Show goes to the originator of Peeps Diorama Contests, the Saint Paul Pioneer Press. Outstanding variety and creativity. Bonus points for entries featuring the region (among them Hiawatha Peep, Lutheran Peeps Lining Up For Lutefisk Supper, The Charge of the 1st Peepasota - Gettysburg, and, of course, the Minnesota Peepdish).

Then there were the science entries, including The "PEEP-le" Genome, a peep sized replica of the human DNA double helix, the outstanding Sgt. Peepers Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the colorful Peep Pride Parade. Like I said, variety.

Curiously enough, Sgt. Peepers won the Chicago Tribune contest. This is the first time I remember seeing the same diorama entered in multiple contests.

Another gorgeous entry at the Pioneer Press: the Peepling Brothers Circus. Complete with Peep elephants!

Brilliant and timely. The set-up and the one that made me laugh out loud.

The Pioneer Press continues to stretch the little marshmallow guys and those who are obsessed with them. This year, they also sponsored a Peeps in Motion video contest. Wrapping back to where we started, here's Peeps Blow Up.

Who Knew?
And why didn't you tell me?!

Peeps & Company retail store opened a few months ago in National Harbor, MD, aka Oxen Hill, MD. They're even having an outdoor PEEPS art sale starting in just under 13 hours...and it's not even a 7 hour drive.

tr_renner takes first credit of the actual holiday weekend with this link to pictures and descriptions of 40 entries in the Washington Post Peeps Diorama Contest.

Does everyone know that the St. Paul Pioneer Press supposedly started the whole the newspaper-sponsored Peeps Diorama Contest phenomenon? And that this year is their sixth annual contest? If that's true, I'm more than a little bit spooked -- their contest started the year after I had the Peeps room at Minicon 38 and encouraged people to make Peeps dioramas there.

Coincidence? Probably. But I doubt I'll ever know for sure.

It turned out that leaving the Peeps unsupervised even at a 500-600 person Minicon was a thoroughly bad idea. elaine_brennan, galatine1 and I ended up packing up the microwave and the mayhem Saturday night. CDs that grew extra brittle and shattered into a kazillon shards after they'd been nuked and then thrown against the wall. Sticks. Lots and lots of sticks. What was I thinking? Certainly not about the destructive forms of creativity, even after a friend who had an eye for such possibilities warned me of the risk.

I still remember Bill Christ watching me scrape Peep goo out of the hotel carpeting while still wearing the corset I'd put on for the Time Traveler's Ball and telling me about the earnings opportunity I was missing out on.

I'm glad the Death to Peeps Diorama Contest went so much better at Boskone five years later, and thank elaine_brennan for the supervision and organization that contributed so much to the good and clever outcomes there. I still have "The Running of the Bulls at Peepoloma." If I finish my taxes before the weekend ends, I just may post a few of the photos....

Thanks, TR! The Washington Post contest entries are brilliant again this year and I look forward to seeing links from other Peep sightings as the weekend progresses.

There's a special Peeps prize for the first person who sends me a link showing a diorama that uses the new orange Peeps introduced just this year. Your choice of whether I send the prize to you or to someone you designate!

I've just finished posting the last of the Death to Peeps Poems on the Boskone LJ. Do wander by, if you dare.

The final report on the Peeps solubility testing has been added to my long list of Things Needing Writing. Here are the results I found most interesting:

1) Acetone turns Peeps rock hard. They shrink and go clink-clink when you shake their jars.

2) 70% isopropyl alcohol dissolves Peeps faster than 91% isopropyl does. That's seemingly backwards, but true.

3) In all but a few cases, agitation contributes far more to the breakdown of a Peep than the solution it's submerged in or the number of weeks it spends in that solution.

4) My research upholds previous findings by Peep Research: "Given enough time, the proper resources, and access to some really toxic stuff, one can probably dissolve just about anything except Peep eyes."

Yes, this is another All Peeps, All The Time post.

