The second sign welcoming people into the party. The first posed the question, "OMFG, has it been 10 years already?"

Do you, any of you, have social anxiety? That weird thing that makes you dread something that’s supposed to be a great time, even though you know intellectually you’ll probably have fun and forget about yourself once the shindig actually starts? The perverse instinct to cancel and run and hide with some ice cream and TV even though everybody thinks you’re outgoing?

That’s what I had going into the ten-year-anniversary party. Not to mention that it was a hell of a lot of work to put on. As someone who’s never planned a wedding (bridesmaid five times, though, thank you very much), I really had no idea. It’s a party. In a space. With people and food and drinks and decorations. What, Trish? What’s that you say? You think we need a party planner? Pshaw.

Trish was right. (She usually is.) It was such a big project that, as the day approached, I was not only dreading it irrationally and agoraphobically, I and the party team quite understandably couldn’t wait for the post-work relief that would set in once the heavy lifting was over.

But you know what?

IT WAS A MAGICAL NIGHT.

Social anxiety be gone. Work be worth it. People be incredible. Evening be beautiful. Triumph be palpable. Party be rock star.

Trish, Craig, me, and Jim—festive captains of the ship!

In general, gratitude—at least the self-help modality version of it—bugs the shit out of me. “Blessings,” people say. “In gratitude.” Yeah? I mock your Prius bull-hockey with my namaste hands. So imagine my surprise when I noticed myself feeling GRATEFUL. Tear-in-the-eye grateful. Non-mocking-namaste-hands grateful. Therapist-would-be-proud-of-me grateful. Pocket-full-of-sixpence grateful.

Because of this, right now, for one time and one time only, I’m going to do what I’d vowed never to do—make a gratitude list. The kind that Oprah says will make me a better person if I do it every day. But that’s not why I’m doing it—I’m doing it because I really, truly, and uncharacteristically want to count my and Knock Knock’s blessings. And I’m going to make it eleven just for the hell of it, and because ten years is actually sort of eleven years when you count them on your hands.

1. A kick-ass ten-year-anniversary party that truly felt culminative and triumphant and symbolic, filled with Knock Knockers past and present (and who knows, maybe future?), trusted and relied-upon vendors and consultants, friends of Knock Knock (shout out to August Friend of the month, Ariana, who came and surprised us from San Bernardino and made my night!), friends of Knock Knockers, up-and-coming young product designers and their creations, neighbors, and even a very small smattering of (other people’s) family. A party that looked as good as it felt, that went off flawlessly, that included mixed drinks called the High Five and the Pep Talk, that offered cheeses with unpronounceable names from local shepherds served by delightful individuals in orange silk bowties. A party filled with art and music. A party at which all attendees actually looked like they wanted to be there.
2. 

   The first Knock Knock catalog, the first Knock Knock product (pre–Knock Knock), and lots of gorgeous cheese.

   An amazing Knock Knock team. Really and truly and unforgettably. A more dedicated, skilled, hard-working team you will not find—because we get shit DONE. Shout-outs here to Jim and Craig and Trish, who manage the whole enterprise with me; Mia and Miguel and Aimée in design; Patricia in product development; Shane and Will in production; Erin and Jamie and Kate and Dayna in editorial; Melanie in marketing and Sara in web; Elyse and Chelsea in manufacturing; Gil and Paul in ops and customer service; Jazzlyn and Lena and Paul in customer service; Travis and Lonnie in sales; and Odi in accounting. And all of our sales reps all around the country. And our distributors all around the world. And our PR agency and lawyers and IT consultants and accounting firms. But not Jesus. I’m sorry. I’m just not going to be thanking Jesus here.

3. Getting to make creative, fun, interesting stuff we believe in. Yes, there are the craven marketplace bestsellers like all the WTF products, all of which seem to sell no matter how little creativity we put into them, but we work at a company where we brainstorm about reasons to have sex, write books about drunken toasting, and design snow globes. Right? Right? And a creative corollary here: I’m grateful for a workplace in which we can swear and talk about untoward things and not have to dress up.
4. Having people buy creative, fun, interesting stuff we believe in. Oh, you retailers and buyers and friends, how wonderful are you to allow us to do what we do? If you didn’t buy it, we wouldn’t be able to keep making it. If you didn’t interact with us on social media and in stores and at tradeshows, we would feel alone and blue. You get it, we get it, let’s get it together! We’ve got it together, friends, you and Knock Knock. And might I just add that I am also thankful for 2012 being one of the best sales years we’ve ever had, with incredible opportunities popping up left and right. It’ll all combine to be our most profitable year, too, and if you’ve been following the year-by-year history of Knock Knock on this blog (see postscript below), you know how important that is for us!
   

