Exercises in Silliness

You know how public bulletin boards are full of goods and services for sale and you can pull a tab of paper off the bottom with a name and number? Well I thought it might be terribly amusing to make a sign that simply displayed a name, and only a name. Maybe “Kevin.” And you could pull little tabs off that just say “Kevin.” I can’t remember what movie I saw that gave me this idea, but I though it would be a lot of fun just to make people wonder. Maybe it’s something similar to what Improv Everywhere does – little harmless amusing pranks basically.

So last night DeLaine and I made some signs. Most of them were just names – Kevin, Mike…and Chet, Max, Grover, Jane and Otis (yes a tribute to Kicking and Screaming). And one of them said “Free Refrigerator.” We posted that one at the Kroger in Hillcrest. We put some other ones up at Sufficient Grounds and Harvest Foods on Cantrell. Those were actually the only public bulletin boards we could find on a Saturday night. Wal-Mart doesn’t have one, the Krogers of the Heights and Chenal don’t have them, either. Apparenly Hillcrest is the only area with any sense of community. We may hit UALR or Pulaski Tech later on. We also thought a sign saying simply “Lost Dog” might be funny. We’ll see.

5 thoughts on “Exercises in Silliness”

  1. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this. I can’t help but like the K&S reference. Then again, I’m not sure “free refrigerator” and “lost dog” are quite ethical, though.

  2. Where’s the ethics in a sign saying nothing but “Lost Dog” or “Free Refrigerator”? There’s no imperative, no phone number. Nothing to invite anyone to do anything other than wonder what the hell the author was thinking.

  3. I misunderstood part of your post — I didn’t notice that the tabs *don’t* have a phone number. Surely you could see how it would be unethical to lure people into calling you for a free refrigerator, then just laugh at them?

  4. You did this just to frustrate reporters, didn’t you? I used to go to the bulletin boards for story ideas, inspiration…

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