Disclosure: One third of this is completely true, one third is an attempt at recording, without personal involvement the unfolding of one of the most successful social experiment to come about in the history of the Internet, the other third is comedic hyperbole... you choose.
Some people have been curious about my very secretive ways these past week or so. My presence in Facebook and other social media has been obscure at best- well, not really- I was in another page, conspiring with another people.
Certain members of my family were honestly worried, others were quite cooperative within their means and their abilities...(Batgirl, your identity shall remain hidden, I swear). As always, the midnight crew followed me into the mouth of madness, good soldiers of fortune willing to wake up in the middle of the night to follow a mysterious tweet or a furtive email.
I guess, close to 24 hours after the curtain fell, it is safe to say, being a puppet ain't that bad, when they make you dance tied to sugar string.
The Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen (GISHWHES for short) is my latest entry into the bizarre section of my Curriculum Vitae. Honestly, given the chance; wouldn't you want to add Guinness Record Breaker to your long list of WTF?
The whole concept is the brainchild of my top deranged celebrity, Misha Collins and the mysterious Miss Jean Louis, a capricious artiste from the school of Marcel Duchamp, you know, that nice French bloke, who in a moment of lucidity uttered: "All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications."
If you mix this particular appreciation of life with the wonderful Mr. Collins point of view; constant optimist that he is, the man believes the world can be fundamentally changed, one random act of kindness at a time... then you have the set up for an interesting game indeed.
Who is in the line up, you might ask? Did I mention Mr. Collins has over 318,000 followers, willing to sign into his beck and call,one tweet after another? You might call them followers, he prefers the word minions, you know all potatoes and potatos will end meeting the same peeler.
The thing is that quite a good chunk of people world wide said I do and jumped blindly into a game of art, community and creativity without having the slight lest idea of what was expected of them.
I was apprehensive at first, because all of us are happy in our own little world, you see and Mr. Collins does not believe kids should play by themselves, so what I thought would be just another night at the movies with the midnight crew was more of an act of casting our lots with seven complete strangers, from all over the globe.
As I opened my inbox the first day, I discovered I had two Germans, two Poles, three Canadians, one of them chillin' in the California sun. Well guys, the world just expanded. We bonded, immediately and it is ridiculous to think that a week ago our common denominator was a kind of obscure Sci-fi/Horror series in the CW network and a certain trench coated angel. Well, not even that, Izzy usually avoids all plots involving handsome crying men, so we had to fill him in, and quick.
Today I can say that we laughed, stressed, provided feedback, send frantic emails in the middle of the might, fueled each others whimsy and even managed to dance together. I know that Torben is willing to raise to the roof, Finja is really a fairy in disguise, Monika hates Facebook but was willing to sign up for our sake (she has also been granted my the amazing ability to bring order to Chaos) that Ula knows exactly how low can GISHWHES go, that Michele and Danna can out dance anyone and anything in any setting, that Tamara will get her fingers and toes in a sticky situation, just to help the team advance; that Michelle and Hisriel are willing to get into a fight in an extinct language and that I can both rock kale in salad and above my head to light the dinner table.
Thank you guys for an awesome experience. It was a chance to raise something out of nothing and make it worth everything. Out of all the crazy stuff we cooked together, our little secret society was the best.
What is left to say to those who didn't take part on this experiment? There's always next year. In the meantime, if you see some oddball in a monkey hat, perhaps skipping a couple of steps down the road, singing in Enochian or smiling wide without apparent reason; smile back. There's a chance you are crossing paths with an artist, or someone who is compromised with a random act of kindness... well this person might also be a weird little hobo, but a smile never hurt anybody.
Luuuuuuvvvv to all.
OHHHH... I forgot, in the meantime, if you feel like spreading the love and have some change to spare, get to know the not so crazy side of the coin: www.therandomact.org
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