I ended up with more Peep solvents than jars to dissolve them in. The obvious solution was not just more jars, but a smaller set of different jars. With those, we'll have two "guess the solvent" contests -- the full 36-jar version that's been going for the last 4 weeks, and an 8-jar short attention span version with Peeps that have only been floating for a couple of days.

I picked up the jars during yesterday's final Death to Peeps shopping run. A few minutes I pulled them out to letter the tops (the full version is numbered, so this helps differentiate the two contests). The first pack of jars was rather predictably A, B, C, and D. The few moments between lettering those and pulling the next four jars from their pack was time enough for "ooh, shiny" to strike. The last 4 jars are lettered Q, X, Y, and Z.

The Peeps will be submerged just before I head to Boston tomorrow. Except for the one that's going outdoors just as soon as I finish this post. One of the jars is getting the sleet/freezing rain/snow crap that's falling from the sky as I type. I shoveled 3.5 inches of lovely powder an hour ago, which may have been a strategic error. The sleet started while I was shoveling. Ice is easier to remove if there's a layer of snow underneath. Oops. Here's hoping that tomorrow's downpour starts around 9 am like it's supposed to.

Oh, the Glow! Peeps Solubility Research can be eerie, alarming, and just plain bizarre. So what else is new? Photo by Kip Williams

kip_w ventured forth through Wednesday's fog and arrived at Toad Woods to photograph the Peeps Solubility Research in progress. I've put 5 favorites up, and have another 15 tagged for printing and other uses. Plus another 70 keepers...have I mentioned recently how much I love digital photography?

While Kip took photos and we chatted, I sorted through several stacks of papers, consigning most of the accumulation to the recycling box. I found my To Do list from November 15th. Not bad: 26 things done, one canceled by the client, another put onto a back burner, and two personal projects still awaiting my attention. Another list from the stack, this one undated, listed the same two unfinished items. How many more lists will I put them on before I manage to paint the stairway and upstairs hall, before fringefaan and I publish No Goat's Milk Vein? It's been nearly 4 years on the stairs....

In the meantime, I'm making progress on other fronts and enjoying the company of friends in the process. Kip was here for lunch, my friend and lawyer Sandy Williams WINOLJ stopped by for dinner on her way home from a real estate closing in the Berkshires. Tonight, batwrangler is coming down for her own Peepography experiments and investigations. Yay!

My plate is stacked high with PROmote projects, Boskone preparations, and the really quite remarkable variety of tasks that we all juggle while trying to keep up with daily life. Which means I spend lots of time thinking about things I want to post, and very little time actually doing so.

Onward....

I'm pleased to announce that Somebody Else's Microwave will be joined by Somebody Else's Blender for the Death to Peeps Fun Fest on Friday night of Boskone 45. Now all I need to do is lay my hands on the secret ingredient Dave Langford suggested to ensure that the Peeps have a truly gruesome time of it.

There's the 4-part harmony over on the Boskone community, if you're interested in the details.

And so it begins... Solubility experimentation for Death to Peeps Fun Fest at Boskone 45.

I'm having fun experimenting with Peeps for Boskone. And it occurs to me that this experiment calls out for a much better photographer than I'll ever be. And it's an opportunity that's not likely to come around very often. Well, yes, any photographer could stage as many as 36 mason jars, each with a single marshmallow Peep inside, floating on or submerged in some substance. But not many would.

The first set of ghost and heart Peeps are in their jars, and they're really rather pretty. Next Friday, I'll start the next set, and the Friday after that I'll start another. Next weekend, I'll be at Vericon, but I expect to be hanging around Toad Woods for the rest of the run-up to Boskone. If batwrangler, benveniste, kip_w, lesliet_ma, or any other photographers are interested in coming over for a photo shoot sometime between February 1st and 12th, I can gladly offer the bizarre subject material. So far, it's kind of sparkly and colorful. Who knows what the first set of jars will look like by then, but there will be an ongoing supply of freshly-immersed Peeps to work with.

We can probably work out something involving lunch or dinner, too. And one or both guest bedrooms if needed.