October 9, 2002
'Found' provides new life for lost objects
Magazine comprised of found letters, lists
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Found magazine is a snowballing phenomenon.
Creator Davy Rothbart was in Traverse City last Thursday evening, keeping an audience of 30 people in stitches as he read from his finds: letters, poems, angry notes, school reports, photos, Hollywood pitches and resumes.
Tapping into a vein of compassionate voyeurism, Rothbart said his innumerable finds over the years are educational as well as entertaining.
"I just read a short love note from someone and I don't know the person writing it or the person getting it, but you get a powerful sense of the people," said Rothbart, an Ann Arbor resident. "In so many of these notes, people who may seem to be living a different type of life are grappling with the same type of things. I may pass them on the streets and think they are very different from me but we are all concerned with love and relationships and things like that."
Rothbart came to Traverse City as part of a 45-city tour promoting his magazine and trolling for other items to include in future issues. After years of finding items almost everywhere he went, Rothbart decided to compile his discoveries into a magazine that he simply titled Found. From 50 copies to 800 copies to 5,000 copies, the magazine began hooking readers into the concept.
Who could say no to a magazine detailing the mundane and celebrating the obscure: a shopping list stating roach spray, batteries, watermelon; a four-page play that is missing page 3; a tedious travel diary of a Hawaiian islands vacation.
"I think it is sort of a noble act, giving new life to what others would see as trash," said Rothbart, noting some of the best places to find items are near schools, especially college campuses, copy shop recycling baskets. "I do get excited by these found notes; when I find a notebook in the train station or when I see a letter blowing around on the street, I know I am going to have an interesting half hour getting to know someone."
Sometimes notes are left in the wrong place, like the time Rothbart got an vitriolic letter obviously meant for a cheating boyfriend left on his car by mistake. Or when a friend in Ann Arbor came home after a late night of work and found a note saying 'It's a Girl!' carefully preserved in a Ziploc bag.
"He wracked his brains for hours that night, couldn't sleep, trying to figure out who sent it," Rothbart said, noting his friend finally decided the note was meant for someone else.
Finds are not always keepers, Rothbart has discovered over the years. In fact, about one in five found items is a jewel worth hanging on to. The rejects he quietly puts back near to where he discovered them or throws them away.
"It's the height of recycling," declared Tina Tank, who was so intrigued by the Found Magazine concept that she ventured in from Power Island to see Rothbart.
Tank considers herself an avid finder and keeper of things and that Rothbart is a kindred soul.
"I could have a museum with my stuff," she said. "The problem is I'd need a system for cross-filing things."
Encouraging anyone to send him finds, Rothbart said that he holds a loose definition of what constitutes a find. An item does not necessarily have to be blowing in the wind down a street to qualify.
"Sometimes people are very determined, they will go through a dumpster," said Rothbart, who declared his little brother, Pete, a champion finder. "You don't have to go to those extremes, it is more a matter of being aware of what's around you."
Members of the audience also brought along items that they had found to share with Rothbart. Traverse City resident Jan Baty found a recipe for Norwegian Apple Pie in the store recently and brought along the results for sampling. A man named Pat shared how he had found on a daily walk a Bob Evans restaurant nametag with his name on it, a pleasing find.
Jenee Rowe likes the spontaneity of found items and said she has a number of interesting items to send to Rothbart, found while she was in Arizona.
"I like the idea of enlivening what you've found on the ground," she said. "It speaks a little bit to the found art movement."
With the second issue of his magazine just released, Rothbart admits that finding is a state of mind. The treasures will keep coming, he said, if you let them - like a draft of a relationship-related e-mail recently found on an (unused) airline airsickness bag.
"You do go through slumps," acknowledged Rothbart, who has people ages six to 90 sending him stuff. "The thing to do is not to let it get to you and just keep trying. Sometimes you have superstitions about where to find things."