Found Magazine has been compiling lost notes since 2001. KEVIN SAMPSELL turns parts of the scrawled letters, threats, and Post-It Notes trove into a one-act, two-person play.
Lost but not forgotten. "Found II" is America's repository. (AP Photo/HO/Touchstone)
Self-reflection is one cornerstone of a totally awesome Found artifact. (AP Photo/HO/Touchstone)
Did you find that hat, too? Davy Rothbart is the maestro of the misplaced. (AP Photo/HO/Touchstone/Dorothy Gotlib)
"Truth is far stranger than fiction. I don't think people can make up stuff this amazing and weird," says Davy Rothbart, the scrap poacher behind Found Magazine.
Rothbart's collection of lost notes, discarded drawings, tossed tantrums, and other paraphernalia is America's unedited underbelly. People from around the country send him the scrawled letters, threats, and Post-It Notes they find on casino floors, sidewalks or in the drawers of discarded furniture. It's become such a strangely popular and vicarious reading experience that there is now a second book-length collection of street slush, "Found II."
Certainly Found's bounty is dramatic, but can it withstand the full dramatic treatment? See for yourself as we follow along with the characters Chris and Jill, who utter the wise words (verbatim!) of Found in this one-act, two-person play created especially for asap. Do not be alarmed: the spelling is as it appears in the book.
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(Curtain rises. Lights up on the center of the stage. Chris and Jill face each other.)
Chris Today is my grandmother's 100 birthday and there is a racoon in my bathroom.
Jill: Please help yourself to this nice wood!
Chris: Life is full of choices & I've already chosen the wrong one.
Jill: That's why I'm 15 and pregnant.
Chris: Please sleep on the couch. We'll talk in the morning.
Jill: When I'm with you-I feel retarded. I love you-
Chris: I would like to smell the altarboy's sneakers and boots that did the altar service.
Jill: I'm glad I lost my virginity with you. It felt so good. Thank you for the wonderful night you gave me honey.
Chris: You and everyone else need to leave Jake, me & Naomi alone. We are a family and do not need anyone's help but God & our doctors.
Jill: Bocci is good for letting go of your problems. Clutch the balls and really work them over in your palms until you have gathered up all of your negativity and let the balls spread it back into the earth. The earth is there for you to talk to and let go of your balls on.
Chris: I'm half Jewish. I'm an artist and an experimental musician. I also wrote some comedy about my hilarious deadhead parents.
Jill: This is a lot safer than e-mail.
Chris: I have an idea for a comedy movie. It would be about two poets who meet at an open mic and fall in love and go on a spiritual quest together and get initiated into Surat Shabal yoga.
Jill: All my senses are being tortured simultaneously. Does your company give refunds?
Chris: Jan put $100 in your bank account. It is from Gramma Jeannette for Valentine's day gift so you can afford diet & healthy food, fresh vegetables & apples instead of sugar stuff. I am worried about you gaining weight. You are too heavy. Time to stop it now. I hope Jan weighed you before you left on Monday. Love you-
Jill: I can't believe how you have played me. Your drug buddy came by and spilled the beans about your sex/drug party the other night. I found my DVD's & other items of mine in your room.
Chris: I am not myself. I have become Vincent, an old classmate of mine from high school and am appearing on television as part of a preview for an upcoming blockbuster film. On the screen, I am wearing a white suit there is grease in my hair and I am surrounded by a circular pattern of computer animated stars.
Jill: Kiss my black ass.
Chris: My ass is abstract!
Jill: You will never have sex ever agin.
Chris: I said "Sex" and "Meet that special person" in subliminal message on a commercial and I'm really really sorry.
Jill: Some might say you are my hunny bear but I would say you are my lovely poodle. I want to rub cheeks (face & butt) because yours are so soft & warm and I want to kiss your jaw spot, the one that makes me squeel like a little ninny noo noo. I just made that up.
Chris: I understand from the Library Staff that last week you were verbally requested to leave the library and not return until your personal hygiene becomes acceptable. In spite of these requests you have continued to come into the library.
Jill: Remember when I got all that spicy gum and I couldn't stop eating it, not even to save my own mouthTell the kid I am sorry.
Chris: Being gross is gross. After 22 years of grossness I now want to be nice. I hereby promise to-
Jill: 1. Dress for success 2. Conscious of voice 3. Watch & follow role models a. Watch Joe Pesci b. Watch Steve
Chris: I know that you realize I call you "Sho-Tan", and I hope that does not offend you.
Jill: This is cruel and emotional abuse. No wonder you drive the women you're with crazy. They either join cults or want to kill themselves & have to take anti-depressants. Be a man for once in your life. The world doesn't revolve around you.
Chris:: Everything you've ever ate i am sure didn't taste great the first time you taste it, some how down the road it's all good, trust me.
(Stage goes dark.)
THE END
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Kevin Sampsell is asap's Book Pusher, reporting on the word scene from the inside. Sampsell is an event coordinator at Powell's Books in Portland, Ore. He also runs a micro empire called Future Tense Publishing.
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