   Just as the party was starting. A few great Knock Knockers in this one: Chelsea, Will, Sara, Jim, me, Craig, Trish, and possibly a couple others I can't make out. Doesn't everybody look great in their Saturday best?

5. Offices we love in a place we love. We are so fortunate to be in the Electric Avenue Studios, with our perch recently expanded into four units from three. It’s a creative, light-filled, open space within walking distance to great lunch places and even the beach (though nobody seems to go from work) in the land of eternal sunshine and the neighborhood of cool breezes, a place where we can walk and bike and generally flout the Los Angeles cars-only reputation.
6. The fact that we made it ten years. Wow. Ten years. Lots of businesses don’t make it to five. When I started Knock Knock, a couple people in my life told me they first thought, “Well, that stuff is great, but what other things can they do?” Each time we brought out a new list, they thought, “Okay, surely they’ve exhausted the ideas now.” The fact that we made a ten-year-perservering company out of consistently innovative and fresh creativity—with major mistakes and missteps and disasters and meltdowns and injuries and teaching “opportunities” along the way—is something to be grateful for, no doubt about it.
7. Other smart people. Early on, I determined that I wanted Knock Knock to function in part as a think tank in the following manner: really smart people coming together to grapple with and debate about interesting challenges and issues (one of the definitions of an interesting problem is one you haven’t had before). I like smart people. I like learning from others. I like it when other smart people constantly spur you to bring your A-game. I like it when there are people around you who are better at what they do than you are. Done, and done!
   

   The amazing AmDC new product design show, Fun / Functional. Such beautiful and witty designs, along with many of their beautiful and witty designers!

8. Knowing how to do this thing we call business. It was so terrifying when I/we had no idea what we were doing or how to do it. Now I’m reasonably seasoned and not a bad businesswoman. For the most part, I truly know how to run Knock Knock, and I know how to do the critical thinking work to figure out the things I don’t yet know. And we’re big enough and functional enough to attract and compensate other people who know what they’re doing, people who’ve had prior experience doing things (vs. reinventing the wheel over and over again), people who can say things like “There might be a better way to do this” or “Let’s create a system or process for that” or “Jen, you’re full of shit.”
9. Having the financial support we needed. We got help for about seven years, which culminated in our becoming debt-free in 2012. Knock Knock’s financial history is unique. It’s one of the areas in which we had an extremely lucky break, and we were able to get to where we are today without many of the financial struggles other growing companies have faced. Sometimes people feel that if others get help financially, what they’re doing isn’t worthwhile. It’s probably an envy thing, and to be sure, it isn’t fair whose endeavors get supported by easy money and whose don’t. But when you and the team work really, really goddamned hard to do something innovative that succeeds in the marketplace year after year (not easy to do, let me tell you), does the fact that you’ve had a couple legs up discount what you’ve done? I don’t think so.
10. A return to a reasonable work-life balance. This is partly personal and partly across the company. That first six years of ninety-hour weeks and untold stress and chaos took a TOLL on me. I still haven’t gotten back to certain pre–Knock Knock standards of life and self (though of course in so many other areas, I’ve greatly surpassed where I was before Knock Knock), but at least there’s the possibility of doing it, and I’m working on it (why, oh why does life require so much work on oneself? it’s exhausting! will it ever end?). It’s also across the company. Knock Knock is so much more orderly and sane than it was in the early years, with most people working normal hours most of the time and knowing what they’re supposed to be doing when. (Yes, this last creative development season, the one that just ended, Spring 2013, was an anachronistic killer, but it’s now over, thank god.)
11. Unending excitement at the prospect of new opportunities and the future. We have compiled a team that does not prefer complacency and status quo—in fact, people who drift in that direction don’t end up doing well at Knock Knock. But for those who love stimulation like I do? People who are easily bored and like to tackle new endeavors? People who are curious about almost everything and don’t say things like “That’s not my job”? It’s the best! On a strategy level, our planning is well into 2014. We’re thinking about things we’ve never thought about before, on scales that would previously have been nothing more than unachievable fantasy. This shit is FUN!

