{"id":39376,"date":"2021-11-17T09:00:49","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T16:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=39376"},"modified":"2021-11-09T12:41:25","modified_gmt":"2021-11-09T19:41:25","slug":"whats-in-my-trophy-case-rusty-blazenhoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/whats-in-my-trophy-case-rusty-blazenhoff\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s in my trophy case? \u2014 Rusty Blazenhoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to get\u00a0What\u2019s in my bag?\u00a0a week early in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rusty Blazenhoff<\/strong>\u00a0is a professional free spirit and Fluff superfan. When she\u2019s not busy spreading her love of the absurd through her\u00a0inbox zine<\/strong><\/a>, you can find her making magic for Pee-wee Herman, Boing Boing, Children\u2019s Fairyland and\/or Burning Man. You can find her Fluff-superfan Instagram feed\u00a0@thereallynnewhite<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Living a creative life can be really fun but it ain\u2019t easy! One of the ways that I\u2019ve learned to cope with crippling self-doubt is with a \u201ctrophy case.\u201d It displays things that remind me of who I am, how far I\u2019ve come, and why I need to keep doing what I do. It works. Everything in or on it brings me a smile and an energetic boost. It helps that it\u2019s right next to my desk, I walk by it 20 times a day at least.<\/p>\n

The items I picked for this exercise are not the flashiest or most valuable, just particularly meaningful to me.<\/p>\n

\"rusty5\"<\/p>\n

This is THE letter that started off my\u00a0Fluff<\/strong><\/a> super-fandom. I moved from Massachusetts to California in the mid-90s and couldn\u2019t get Fluff, so I mailed the company a letter to ask what was going on. They sent me a funny explanatory note on embossed Marshmallow Fluff letterhead in return and that began an unusual journey linked to a product.<\/p>\n

\"rusty4\"<\/p>\n

For decades, so much of my identity was wrapped up in having long red and super recognizable hair. When I decided to lop off a significant length, I saved some, packaged it up, and had my hairdresser authenticate it \u2014 a fun product idea I stole from\u00a0El Vez<\/strong><\/a>. I sell my locks in my home\u2019s art vending machine. Recently, I cut my hair even shorter and wish I had done it a lot sooner.<\/p>\n

\"rusty2\"<\/p>\n

My daughter just turned 17 but when she was younger, maybe 8, she drew this portrait of me at an art camp. Oh gosh, it still melts my heart so much. Still today, she is a voracious creator of beautiful things.<\/p>\n

\"rusty3\"<\/p>\n

I get a lot of attention for another Burning Man gift but this one is a little more near and dear to me. For my sophomore year on playa, I handed out personalized matchbooks and told people to \u201cburn the Man early.\u201d That was 1996 and this is the last one I have left. You can still see the faded stamp of Drinkie the Drunk Guy, the anthropomorphic icon of the zine-making\/drinking group I was in, Bigrig Industries. Inside the cover is our website address. The oldest version of that site I could find on the Wayback Machine is from 2001. The same link has the Fluff letter exchange in its entirety. Copy and paste this into your address bar: https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20020524093833\/http:\/\/www.bigrigindustries.org\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s in my \u2026 ? issue #128<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":39377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[2303],"tags":[1553],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39382,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39376\/revisions\/39382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}