anything goes

Have you heard of Found? Our friend gave us a subscription to this neat little mag. It's a compilation of found "love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, doodles--anything that gives a glimpse into someone else's life. Anything goes."

Such as this:

not a cookie
FOUND by chris wegscheid, minneapolis



i found this on the floor of my office, but i don't know where it came from. we don't have any Barbs, and we rarely have cookies. i did have a box of concrete samples in my office earlier in the day, some of which, i suppose, were vaguely cookie-shaped, so it might've fallen out of that. i don't know for sure.

I'll begin scouring sidewalks and countertops today. Who knows what's to be found. Makes me want to leave cryptic, little messages around town. [I know that's cheating. Don't worry.]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Found stirs up ideas I'd heard of long ago and have always wanted to try.

One is to take a favorite book of yours, write a little about yourself and why you liked the book, and leave it behind--on a bench, at a museum, on a bus, wherever--for someone else to find. Leave directions to either take the book and enjoy it, or leave it for someone else to pick up. It's like a chain letter, only it's longer than a letter and not as annoying.

Or, instead of a book, choose an object and create a "passport" for it. A 4th grade class sent off a teddy bear with a student traveling to France. The student was told give the bear and passport to another traveler, ask her to fill out the passport with anything they wanted (bio info, stories, anything) and have them pass it on. The passport had 30 pages, along with instructions to send it back to the class once all the pages were filled. (I don't know if Teddy ever made it back.)

And there's J's favorite, Where's George, though we couldn't figure out how to get a dollar started. It follows the "lives" of many George Washington bills.