Katelan Cunningham of Soul Pancake recently interviewed Rob Walker, editor of Significant Objects, on the value of story. Significant Objects takes oddball, flea market items and writers you know and will one day know added stories to the items. Editors Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn's social experiment then sold the items for eBay with the stories and lo and behold, used and broken items went for more money once a narrative enhanced their 'meaning.' Walker describes the spark of the project, "I broke a coffee mug. It was just a nothing souvenir mug, nobody would have paid any money for it, but I was really sad when this happened, and it's because I had bought the mug on a trip with the woman I later married."
On Soul Pancake, Cunningham and Walker weighed the value of physical objects to the extreme of hoarding versus digital everything, like digi-wedding rings. Sounds interesting, right? Well, you could win this beautifully designed book with a short homework assignment! Visit the Soul Pancake interview and write a 200 word story about item in the photograph, don't worry you've seen a pair of these probably every day of your life. No research needed. Write your story in the comment section and a winner will be chosen tomorrow, December 5th. Pencils up!