The smiling faces I saw as I gave the speech for the evening. I think I kept it short enough!

So. I end my gratitude list by saying thank you. Thank you to everybody who’s made this ten years possible. Thank you to everybody who’s survived difficult times with and for us and has the scars to prove it. Thank you to everybody who’s celebrated with us, near us, or on us. Because you must know—for a pessimistic, self-flagellating curmudgeon like me to feel so lucky even for a moment is no small thing.

Thank you.

See you at the twenty-year-anniversary party!

P.S. Even though the postscript is dead, I do feel it’s important to let you know that I am aware I only got up to 2007 in my year-by-year narration of Knock Knock’s history. That’s six posts out of the eleven required, a majority. I do still plan to finish this project, and who knows, maybe I’ll make a book out of it, and it will come with a CD of music to slit your wrists by—like Mazzy Star. And a book isn’t too far off—it turns out that the median length for all books is 64,000 words, and I’ve already written (not including this post) 29,138. Because, as we’ve said from the very beginning, why use fewer words when you could use more?

Introducing our new book, "Toasted: The Civilized (and Uncivilized) Guide to Raising Your Glass"!

Hear ye, hear ye.

We would like to propose a toast . . . to toasting! This ancient practice is not only one of mankind’s all-time greatest excuses for drinking, it’s also the subject of our newest book, Toasted: The Civilized (and Uncivilized) Guide to Raising Your Glass.

I absolutely loved working on this book. Not only did it reaffirm my faith in drinking, it actually confirmed my love of humanity. (It’s notable how intertwined these are for me.)

One of our design and editorial inspirations for this book was the "Miss Manners" series.

There are already several good toasting books on the market. But we knew we wanted to do something different, something Knock Knocky. Yes, we planned to provide etiquette, classic toasts, and guidelines for toasting structure. But the abiding sentiments behind the book’s creation were pro-drinking, pro-funny, and pro-messy humanity. The idea was to make people laugh even as we imparted the do’s, don’ts, and I-dare-you’s of toasting. I think we accomplished this goal—and then some.

We did a good deal of brainstorming to devise the book’s sections. We planned a section of toasts for life’s more awkward occasions, such as job losses, breakups, completion of 12-step programs, etc. We also decided to include tips on how to fake a great toast if you’re shy or lazy. And we got really excited about a “Mad Libs”-style section of fill-in-the-blank instant toasts. (They’re even perforated, so you can tear them out.) We also chose the fourteen most important occasions for toasting (wedding, funeral, dinner party, etc.) and devoted a whole spread to each one.

An earlier draft of the book's cover—one of many. Our former senior designer Brad Serum designed "Toasted" using illustrations with both a vintage and proper etiquette-esque feel.

I suspected (correctly) that all this material would be fun to research and write. But we also felt it was important to briefly cover the history of toasting—a task that seemed comparatively dry, so to speak, at the outset. You can imagine my shock and delight to learn that the history of toasting is beyond fascinating. The truth is, toasting goes back nearly as far as drinking itself, and it has mystical, esoteric roots. (Even now, you can see this aspect at play in such sacraments as the Holy Eucharist.) I discovered the works of numerous academics who study the history or alcohol and toasting, including biomolecular archaeologist Patrick E. McGovern. (His book Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages is so beautiful in parts, it brought tears to my eyes.) I learned about toasting’s integral role in the American Revolution. The book also includes a poem/toast composed by an American prisoner in the “Hanoi Hilton” which has become a traditional toast to POW/MIA soldiers used at Air Force dinners. (Its writer, Navy Captain Gerald Coffee, gave us his blessing and made sure we got the wording exactly right, since many bastardized versions are floating around on the Internet.)

To continue the historical fun, we also researched how to make authentic versions of old-timey drinks such as wassail and 1775 rum punch, and amusing international customs and regional drinks. We also found loads of funny real-life historical toasts, and witty toasts from the silver screen.

I am nostalgia prone. I am also future prone. What I am not is in-the-moment prone. Why would I want to waste the opportunity to obsess on the past and the future by being here now? If my past is any indication—and it is, because of nostalgia—then the only way for me to deal with the present moment is by dissociating from it by thinking about the past and the future. It’s been said that nostalgia is nothing more than hypochondria of the heart, and I am nothing if not a masochist (plus, as many employees might say, a sadist, which simply means I’m well-rounded).

