FOTLabs: Mail Art Nonsense Game

[KickTheBobo]

hi. I was thinking about this last night, and wanted to see if any of you folks would like to participate. With the exception of Secret Santa, I probably haven't received a personal piece of correspondence in over a year. I used to love getting letters from friends, and also sending them, but doing so has really tapered off with electronic contact.

Basically, this game would involve sending the next person on the list a legal-sized envelope (no packages) with something inside. Could be a letter, drawing, cut out articles from the local paper...whatever. The only rule is that you must send out a letter within 3 days of receiving one.

This does involve a certain element of trust, as it would require real world addresses, so keep this in mind.

the roster would be generated by random.org

Any thoughts?

[yesno]

Yes. I would like to do this.

Here are mail-related anecdotes.

I last sent and received physical correspondence when I was in boot camp, in 1999.  In addition to the letters themselves, friends would photocopy and print out things for me to read, as most personal books and reading material (with the exception of religious texts, a loophole I used to sneak in a copy of Paradise Lost) were forbidden.  Thus by samizdat I read Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet and The Onion's Our Dumb Century.

When I was in middle school, a friend and I would compete to see who could mail the other the most ludicrous items through the mail.  For example, we would put butter and sand in an envelope. I recommend against this approach.

[Christina]

Yes. I would like to do this.

I'm in - I was kind of bummed that I couldn't do that audio thing, as I have no skills in that dept. Sending weird-ass stuff to friends, tarting up the envelope, etc etc ... that's all gone now. Hey, I"m starting to see more and more zines again, so maybe the time is right.

Here are mail-related anecdotes.

These are both great stories - I love them both!

[Martin]

I'm in!

[JustSheaNo]

In!

[Christina]

Yes. I would like to do this.

I'm in - I was kind of bummed that I couldn't do that audio thing, as I have no skills in that dept. Sending weird-ass stuff to friends, tarting up the envelope, etc etc ... that's all gone now. Hey, I"m starting to see more and more zines again, so maybe the time is right.

Here are mail-related anecdotes.

These are both great stories - I love them both!

What on earth did I do to the quote brackets here? I'm not THAT hungover.

[erechoveraker]

I like real world addresses - I mean IN!

[DoodleJump!]

Count me in!

[emma]

Yes! Please!

[Regular Joe]

I would like to participate in this. Another step towards FOTLabs tenure!

[JustNicole]

In!

[Trotskie]

In.

[KickTheBobo]

Cool! Glad you folks are up to it, but I wouldn't expect any less from such a fine community of individuals.

Signups will close at 9pm EST on Sunday. Any late signups will be added to the end of the roster. We may have to close signups after a period because the way that this will work is that the FIRST person will send something out, but will not receive anything until that LAST person sends one out.

I will be sending out a mass PM with details to come.

ktb

[senorcorazon]

Yes please! 2010 is for good things.

[KickTheBobo]

Hi folks,

Thanks for agreeing to participate, this should be fun. So, what I need you to do is send me your real life name and address to kickthebobo@gmail.com so i can put the preliminary list together. I will send out your assigned recipient and post the roster (sans addresses) to the board.

I am going to keep signups open for another week or so, just to be fair to those who maybe don't check the board that much. This means that the last person on the roster will not receive their recipient until signups officially close.

anywhoozle, I know that the only stipulation is that we keep this to standard legal envelope sized mailings. I would like to see what can be done within the 4 1/8" x 9 1/2" (10.4cm x 24.1cm) that is afforded to you. Maybe if we do another round we can open it up to more formats.

and yes, there are a few of you who will have to pay a little extra for International postage. If the extra $1 to send out a letter over the pond (ugh, did I really just say 'over the pond'?) then inform me and we can switch out your recipient.

oh, and you have 3 days from when you receive a letter to send one out. Be nice and abide by this to keep the lovelines flowing.

Please, keep all submissions PG-13. Okay, maybe a soft-R.