When Visiting Disney

 

Age: 9
Postmark: New Jersey

This week...we're wide open to ANY memory you want to revisit and share...so long as it's full of detail and ends with the line: "PS: I don't really think you should do that."

Washroom Wisdom (UPDATED)

(Handprint on back)
Age: 17
Postmark: PA

This week...I know it's hard enough to fit good advice onto a postcard...do you think you can do it in 17 syllables?  The best, most-creative, most informative Haiku (5-7-5) will "win."  The advice can be about anything, though, as always, specific insights are better than general platitudes! 


UPDATE
Thanks to everyone who participated this week!

Honorable Mention

If you have to bike

To distant job interviews,

Bring an extra shirt.

Andy W.

Lock picking's easy.

Use very little pressure

on the tension wrench.

A.J. May

We all pay in time.

How will you clear your conscience?

When your lies unwind.

Krys

2^nd Runner-Up

Dialing 911

works the same as if you dial

91111

Michael M.

1^st Runner-Up

Have your adventures,

But don't ever forget to

Find your way back home.

Rosie Z.

1^st Place

You can never win,

The game of monopoly,

Without taking risks.

Tanzir B.

How To Get Out of a Parking Ticket

 

"Since I started to go to Drexel in the Spring of 2011, the PPA only cares about writing tickets.  The best and only way to get out of a parking (ticket) is to go up to the person giving the ticket, ask what is the reason for you getting the ticket.  For example let's say the reason is because your time expired 7 mins ago, check to see what time it is on your phone.  Most parking enforcement people set their watches 4-6 minutes fast, I can't answer why they do.  That makes your 7 mins into 1 min, which they can't give you a ticket for that.  Just say you don't have a credit card, you were in a store getting change.  The parking agent will tell you that you will be able to get out of the ticket if you go the main office.  That's not true.  Ask to speak with his boss...speaking with him will get the parking ticket voided on the spot.  This happened to me twice and both times the ticket was voided."

Age: 21
Postmark: PA


This week...let's talk about a LOOPHOLE that you've discovered or invented...a way you've subverted "the rules."  As always, you don't have to make any great point, just describe it as vividly as you can.  Creativity welcomed.   

Advice from a Rain Dancer

Age: 21

Postmark: Wyoming

The memory exercises are back!  To join the conversation, simply add your post in the comments.  This week: write about a memory that in some way involves rain.  As always, it doesn't have to make any great point, just render it as vividly as you can, using all your senses!

2012 - The Year of the Stranger

So, I was up in New York City the other day. I went up with the lady to check out a show called Accomplice. I call it a "show", but really it was more like a scavenger hunt crossed with a walking tour crossed with interactive theater…scratch that, more like if your life was the Michael Douglas movie, The Game. How it works is you pre-pay online, and are sent a cryptic email containing a street corner to meet on at a specific time, a map, and a registration number. That's all the information you're given, except to bring a copy of your registration and be there promptly. Had I not read so many of the independent reviews, I would've sworn it was a scam.

We woke up early, hurried over to the Bolt Bus (hooray Bolt Bus!), and, next thing we knew, we were standing beside Madison Square Garden.  For a little context, if you've never been up in New York city the week before or after Christmas, it's completely overrun by tourists. I call them Foregrounders, or F.G.s, because they just walk around all day, standing in front of things, taking pictures. We drifted from one corner to the next, catching successive waves, trying not to swim against the current, and about 30 minutes later we washed up in the desolate-by-comparison West Village.

"There it is," I said, and pointed across at an ordinary-looking corner, beside a park.

"You think those people are waiting for the show, too?"

It's subtle, but I think there's a difference between people who are waiting for something specific, like a bus, or a friend, and people who are just waiting. This group was the latter, the confused sort. We managed some awkward introductions (our group had four people from London, and and a couple from Jersey)…and waited.

Precisely at 3 PM, a woman holding a clipboard emerged very suddenly from the greater sea of strangers. I won't spoil the show (which I would definitely recommend seeing) but, more or less, for the next three hours we were given clues and sent around the West Village, trying to solve a mystery. Every place we went, we waited for the next character to turn up and continue the story, only they were dressed like ordinary people - a street sweeper, a bartender, etc - so we could never be quite sure who was in on it and who was just a regular stranger. That was the coolest part, by far. Suddenly, I was aware of them, people, strangers, all around me. I hadn't had that feeling since the original Spaces journey. I realize that sounds like a bad feeling, but actually it's good. For at least one more afternoon, I was sensitized again to the astonishing, real-life, ever-meshing network of humans.

