By Greggory Moore
I had never heard of FOUND Magazine, and I’d never been a fan of “found art,” reading the side panel of a cereal box and such. So lame. But I was promised a good time, and so I showed up at {open} fashionably late but on time to see show #28 on FOUND‘s nationwide, 40-show Cavalcade of Thrills tour. It was not lame; no promise was broken.
The premise of FOUND couldn’t be more basic. To quote from their Website: “We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids’ homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles—anything that gives a glimpse into someone else’s life.” How does this translate into a show? Yes, I was wondering that myself. Brothers Davy and Peter Rothbart (et al.) are responsible for FOUND (though I’m sure they’d cede top billing to the material itself, whether found by themselves or sent in by kindred passive voyeurs throughout the country), and the show I saw was simply two segments of Davy sharing “finds” and like material broken up by Peter and his acoustic guitar. Sounds like it could be lame, right? Read on.
At about 8:30 p.m. Davy stepped forward, Corona in hand and wearing a golf hat, cut-off T-shirt, pull-away sweat pants with NBA team logos, and gold bling with a big dollar sign. It was more casual fun than “Look at how wacky I am,” and his presentation of the material was the same. Davy has a honed narrative style that doesn’t come off as stale or even practiced. He began by giving a brief explanation of what FOUND is, then proceeded to read/act out some of his favorite “finds,” including many from his magazine’s most recent volume. His reading is a slightly exaggerated but dead-on interpretation of his texts, going so far as to turn right and left as he switched characters in an e-mail exchange between a woman who thought she was contacting her carpenter about some work she needed done in the three months before her blind mother and two children joined her in her home and an unintended recipient who played along until it became clear that there was no response outrageous enough to clue the woman in. Davy ended his first segment by reading a short piece he’d written about getting a ride from a stranger from the airport to his van. It was no shock for me to learn that he is a contributor to NPR’s fine This American Life series, as his prose (both oral and written) demonstrates not only a plainspoken facility, but a real grasp of how specific details fit into specific contexts.
Davy is clearly the more garrulous of the brothers, but the two have real rapport, and Peter’s part comes into focus through his music. You might expect simple novelty songs here, but Peter is a true craftsman, a fact evinced in his singing, guitar-playing, and the obvious work put into his compositions. The first song, “Bus or Beer?”, only bewrays its conceptual origins in the lyrics. If you didn’t speak English (and could drown out the audience’s appreciative laughter), you’d think you were enjoying a first-rate coffeehouse performer. As his brother helped him explain, the last song, “The Booty Don’t Stop”, was inspired by a found cassette of homemade rap songs of maybe two dozen words each. Apparently this tune is a crowd-favorite, as several people voiced knowing appreciation as soon as its name was dropped. I was skeptical, as a “cute” title or idea such as this doesn’t bring me prima facie amusement, but once again Peter’s craftsmanship carried the day. My only complaint was going to be that the audience wasn’t solicited for a tuneful sing-along, but just as I scribbled this in my notes, Davy showed that he wasn’t only dressed as an MC. Damn, the booty don’t stop, girl.
Davy’s second segment was much like the first—in both content and quality. He mused on possible slogans for FOUND that had been culled from the finds themselves (and that give you a pretty good idea of the tenor of the mag): from an ad soliciting musicians for a death-metal band: “Help us bring the darkness”; from a letter to an airline from a disgruntled passenger seated next to the lavatory: “The next ass that touches my shoulder will be the last”; from a remonstrative missive from one lover to another: “It’s not kinky—it’s gross!” But perhaps my favorite moment came near the end. Someone brought the brothers a note found attached to a balloon stuck in a tree in the middle of a cemetery. It was penned by a teenage boy and bespoke of teenage things: a budding romance, happenings in school. He said that he missed her, his mother, and Davy talked of imagining this boy visiting her grave and setting the balloon aloft. “It’s notes like this,” he said, “that keep me inspired to pick up every piece of paper I see.” That’s a good thing, for all of us.
Find out more about FOUND Magazine (as well as the brothers’ other projects, such as Davy’s book of short stories and Peter’s band) at www.foundmagazine.com. Stay abreast of all things {open} at www.accessopen.com. And take a second to bend over and see what’s written on that piece of paper that’s just been blown across your path.