December 16, 2004

• Damn, in the past couple of days I thought about making a website about various things that were in a Civil War era bible I got at Goodwill years ago.
• Actually a lot of people do sites based on found things. I know one person who posts found pictures to his blog and someone on flickr found a bunch of undeveloped film, developed it and has been posting them there. One of the best ones is the man who collects pictures of women and dogs. I find these tid bits of peoples lives interesting and who says you can't do it anyway Cropshy ;)
• Women with dogs!? My God! What's wrong with you people!!
• This is a great idea, though the exhibits posted so far are (dare I say it) slightly boring. It'll be more fun when he's found more things to add. When I lived in London and used to go to secondhand book fairs, there was a man who used to go round the stalls asking all the dealers if they'd found any bus tickets inside their books. Eventually he gave up asking everyone individually, and just marched up and down the aisles chanting "buuustickets, buuustickets, buuustickets". I never saw anyone give him any bus tickets. Once I actually did find a bus ticket inside a book, and the thought crossed my mind: "shall I bring it along to the next book fair and give it to that bus-tickets guy?" Then I thought "no" and threw the bus ticket in the bin. And now I've confessed it, and now Bus Tickets Guy will probably come to my house and strangle me with a long roll of bus-ticket tape.
• The strangest "enclosure" I ever found was in a dessicated copy of Vonnegut's Jailbird. It was a typewritten note on a blue square of paper: My Name is Dianne Behan. If I am in Trouble, please contact [phone number, business address in MA] Thank you, God bless you.
• I confess: I love finding odd bookmarks in second-hand books. I just finished reading Whit by Iain Banks. Inside it I found a note to call Mrs. Korbryn, along with her phone number. I have to strongly resist the temptation I feel to call her.
• I remember finding some wallet-sized school photos in my textbooks at school, usually with a note and phone numbers on back. In addition to enclosures, I liked inscriptions - the notes handwritten in the margins, or sometimes in the tiny spaces between lines. They gave an additional meaning to our English teacher's suggestion to "read between the lines" for meaning. A little off-topic, but brought to mind by jacobw's post and beeza's comment - Hello Natalie, also known as Natalie and Her Lovers, is a fotolog that I've enjoyed in the past. According to the about page, it was created by someone who found a few photo albums in a thrift store featuring a woman named Natalie through the 60s, 70s and 80s. Each photo is open to comments and I remember it being interesting to see her hairstyle changes as well as the kind of personality and relationships that were developed for her by the keepers of the albums and the commenters.
• My favorite found things project is The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players; they buy old slide collections, and then make up rock songs about the slides. They're an actual family, consisting of husband Doug (guitar/keyboard/vocals), wife Tina (slide machine) and 10-year-old daughter Rachel. I saw them in Edinburgh, and they were great.