So, here's a little mini-resolution for you: next time you go out into a public space - a farmer's market, a city street, a park, wherever - just take a second - just one - to look around and realize how many people you don't know. The point is not to be afraid or overwhelmed…but the opposite, to recognize how rare it is to actually know someone; how exciting it is that the person you're supposed to meet (a new friend, perhaps) is out there, like Where's Waldo, only he's not wearing his candy cane sweater, he's undercover, so you'll just have to keep your eyes out and be ready.


*

Semi-related story…

Rules of Attraction

A handful of wisdom to start your week, every Monday.

Age: 44
Postmark: Florida

"This is NOT the Hand of the Artist."

A handful of wisdom to start your week, every Monday.

We'll be taking a few weeks off from the memory exercises, but please take a few minutes to explore the archives if you've missed any of the amazing, creative submissions over the past few months!

In the meantime...can anyone unravel this mystery?  I love the concept but I don't get it.  All tangents and theories welcome. 

Advice from a Millionaire

A handful of wisdom to start your week, every Monday.

Age: 25
Postmark: Louisiana

This week's memory exercise: write about a time when LUCK was a factor in your life.  Could be good luck, bad luck, hard luck, no luck, Lucky Charms...be creative!  As always, don't worry about making any great point, just try to present one vivid scene. 

 

"Don't pretend to know what you don't.  You learn more."

Age: 39

Postmark: Washington (state)

This week's exercise: write about a time when you were PRETENDING.  As always, don't worry about making any great point, just try to render a specific scene/memory as vividly as you can.  Take "pretending" any way you want...

Advice from a Rebel

AGE: 18
POSTMARK: PENNSYLVANIA

This week's exercise:

We all have them...those daydream versions of ourselves who don't care what anyone else says or thinks, who don't care about repercussions or reputations, who never play it safe, who "speak up," who act fearlessly (even recklessly), who are, for lack of a better word, "rebels."  Where is this rebel version of yourself right now, and what are they doing?  (As always, just aim for one vivid, well-developed scene, and have fun with it!)

"Art is a Good Thing to Do When..."

A handful of wisdom to start your week, every Monday.

Age: 11
Postmark: Wyoming

*

This week's memory exercise: write about a time when you were mad.  The whole spectrum of "mad" is open to you, from "slightly perturbed" to "eye-bulging-out-of-your-head-like-a-cartoon-character apoplectic."  As always, don't worry about making any great point, just try to render a scene vividly.

"Fortune Favors the Brave."

AGE: 25
POSTMARK: PENNSYLVANIA

(click on image to enlarge)

This week's memory exercise: write about a time when you were afraid.  The memory could be from yesterday, last year, or long ago.  As always, you don't have to make any great point, just render the memory as vividly as you can. 

Advice from a Parent

A handful of wisdom to start your week, every Monday.

Age: 59
Postmark: Oregon

This week's memory exercise: Is this good advice?  The answer could be from yesterday, last year, or long ago.  (As always, you don't have to make any great point, just render the scene as vividly as you can!)

Advice from a Gentleman

Age: 20
Postmark: Wyoming

This week's memory discussion: write about a time when you got dressed up.  

Advice from a 4th Grader

A handful of wisdom to start your week, every Monday.

Age: 10
Postmark: New Jersey


This week's memory exercise: who was your first "crush?"  As always, you don't have to make any great point, just try to render the memory as vividly as you can.  (Names may be changed to protect the guilty and to incriminate the innocent!)

"A Picture Puzzle from a Man with Alzheimer's to Help Exercise Your Brain!"

A handful of wisdom to start your week, every Monday.

See if you can solve the riddle before checking the answer below. 

Age: 71
Postmark: PA

Release Date Nov. 1!

Photo by: Arvil Prewitt
Design by: Pixel+Pen
Special thanks to Mary Folino

Learn More

Come out to the release party on Fri, Nov. 4, Melanies Place, Old City, Phila, 9:00pm

Advice from a Beatles Fan

A handful of wisdom to start your week, every Monday.

AGE: 54
POSTMARK: FLORIDA

"The Irish Method."

Today is World Alzheimer’s Day. I got up early was thinking what I might write to honor my grandfather, and decided the best way would be to simply start with a memory. The memory was this: I was probably six, having dinner with my grandparents in their old house on Quaker Lane. Toward the end of the meal my grandfather turned to my brother Mark, who was four, sitting on a stack of phone books, and said: “Our ancestors endured eight hundred years of oppression…and he can’t finish his chicken.”

