Should’ve traded up for an editor

Kyle MacDONALD’S saga of bartering a red paper clip for a small house reads like a cumulative nursery rhyme, along the lines of “This Is the House That Jack Built”: He traded a paper clip for a fish-shaped pen, the pen for a doorknob, the doorknob for a camping stove and so on.

In “One Red Paperclip,” MacDonald recounts how at 25 he found himself unemployed and living in Montreal, tired of temp work and having his girlfriend pay their rent. While writing cover letters for his résumé, he came up with an idea. As a child, he’d played the game called Bigger and Better, which he describes as a “mash-up between a scavenger hunt and trick-or-treating. You’d start with a small object and go door to door to see if anybody would trade something bigger or better for it.”

Resolving to play the ultimate Bigger and Better on the Web, he posted an item on Craig’s List in July 2005, offering to trade a paper clip for something that he could eventually swap for a house.

Over the next year, MacDonald made more than a dozen trades, some lucky, some stupid-sounding and some publicity stunts. He swapped the camp stove for a generator, then an “instant party,” a snowmobile, a trip to the town of Yahk in British Columbia, a cargo van, a recording contract, a year’s rent on a duplex in Phoenix, an afternoon with Alice Cooper, a KISS snow globe, a small role in a Corbin Bernsen movie. In July 2006, he made his final trade, swapping the movie role for a small house in Kipling, Saskatchewan.

His plan attracted considerable media attention, first in Canada, then in the United States and other countries. The blog he wrote about the trades became a popular topic of discussion, especially on Slashdot, Dig and other geek sites. “One Red Paperclip” suggests both the power of the Internet and some of the problems it has spawned.

The widespread and instantaneous connection MacDonald was able to establish with large numbers of people through Craig’s List wasn’t possible previously: Even 10 years ago, the resources didn’t exist. And the notice his quest gained on the Web helped to attract the mainstream media, whose coverage brought him yet more attention -- in which he revels. The result is a new, dubious distinction noted on the back cover of his book, which proclaims MacDonald to be “one of the most recognized Internet celebrities on the planet.” Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan may want to hire new Web designers.

MacDonald wasn’t a writer when he began his blog, and the book version of his adventures remains the work of an amateur. Many chapters cry out for an editor. His greatest asset is his engaging, informal tone. But he sometimes spoils his understated prose by trying too hard to be clever. For example, he writes: “Buy low, sell high, but don’t get addicted to drugs. . . . This line is funny because I took the common quote ‘buy low, sell high’ and added the part about ‘don’t get addicted to drugs’ to make you think about high in a different light. High as in intoxicated instead of high as in high value. That’s why it’s funny.”

Reading these leaden bon mots is a bit like watching a pigeon trying to build a nest in a wind storm.

MacDonald also offers homilies on specially designed pages, as if he imagines them in cursive writing at the bottom of a poster of Half Dome or a kitten clinging to a rope. “What’s Your Funtential? How are you going to maximize your potential for fun? Think of things you enjoy and things other people enjoy. Try to get as close to the things you enjoy as possible and encourage others to get as close to the things they enjoy as possible as well. The closer everyone is to the things they enjoy, the easier it is for people to live up to their funtential.” Or “Tomorrow hasn’t happened yet. But when you turn the page it might happen.”

Having gotten his house, MacDonald might seem to have used up his 15 clicks of fame, but the movie rights to his story were recently sold to DreamWorks, so another account is probably in the works.

And if anyone has an apartment in Paris they’re interested in trading, I’ve got two paper clips.

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Charles Solomon is the author of many books, including “Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation” and “The Disney That Never Was.”