My senior formal, 1987. As with most senior formals, mine belies the fact that I was pretty miserable socially and at home, and, probably as not with most senior formals, that I was getting mildly molested at that very moment by the school photographers, who were notorious for doing so. However, I think my periwinkle eyeliner does a good job of putting on the smile, despite the fact that I cried it all off on the way home.

My nostalgic tendencies are slamming together at the moment thanks to two big anniversaries—my twenty-fifth high school reunion, this August, and this year, 2012, Knock Knock’s tenth year.

First the reunion. I don’t know if I’m going to go. Pathetically, I’m going to be in Berkeley anyway, for the first time in years (avoided because I have a little bit of a nostalgia-related complex about it), so not to go would make a bit of a statement. However, I have many friends who live in the Bay Area who aren’t going, so isn’t that kind of the same? I mostly feel guilty toward the people who are organizing the reunion (the same people who ran student government and organized the tenth and twentieth), volunteering their time and energies, and also worry that perhaps I’ll end up skipping something I’d actually enjoy or value (FOMO: fear of missing out, an advance form of nostalgia, or pre-nostalgia).

I had a great time at my ten-year, not such a fantastic time at the twenty-year. “I’m already in touch with all the people I want to be in touch with,” say so many of my friends. Berkeley people tend to stay in touch, and Facebook has made those circles even wider and more in touch. But it isn’t just close friends I want to see. It’s also great to check in with elementary and high-school acquaintances or short-time friends, to whom, because your world was still so small (if you grew up in just one place), you were actually much closer than you thought. Or at least much more intimate and familiar, like colleagues you saw at work every day for years. Then there’s the batch of people, in which I am, of course, included, who are afraid to go because of our failures—we haven’t married, haven’t procreated, haven’t been successful professionally, haven’t aged well, look like crap, etc. We’re afraid that our own buttons will be pushed and we’re afraid that others will judge us and then whisper about us in phrases starting, “Isn’t it a shame that Jen . . .” or ending “. . . Jen had so much promise.” The only thing we can be sure of is that our own buttons will be pushed, because most people I know want to see us anyway, irrespective of our personal failings. Which isn’t to say they won’t talk shit about us until the thirty-year.

Can I just say, as an aside, before I move on to Knock Knock’s ten-year anniversary, that spouses at reunions bug the shit out of me? LEAVE YOUR SPOUSES AT HOME.* Yes, I understand that you want to show to your spouse all these crucible people who forged you into the fucked-up person that you now are (or better yet, that you’ve carefully and painfully overcome—kudos!). Yes, I understand that you may be one of those weird people for whom everything is still more fun with your spouse, and that you feel more secure with that person at your side. Yes, I understand that you want to prove to everybody from high school that someone saw fit to stand up in front of friends and family and claim you and have children with you and prove you as worthier than those of us who did not get chosen. But weren’t the tenth and twentieth reunions enough for that? Because here’s the thing: I AM NOT COMING TO THE REUNION TO MAKE SMALL TALK WITH YOUR SPOUSE! I do not give a shit about your spouse. I do not care what your spouse does for a living. I do not care how you met your spouse (unless, of course, you want to tell me). I do not want to catch up with you AND YOUR SPOUSE at the same time. I have plenty of opportunities to meet other people’s spouses in real life. Leave the reunions out of it.

My Knock Knock informal, 2002. I was actually pretty darn happy in this moment—many possibilities opening up, and a good blowout.

But this is a Knock Knock blog, no? That’s right. Okay. Back to Knock Knock. So, 2012 is our ten-year anniversary! That’s a big deal for small businesses, I hear! We have all kinds of amazing celebration stuff coming up in September, October, and November, in part because we don’t really have one particular day that marks our inception, so why not push it toward the end of the year? It is, after all, a company founded on procrastination! One of the things I thought would be really great to do is write a history of the company. You know, in like two weeks (the writing, not the history). All told in timeline format—and here’s the kicker—in the imperative tense. “You do this. You do that.” As if you were being ordered to do it all. As if you were being told how to do it. Because there certainly are not enough expository writing pieces narrated in that noble form. And I’m bossy, so it fits. Have I kept a diary? No. Have I composed a blog? Also no. So after trying to plot it all out from my memory, I dug back into the archived email. Ten years of it (though I’m only through the first two years). Talk about nostalgia. I feel it’s important here to note that nostalgia is not just positive. Especially for those of us who are masochists, while lost in nostalgia it’s especially important to ruminate* over things we did wrong, said poorly, people we hurt or alienated or who screwed us over, because experiencing the pain once just isn’t enough. Relive your fuckups time and again—it’s the self-evolved way.

