My first blog post on spudart.org went up on September 28, 2001. It was called “Long Live Long Tables.” I was eating lunch by myself with a book, thinking about my high school cafeteria. I proposed that long tables are better for conversation than little round ones. (I still stand by this.)
This Monday makes it 25 years.
Since then I’ve published 4,077 posts. You’ve left 26,740 comments. I love comments so much that I’ve carried every one of them through every platform change. The comments are this blog’s long table. Anybody can sit down and chime in.
Since January 2024, I’ve posted every Wednesday. I haven’t missed one yet. (Today counts!)
So for the 25th anniversary, I rebuilt the site.
Sometimes I’d make an artwork you could try yourself. Other times I’d suggest something fun to do. Either way, it scrolled away with everything else. Sit on every bench. Photograph all your doorknobs. Mail a paper airplane with a regular stamp. Now those ideas live together in a new Try this section at spudart.org/try. Each one says how long it takes and what time of year suits it.
Here’s what else is new:
| Art projects for the longer-running work, with every placement and where I left it. | spudart.org/art |
| Gallery with all the placements in one grid. Includes things sent in by other people. Tell me about it, and yours goes on the site next to mine. | spudart.org/gallery |
| On this day digs up what I posted on today’s date in other years. | spudart.org/on-this-day |
| A blog index with filters for Blog and Notepad. | spudart.org/blog |
| Search that knows what things are. Filter to just artwork, just blog posts, or just things to try. | search for cool |
| No ads for newsletter subscribers. Sign up, and they go away. | spudart.org/newsletter-signup |
| Try this. Collecting fun ideas to do. My initial goal: one for every month. | spudart.org/try |
| A new theme built just for spudart. |
The anniversary got me REALLY excited to make art projects again. I’ve been making a bunch lately. You’ll see more of them here on Wednesdays, and some of them you can join in on.
Pull up a seat at the long table.
Great site, congrats!
Thank you!
Bench seating or individual chairs with the long tables?
Congrats on 25 years of interesting, fun, and thought provoking posts!
Either bench seating or individual chairs works. I love the idea of bench seating, because that’s more communal. But you wouldn’t want a super long bench, because then it makes it hard to sit down.
Right by the Chicago Bean is a 100-foot-long picnic table. It’s a 1997 work of art by Dan Peterman (who also created the dance floor at Chicago SummerDance in Grant Park’s Spirit of Music Garden.)
Here’s a photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/spudart/8557778735
You’ll see these benches have gaps between them, so people can get in and out. I like that functionality, but those gaps also create divisions. The gaps define sections on the table. These sections defeat the point of one continuous table. So in a way, individual chairs might work better.
Individual chairs could speak to how we are individuals, but we come together at one common table. Which is a cool metaphor.
Of course, in a public space, individual chairs wouldn’t work, because people would just move them around. I suppose you could bolt the chairs down. But then it’s not really a picnic table anymore. It becomes these chairs at a table.
In the end, these gaps in the benching is probably the best compromise.
Congratulations!
Thank you, Tom!
Congrats Matt! I likely found the blog in the late 2000’s, and it’s been great reading over the years in my RSS reader!
mp/m
Thank you, Mike!
Yup, I believe it was the late 2000’s. Your earliest comment here was 3/13/2007 on this post: https://www.spudart.org/blog/rising-cost-u-s-postage-stamps/