This is an excerpt from the email I sent out to approximately 30-odd people (as opposed to 30 odd people, although I'm sure some of them would cop to being a little odd):
With your input, I will be creating a series of plaques to install throughout the city. The plaques will "commemorate" events in people's personal lives that occurred on the spots at which the plaques are installed. ...
By the end of the day on Monday, May 21, send me a short email explaining where you would want a plaque installed in the city, and what happened on that spot. Also include the date that it occurred. It can be anywhere within city limits. Ideally, it would be a place that isn't completely obvious (i.e., wouldn't attract immediate unwanted attention and be taken down by The Man or other authorities). ... I will (with your help) cull a short text for the plaques from your emailed stories.
I will pick five plaques from whatever people send me and have them professionally made. Further installations may be done, though, after this particular round of the project is over.
The plaques will be installed in a non-invasive fashion -- easily removed from questionable surfaces if necessary.
The response was delightful. Not only did a great deal of people immediately write back, but I had the pleasure of sifting through their stories -- funny, sad, wistful, odd (!), and intimate.
As an added bonus I'd given the email the subject line "You're beautiful", in attempt to shamelessly flatter recipients into lending me a hand, so imagine if you will the warm feeling of opening up your Yahoo! account and seeing a slew of "Re: You're beautiful"s in my inbox.
A big thanks to everyone who responded. As I said in the email, I hope to be able to do another installment of this project sometime in the near future, once dissertation is dissertated and I've taken a few deep cleansing breaths.
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