Trading up

Bigsmall. The car ad on TV tells us it's a new word to describe something which, though small, has the characteristics of something much bigger than itself. It could be a work of nature, a bonsai tree, for example. Or a simple gesture, a ring slipped on a finger, which for that moment means so much more.

It could be a thing. It could be one red paper clip. And if ever a thing deserved the adjective bigsmall, then Kyle MacDonald's one red paper clip is it.

A year ago aspiring writer MacDonald looked at the one red paper clip on his desk and saw something much bigger. He saw a house. As a boy in Canada, he used to play a game called "Bigger or Better". Starting with something small and trading around the neighbourhood, you knocked on doors until your small thing had become something bigger or better. He decided to take the game to the internet, advertising his one red paper clip in the barter section of Craig's List. Fourteen, yes just 14, trades later, he become the proud owner of a two-storey house in Kipling, Saskatchewan.

Here's how he did it. He traded the one red paper clip for one fish-shaped pen, which he then traded with a woman in Seattle for one hand-crafted ceramic doorknob. The doorknob had a smiley face and a wizened look to it, so MacDonald nicknamed the item Knob-T after ET. He traded Knob-T for one camping stove, which he then traded for one red generator.

Each time the 26-year-old made a trade he would travel to the place where the new thing was located and write a story for his blog about the swap. In New York his generator was confiscated by the Fire Department but given back to him just in time for him to trade the generator for one instant party, which consisted of a beer keg, a neon Budweiser sign and a voucher to fill the keg with the successful trader's beer of choice. When MacDonald traded one instant party for one snowmobile, owned by a well-known Canadian radio personality, the media began tracking his progress. The one snowmobile was traded for one trip to Yahk (population 200) in the Canadian Rockies, which was then swapped for one white truck, which changed hands in return for one recording contract.

Next, he swapped the recording contract with a singer-songwriter who was desperate to record her album. She traded one year's free rent in a house in Phoenix, Arizona. So now MacDonald, already ainternet celebrity, had a house, but renting wasn't enough for him, so he traded that for an afternoon with Alice Cooper.

The next trade stunned followers of his website. He traded an afternoon with Alice Cooper for a motorised Kiss snowglobe. MacDonald says, "Now, I know what you're thinking, dear blog reader, 'MacDonald, what are you thinking? A Kiss snowglobe for an afternoon with Alice Cooper? Are you crazy?' Well, I'm not exactly sure if I'm in a position to plead for my sanity here - after all, I am trying to trade one red paperclip for a house. But I must reinforce what I believe the one red paperclip project is all about: relative value. What's more important to a man dying of thirst in the desert - one million dollars or a glass of water? So all I gotta do now is find somebody who needs a drink."

Of course, he soon found someone who needed that drink. Actor, writer and director Corbin Bernsen, of LA Law fame, is an avid snowglobe collector and he wanted the Kiss snowglobe so badly that he swapped it for a speaking role in his upcoming movie Donna on Demand. Then authorities from the town of Kipling, Saskatchewan, stepped in to offer MacDonald a two-storey house in exchange for the movie role. The town will hold American Idol-style auditions so that someone in the town can make their Hollywood dreams come true. The town is making MacDonald mayor for the day, instigating "One Red Paper Clip Day" and constructing the world's largest red paper clip.

What does it all mean? Well, maybe it means that when you bring your unique vision to the table, nothing, not even one red paper clip, is ever quite what it seems. Or that we don't have to travel conventional routes to achieve our goals. Maybe it means that when you catch the imagination of people anything can happen. Personally, it means I'm thinking about things I could trade. Stand by for onepotofblueberryjam.com or oneusedlauraashleyweddingdress.com or - and this one might actually fly - onejohnnycashhairslide.com.

Most of all, one red paper clip means bigsmall. Put it in your dictionary.

[ www.oneredpaperclip.com ]