FortyEight – James and the Dumb Idea (January 10th, 2012)

How far are we into this thing? Forty eight? Crazy. You know there are only fifty-two, right? You realize that after 52, the project ends. I get the feeling that people don’t know this.

This is a year long project. I wanted to make 52 cakes, one per week, for one year. The original intention was to dump this golden nugget into the internet tubes – to live in this virtual space for 365 days – at which point I’d effectively disapparate from its surface, take my millions in donations and cake commissions, and move to like eastern Massachusetts with my four dogs or whatever. Plant some herbs. Observe foliage.

Things change, friends. Life doesn’t happen right, usually. You have big ideas and big plans to execute those big ideas and you get comfy in a spot and then all of a sudden you’re living on the internet. That being said, I’ll probably continue with this blog once 52 cakes are up, in some way shape or form. So everyone just relax.

To the left, please witness a slice of my childhood. James and the Giant Peach is a beloved children’s novel written by a morally questionable man named Roald Dahl. The movie came out when I was a kid, and I used to alternate falling asleep to that, and to Adam Sandler’s classic, “The Wedding Singer.” Both resonated with me, apparently.

The movie is actually very good – part of it is live action but most of it is stop-motion. It tells the story of James, a young boy living with his dickhead aunts in Southern England. He hijacks a giant peach in the hopes of flying it over to New York City, which makes absolutely no sense. Anyway there’s a neat scene in which they’re drifting in the English Channel and they rig up a bunch of seagulls to fly them the rest of the way. So that’s what you’re looking at.

Before I include photos of the construction, I thought it might be nice to show you guys what I do, through an accurate and not-at-all-rushed written and illustrated tutorial.

I don’t know how I could possibly make it more clear.

But for those who prefer boring photographs…here.

This one was fun – I experimented with “cake paint” (gel color + water) to give the peach a…peachy look. The spiral staircase thing is made from plain old cardboard, and I used straight floral wire for the seagull leashes. Bing bang boom that’s it and that’s all.

Took it over to friend Pat’s apartment on the upper west side, where people didn’t feel like eating it so much as they felt like ripping it to shreds with their man-hands.

OHHH HO HO YES