I don’t know if I’m going to manage to complete the (three-volume, slipcased) history of Knock Knock in time for the ten-year anniversary, in part because (a) I’m procrastinating wildly, once again, and (b) it’s more painful than I thought, what with all those aforementioned relived fuckups and betrayals. Because starting and growing a business is not for the faint of heart.

But neither is high school, which brings this post all together. After all, isn’t that what you were looking for? A nice, neat little bow? So that when you think back on this post, you’ll feel nothing but nostalgia? You’re welcome.

*But it’s okay if you bring them to the Sunday picnic.

**“Ruminate” has one of my favorite etymologies. Do you know what ruminants are? They’re species including cattle, goats, giraffes, and deer that chew their cud, meaning they chew their food, swallow it, then regurgitate it into their mouths, chew it again, etc. It’s what allows them to break down cellulose or some such. They also have four-part stomachs, but I’m not patient enough to stick with Wikipedia for long enough to learn why that’s relevant. In Latin, ruminare means “to chew the cud.” So basically, when you’re ruminating, you’re digesting a thought, vomiting it back into the forefront of your brain, chewing it all over again, and repeating. Sort of like when you eat barbecue. Doesn’t that just bring it all to life for you?

Here at Knock Knock, we’re not “regular bookworms”—we’re literature zealots. We’re ravenous book lovers, devouring novels, newspapers, magazines, and RSS feeds on a daily basis, and end up still asking the reading gods for extra helpings. So in our newest feature, “Between the Stacks,” we’re delighted to share our own reading recommendations and reviews.

Tonight’s the official start of summer, which makes perfect timing to offer up our final suggestions for your own summer reading list. In this post, Kate, our associate editor, Dayna, our assistant editor, Erin, our managing editor, Travis, our sales associate, and Jamie, our editor at large, share their top choices for the season. Now let the Personal Library Kits feast!

(From left to right) Kate, Dayna, Jamie, and Travis. Note Jamie’s Bartleby shirt. (But if you “would prefer not to,” it’s okay.)

Kate’s picks: Because I commute an hour each way to work, I do a lot of my “reading” with books on tape. (Technically, they’re on CD. But “books on tape” sounds cooler.)

"The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" by Alexander McCall Smith

1. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. I recently “read” this and enjoyed it so much, that I plan to “read” the entire series. I can’t imagine better summer reading: light, witty, humanistic, but real page-turners. I have just started book two, Tears of the Giraffe. He has a gift for understatement that goes down like a cool glass of water on a hot day.

2. The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African-American Renaissance by RJ Smith. I just started reading this, and it’s on the nonfiction end. I am developing a passion for Los Angeles history, and this describes an area not far from where I grew up, Central Avenue in South Los Angeles, and an amazing part of American history that has (inexplicably) been more or less forgotten.

Dayna’s picks:

"Advanced Style" by Ari Seth Cohen

1. Advanced Style by Ari Seth Cohen. There is nothing sexier in this world than a crazy old lady in a leopard-print pantsuit. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration or a complete lie, but I still find mountains of respect for the graceful aged women who keep themselves looking fresh and stylish in their, shall we say, advanced years. In Ari Seth Cohen’s book, which originated from his incredible blog, photos of old women looking snazzy in everything from Chanel coats to Manolo shoes are exhibited. When I’m on the beach this summer, being passed by swimsuit-clad beefcakes and busty babes, I’ll happily find solace in a few old women in pearls and fur coats. I’ll be the one wearing a body-length swim tunic.

2. Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan’s Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks by Zack Hample. For those who have dedicated their lives to baseball or have occasionally drank a few brews in a parking lot of a stadium or even for those who half-heartedly watched Moneyball because Brad Pitt is dreamy, I suggest you read this book. There is no doubt that summer is about baseball and getting rowdy at games, so if you want to avoid being the jerk who keeps complaining about how bored you are, Watching Baseball Smarter will change all of that for you. It’s informative, interesting, and pleasantly simple. Don’t know what the infield fly rule is? Learn up. Like to know why pitchers pee on their hands? The secret is revealed. This book will make you look like you were born behind the plate.

