Mark Frauenfelder is the editor of Make magazine and co-founder the zine which has become the massively popular blog Boing Boing. His latest book, Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World, is the story of his quest to fully customize his life by building, maintaining, and operating as much as possible with his own hands: hacking his espresso machine, making his own sauerkraut, building cigar-box guitars, brewing his own kombucha, and carving his own spoons, to name only a few of his eclectic set of pursuits. Colin Marshall originally conducted this interview on the public radio program and podcast The Marketplace of Ideas.
I feel like I've gotten to know publishing well enough to assume that your publisher loved the hook: here's this guy who, to some peoples' minds, embodies the internet, who has suddenly turned around, started raising chickens himself and making cigar-box guitars. How much could we characterize the book as a quest for a sort of balance?
I think that is a really good description of what it was. I do spend a lot of tine just sitting behind my computer, writing and blogging and editing articles. I'm not really using my hands other than moving a mouse around and tapping a keyboard. The book was my exploration of opportunities to use my hands in meaningful ways. That included raising chickens and becoming a beekeeper and making musical instruments, learning woodcarving and those kinds of things. It was a chance to get outside, a chance to connect with my kids and my family, and to make things that have a useful purpose in my life.
It makes me think of this one thing Brian Eno wrote, his complaint made many times over the course or his career that computers use one little finger of ours, when the human body has all this variety of muscles. Here we are using a few of them. I'll give it more than the one finger, but we're using such a limited range. How long did it take you before you started thinking to yourself, “Jeez, I don't feel so good using just the parts that need to interface with the computer”?
I've been feeling that all along, ever since I've been using computers. That's why I like taking walks or riding my bike and doing exercise like that. This took it to another level, where you're actually really engaged with all those muscles, and you're thinking at the same time, which is a really good combination. You've probably heard the expression “learning with your hands” or “thinking with your hands.” It's really true . Your hands are an important part of the thinking process. When they're active in doing something, it really does put you into a different brain state, a flow state.