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| Tentacle, capillary, coral, Tree of Life or Knowledge, Dan Diana works his magic on the side of the R.O.T. |
What do you get when you combine a creative writing professor (and former bookseller) with a muscle car mechanic and the guy who built the battered Iron Man helmet in Avengers Endgame? The Rac-On-Tour! But, wait, what the truck IS a Rac-On-Tour? Well, plainly put, it's a book mobile. But, really, it's oh so much more. It's a dimensionally transcendental, gas-driven book caravan and water-cooled wunderkammer. It's an art installation, a theater set, a movie prop for a movie that hasn't been made. Or maybe for a movie that stars you. It's bigger on the inside. Like Snoopy's dog house, Oscar's trash can, like the Tardis. It's the Magic School Bus meets Howl's Moving Castle. Or the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus meets the Porkchop Express. It's Grunkle Stan's Mystery Shack by way of Zampano's motorcycle-drawn wagon in La Strada. Furiosa's War Rig by way of the Adventure Time treehouse. It's a thing that doesn't make sense. That shouldn't exist. But it does.
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| R.O.T. interior (main level). |
I teach creative writing at Rutgers University. Before that I owned a bookstore called The Raconteur. It got a lot of press: "a literary center of gravity... an avant-garde cultural center... a family friendly guerrilla street-theater emporium" (New York Times); "amazing... an incredible institution" (Huffington Post); "a literary sanctuary" (London Guardian); "a literary landmark" (Time Out New York); and "marvelous...a museum of oddities" (Newark Star-Ledger).
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| R.O.T. interior (loft). |
This, then, is a motorized version of that. A Rac-On-Tour (get it?). That is, a bookshop/cabinet-of-wonder/medieval pageant wagon/literary medicine show housed in a theatrically renovated, vintage box truck with 4,500 curated new & used books for sale and a railed porch/stage on the back for live music, side show acts, and special guest literary events. Curious?
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| R.O.T. exterior (driver's side). |
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This Spring, when the natural world flourishes, when plants and trees sprout new leaves and flowers bloom, when the air is fresh and perfumed, we hope you R.O.T. Think outside the box truck, friends, and reclaim your sense of awe. The Rac-On-Tour is here.
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We had fun shooting this Fury Road inspired Rac-On-Tour trailer. Check it out.
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