Erin’s picks:

"Dead End in Norvelt" by Jack Gantos

1. Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos. I saw Jack Gantos speak on a panel at the Los Angeles Festival of Books in late April. He was completely charming. I love his writing—so funny, vivid, and clean.

2. Wonder by R.J. Palacio. Someone I love and admire recommended this to me ages ago. It’s been sitting in the tall stack of books next to my bed since then, waiting to be read. If the first few pages are any indication—and I believe they are!—it’s going to be brilliant. The voice is so strong and compelling. Plus, the whole author/pseudonym backstory is a great industry-insider twist.

Travis’s picks:

"Half Broke Horses: A Real Life Novel" by Jeannette Walls

1. Half-Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls. Like most books in my collection, I stumbled across this gem at the airport, just before a cross-country flight. Part memoir and part fiction, Jeanette Walls’s “true-life novel” about her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, does not disappoint. Simply put, this woman was a badass. Born in 1901 in a dirt hut somewhere in New Mexico, Lily leaves home at age fifteen—alone on horseback—to teach on the Arizona frontier. The first-person narrative of this teacher, horse trainer, rancher, bootlegger, wife, and mother spans over fifty years. Walls’s version of her grandmother’s no-nonsense, no-tears, funny-as-hell approach to life out west kept me laughing throughout an otherwise dreary flight. (I also cried a little too, but whatever.)

PS. If the above isn’t your idea of a good time, try reading Walls’s personal memoir, The Glass Castle. It’s well worth it. Trust me.

2. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. I haven’t started this book yet, but it’s next on my “must-read” list. I learned about this book after watching a clip of Susan’s amazing TED Talk online. Finally, someone who gets what it’s like being an introvert and sheds some light on our quiet, bookish awesomeness. I can’t wait to learn more.

Jamie’s picks:

"A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin

1. Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. The sequel to Mantel’s 2009 Man Booker Prize-winning novel Wolf Hall, which I am reading right now. Okay, an historical novel about Tudor England sounds either woefully tired or bodice-rippingly cheesy, but Mantel manages to bring a huge cast including Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Cardinal Wolsey, but most importantly Thomas Cromwell (the King’s advisor), to vivid, heartbreaking, fantastically detailed life. Best part: the surprisingly modern dialogue coupled with its evocative, period-perfect minutia.

2. A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin. Guess it’s sequel summer. I’m watching the HBO series and I’ve almost finished the first book, A Game of Thrones. I’m about to move on to Season Two . . . Oops, I mean the second book in the series. Bonus: occasional confusion between the Mantel and the Martin books—political intrigue, horrifying deaths, manipulation at court, knights and ladies and suits of armor and dragons . . . Oh, wait, no, that’s only the Martin book. See what I mean?

Want more book picks from the Knock Knock team? Check out Part One and Part Two of our summer reading list. And tell us what you’re reading in a comment below!

Issues of "Slake" for sale.

As you know, we at Knock Knock are passionate lovers of pencils, paper, and printing presses. I was therefore thrilled last Friday to attend a party for Slake, a new Los Angeles literary quarterly that proudly exists only in paper form. That is, it exists only in real life.

Slake started in summer 2010, and is currently on its fourth issue (“The Dirt”). The journal is new, but has already won several awards (and hit the Los Angeles Times’ bestseller list) for its content—which combines visual art, photography, poetry, long-form journalism, fiction, oral history, and memoir. Its founders, Laurie Ochoa and Joe Donnelly, were formerly the editors of LA Weekly. (On a personal note, I worked with Joe and Laurie for years as a writer and editor for the Weekly, so the party was a homecoming for me.)

"Slake" founder Laurie Ochoa, taking a picture of me while I take a picture of her, because it's just so fucking meta.

Slake is all about fostering a community of writers and artists who are deeply rooted and in—and in love with—Los Angeles, and it’s also about staking a claim for paper as a beautiful and viable medium. As their website proclaims, “Slake sets a new template for the next generation of print publications—collectible, not disposable; destined for the bedside table instead of the recycling bin.”

As previously mentioned, paper is something that exists only in real life. You know something else that only exists in real life? Free beer.

Quantities of free beer were available at this party; the evidence of this is in the blurry, slurry photos I managed to either take or pose for. It may or may not be worth mentioning that free pie was also served by Suicide Girls.

A blurry, blinky shot of Joe and me.

