What’s On Your Desk? With Todd Osborn
(Photo by Kaito Osborn)
Note: What’s On Your Desk? is a series of interviews with friends who are doing interesting things. The dialogue always starts off the same way, by asking the subject to describe their workspace. The fourth in our series is with Todd Osborn, the musician, artist and builder of whatever he puts his mind to. I met Todd about a decade ago in Ann Arbor and thought that he was one of the best DJs I’d ever seen / heard. While that would remain true, I learned through the years that it was a rather narrow view. The breadth of Todd’s output is simply staggering; not only does he record and play live some of my favorite music (for Ghostly and Rephlex), he builds his own instruments, puts together hovercrafts from scratch (we’re not kidding), assemblies Bultaco motorcycles in his kitchen, builds elaborate Lego sculptures and teaches himself how to fly planes (also not a joke). Every time I get the opportunity to sit on his couch in his Ypsilanti studio and take in the last few months of his projects, I leave uplifted in the belief that good work is the ultimate signature. Todd builds and builds and builds and when he can’t figure out how to do something, he teaches himself how to move around it or hover above it.
What’s on your desk?
It’s a mess (as always). I try to sort through things about once a week but more often than not I just throw everything in a box, hide it in a corner, and it starts all over again.
The main things that never change are two LG LCD monitors and a pair of Yamaha HS-50M’s.
As for the mess, it currently consists of:
- A TON of bills
- Nunchucks
- Passport
- Issue of Jail Birdz
- Six TMNT comics
- Two Dennis the Menace comics
- Cuban cigar
- Two books on breakdancing
- Garmin 12XL GPS
- EEE PC
- Walkman
- Map ruler
- Logic puzzles
- Two PS3 controllers
- Laser level
- Three bottles of medicine
- Nintendo DSi
- Four kinds of packing tape
- Arp 2500 module
- Pellet gun
- Three sound cards
- Giant torque wrench
- Issue of The Economist
- A stack of strange currency (silver certificates, etc)
- Various DVD’s, DAT’s, cassettes, and DV tapes
- Ceramic monster head
This is one of the best desk inventories I’ve ever read. When you hit your desk when you start your day in the morning, what are you typically doing first?
