The Sound of Young America: Mark Frauenfelder, Founder of BoingBoing and Author of Made By Hand

Episode notes

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of the seminal zine and blog BoingBoing, the editor of Make Magazine, and the author of the new book Made By Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throw-Away World, about the pleasure of making things yourself.​

In 2003, Frauenfelder, his wife and two small children moved to a remote island in the South Pacific. They hoped to escape modern life, but they found that they were instead isolated and beset by health problems. When they returned, four and a half months later, Frauenfelder considered what he really enjoyed about his trip, and realized it was working with his daughter on the laborious process of preparing coconuts to be eaten. He resolved to make more.

In Made By Hand, he writes about the movement towards “making,” and about his own efforts. He got rid of his lawn to plant food, started whittling his own spoons and making cigar-box ukeleles, among other activities. He found that what he was looking for when he moved to the South Pacific was available to him right in Southern California.