Besides live music and dance performances, other stuff on offer included an exhibition of beautiful photographs of the Occupy L.A. encampment; video footage from the LA riots; and a station where people could create album art for the new vinyl LP by Detective (a musical project from Guided By Voices member James Greer, who is also a Slake contributor).

Laurie Ochoa says that Slake is meant to be enjoyed slowly, in bed or otherwise in a state of repose—and then kept. It should be noted, another advantage to the print-only format is that after inevitable disaster strikes, taking down the “grid,” and we are all shivering in our homes with candles and limited water, Slake will remain to provide us survivors with hours of meaningful, thought-provoking, mind-enriching entertainment. Hey, it’s L.A. Anything could happen.

People making album covers for Detective, the musical project from "Slake" contributor (and ex-Guided By Voices member) James Greer.

Free-pie porn.

“Knock Knocker Scribbles” is a column under our “In It for the Money” category, where you can get to know the Knock Knock team—from creative to sales to logistics to . . . everything! Each week, someone in the office fills out a questionnaire. They are given a day to complete it to their liking, with scrawls, scratch outs, doodles, and all.

Click the pic for an even closer look:

Zooming in more on her nickname story. It really does pull at our heartstrings. We’ll start calling you by either proposed name, Ms. Jamie!

Also, serial-killer audio books? That’s quite the conversation starter.

“Knock Knocker Scribbles” is a new column under our “In It for the Money” category, where you can get to know the Knock Knock team—from creative to sales to logistics to . . . everything! Each week, someone in the office fills out a questionnaire. They are given a day to complete it to their liking, with scrawls, scratch outs, doodles, and all.

Click the pic for an even closer look:

What a completely accurate drawing of yourself, Erin! How about we skip the rest of the workday and watch The Amazing Race while snacking on Now and Laters?

Last Saturday was cold, and I stayed at home to do laundry and clean house. For company I had The Monkees DVDs playing all day in the living room. It was excellent. As I discovered, it’s difficult—nay, impossible—to sustain any really respectable ennui while The Monkees is on all day.

The editorial ladies wrote sweet nothings to Davy.

I decided that this would be my new thing—The Monkees, all the time. And then Davy Jones goes ahead and checks out a couple days ago—throwing a you-know-what-kind-of-wrench in the plan. Damn you, Davy.

But thank you, Davy.

Judging by many of the obits, it was not easy being Davy Jones. People feel they should apologize for having been fans. One NPR senior editor went so far as to write that she was “embarrassed” and felt shame about her childhood crush on Davy.

That just brings me down, man. I have no shame—and, in fact, I feel lucky that they showed Monkees reruns when I was little, so that I, too, could experience crushing out on this quintessential manchild. (The TV show was cancelled after only two seasons.)

Little kids have always gotten the awesomeness of the Monkees. But Davy personified what a lot of older people thought was wrong with the Monkees. Davy was an actor. He didn’t appear to play an instrument. He was cute. He had no gravitas. As the face of a band so ridiculed and belittled (even now), he must have borne the brunt of that stigma. But he seemed to do it with good cheer.

My Davy collage. The teenybopper in me had to.

The truth is that the Monkees were legitimate pop artists, creating influential and visionary TV and film—seriously, you can’t judge them until you’ve seen their prescient, postmodern feature, Head (co-written and coproduced by Jack Nicholson). Musically, they forced themselves through a kind of rock ’n’ roll bootcamp, and less than a year after their TV show’s debut became a real, live touring band. They played and wrote songs for their extraordinary third album Headquarters, and every one after that.

And none of it would have worked without Davy. He brought a totally sincere joy of performance to the proceedings that cut through the irony and made something real and delightful (like his silly rendition of Harry Nilsson’s “Cuddly Toy”). Davy was a showman, a Broadway crooner, a hoofer, and he had no shame about it, however uncool it might have seemed to some. He danced with naked pleasure, and sang with an innocence that was outré at the time—but could be utterly affecting when paired with the right material. A friend saw him perform “Daydream Believer,” oddly enough, on U2’s superslick, mega-ironic “Popmart” tour, and completely win over a stadium audience you’d think would have been over it. But Davy was never over it.

We should all be so uncool.

KISS—“Keep it simple, stupid.” Not my forte. I like things that have complexity and interest to them, and you may already know that one of my mottos (and I say “my” because successive Knock Knock writers and editors are delightfully more terse than I am) is “Why use fewer words when you could use more?” Even if you don’t know that, you may have noticed that my blog posts are way too long. Way.