1

Let me begin with a confession:

For the first 27 years of my life (pre-Spaces project) I went through life as a Food Wimp. Not just a Food Wimp, but a Closet Food Wimp. I projected a "try anything" attitude, but really I wouldn’t touch a hamburger if there were a dab of mustard on it; I spit shrimp cocktail discreetly into napkins; I forensically inspected my salads for traces of red onion…

Like many of his generation, my grandfather was the opposite. He’d eat his shirt if you stewed it for a few hours, buttons and all. His method of eating (and of living in general, I think) was governed by what I like to call “The Irish Method.” The only way of properly explaining it, I think, is to first recite a yarn I heard one night when I was bartending in Ireland.

2

Once, on a cold and rainy day, an old priest staggered into a pub. Everyone could see right away that the priest was drenched. His white hair was matted to his forehead and his glasses were fogged and speckled with rain. He was covered from collar to cuff in mud, as if he’d just climbed from a ditch. And, this was the strangest part—he wasn’t wearing any shoes! The old, dripping priest moped across the pub, head down, in a deep and melancholy trance, oblivious to everyone pointing and whispering.


“Whoa there Father!” the barman said. “Yer soaked!”

“Am I?”

The priest looked down and noticed that he was indeed soaked.

“And yer glasses are fogged!”

“Are they?”

“And you’ve lost yer ring?”

“Have I now?”

“And by God, yer not wearing any shoes man!”

“Am I not?” He looked down—and noticed this too was true.

“What’s happened?” the barman asked.

“F----’ Celtic,” he muttered (meaning the soccer club).

And everyone in the pub shook their heads. “F-----’ Celtic!”

3

It’s your standard Irish joke. Priest walks into a pub. Priest arrives at the gates of Heaven. Shepherd walks into a pub. Shepherd arrives at the gates of Heaven. Priest and a Shepherd go in together on a football bet. Come to think of it, that’s about all the premises there are. But there are a billion variations within.

Every variation reveals a slightly different truth, or micro truth—in this case how God seems to have made it impossible (or at least very difficult) for our brains to process more than one terrible thing at a time. Who would know this better than the Irish, who’ve spent nearly the whole of their existence getting rained on with a boot pressed to their throats?

In my family, with regards to food, it went like this: if your steak was burned so badly that it looked like a recently-hewed chunk of anthracite coal (as most assuredly it was, if my grandmother was cooking) then you ate your potatoes, which were so lumpy it was 50/50 that you would a) finish them or b) have to use your butter knife to perform your first ever emergency tracheotomy on yourself. But you know what? In that moment, you’d forget about how awful the meat was! When you couldn’t stomach the potatoes anymore—then you switched back and chiseled at the meat. Back and forth you went until it was all gone, and then you said, “Well, that wasn’t so bad. What’s for dessert?” The key, again, was that you could count on your mind to only be able to process one horrible thing at a time. And it could always be worse.

When I used to run to my grandfather with petty schoolyard scrapes and bruises he always said the same thing: “Well come here and let me punch you in the arm so you forget how much your leg hurts.” This perverse form of Irish optimism has been passed down through the generations. I didn’t quite see the wisdom in it at the time. But I do now.

4

I still have Food Wimp tendencies, but I’m getting better. I’m working at it. I remember being out on the road, at a truck stop in Oregon, and so hungry that—using the Irish Method—I plowed through my $6 Meatloaf Special (really a baked dishwashing sponge and a side of drippy gutter tennis balls). That’s when I thought up the name. I imagined my grandfather sitting across from me in the booth. “What do you think of that?” I said, nodding down at my empty plate. 

“The name needs work.”

“What, the Irish Method?”

“Yeah. I have to be honest…it kind of sounds like the worst form of birth control ever.”

I laughed, imagining this exchange, as the waitress laid my check face down on the table.

**Today's exercise: write about one of your "kitchen table memories."  Doesn't have to be long, or make any great point, just bring us there as vividly as you can.

500,000 Steps in the Right Direction

The ethnically and vertically diverse Spaces Street Team was out at the 2011 Walk to End Alzheimer’s at Citizen’s Bank Park this past weekend…did you see us? Did you get an “official” postcard? Did you know over 10,000 people showed up...meaning over 50,000 kilometers were walked?

Thanks to everyone who came out to support the cause!