Our turned-out-to-be-too-complex contribution to a calendar consisting of one page/month each from different designers. Do you get it? If not, check out the asterisk at the end of the post.

Years ago—maybe seven—we were asked to contribute a month to a calendar that would comprise twelve individual cards. The design was to embody that month in some way; we were assigned March. I thought what we did was so very clever, and I still love it. A huge version of it, mounted onto foam core, looms above the office’s “editorial horseshoe” (what we call the place where the KK wordsmiths sit).

Nobody got it.

Perhaps you wouldn’t characterize our calendar page as unsimple, or as complex, but the mental leap from visual to verbal certainly turned out to be. And therein lies one of Knock Knock’s continual balancing acts: we want to make products that are as smart, unique, and non-dumbed-down as possible, but if they’re too smart, unique, and non-dumbed-down, enough people probably won’t get the concept to sustain it in the marketplace. Another example of this: we frequently hear from potential PR outlets,  “We love it, but it won’t read on the page” or “We love it, but it’ll require too much explanation.”

The best products hit both marks—smart, conceptual, and accessible. To me the Personal Library Kit (our only product still in print from our very first release, in 2002!) is an exercise in perfection there.

Die-hard Knock Knock fans do sometimes love these more complicated, non-selling products. They’re certainly some of my favorites. But if they don’t sell, we don’t pay the rent. In some ways they’re more like collectibles than products. At times I notice our list veering more toward the broad, the gag, the ba-dump-bump, and I know we need to get some über-smart stuff in there to balance out the WTFs. But it’s a difficult juggling act—what sells vs. what you love.

We apologize for the overcomplexity of this concept, name, and packaging. But from it we learned, “The more complicated the product, the simpler the name and presentation have to be.”

We came up with a bit of a rule of thumb for this in reference to our Fete-a-Tete party packs. We think these are splendid, smart, and fun—just add a bottle of wine and you’ve got an instant party. We also love the graphic design of the packaging and feel it’s very Knock Knock, what with the how-to infographic-like drawings and all. But people don’t get what they are at a glance, something we learned early on when we had to explain them at some length in our tradeshow booths. From this product, we concocted a KK rule: “The more complicated the product, the simpler the name and presentation have to be.” With Fete-a-Tete, that means we should have used photography on the front, showing an explanatory vignette, and we should have called them “Party Kits for Two” or some such.

We refer constantly during works-in-progress meetings and in orienting new creative employees to the three-second rule (no, not the one that involves dropping food on the floor). Our three-second rule is that someone has to understand the basic essence of a product in three seconds. A more complex version of that is that they have to get it in three stages: (a) from across the store; (b) from right in front of the product; and (c) when they then pick up the product. You don’t get to B without A, and you don’t get to C without B. You have to imbue the packaging with clarity and appeal for each of those three stages. People inexperienced in product design will often say, “But they’ll understand what it is when they pick it up and read the text on the back!” Ah, the innocence of those who’ve never designed product.

I really want to go into the over-complexity and at-least-120-second requirement of one of my favorite products we ever did, the Wishing Kit, which was included in our first release, in 2002 (since this years marks our tenth anniversary!), but I’m going to take my own KISS advice and hold that for another post.

In the meantime, I’m trying really hard to bring KISS into my own life for March 2012. I’ve actually just started a personal leave of absence to attend to a few top-secret personal projects as well as focus on some work-related writing projects. Since one of the main goals of the leave is to bring down my stress level, KISS could very well be my friend. How to KISS when you’re juggling both work and the rest of your life? I haven’t solved that one yet. But for all of us, a little dash of KISS would probably be an improvement—at least for March 2012.

*The calendar page illustrates the saying “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.”

Today’s National Handwriting Day (and John Hancock’s birthday), so grab a pen and favorite Knock Knock notepad to celebrate!

Appropriately enough, over the weekend, a few friends and I were at a restaurant and tried distracting ourselves from boredom and hunger by comparing our handwriting on a napkin. After a few minutes, we got into this debate on the importance of learning cursive. While a pal and I reminisced about the beauty of our favorite capitalized cursive letters, like the G, F, and Q (because they were oh-so-fun to doodle), our other friends called cursive “useless” and informed me on how states are now phasing it out of elementary curriculum to make room for typing lessons. Needless to say, I tried to hold back my tears.

What do you think? Should kids still learn the art of cursive? Tell us in a comment!