THE. BOX. IS. CRAZY.

Things that happened in the box before noon on Thursday:

*While we were sleeping, Kris Neely hid a piece of art near the windows. We got a note in our drop box that it has been found by two people with the initials E.B. and M.T.

*An older gentleman who lives on the North Side of Spartanburg, but has not come down to the downtown in years stopped by and told us that he read about this in the paper and it inspired him to come check it out. “I’m surprised at all the changes down here,” he told us. He left us five dollars in our drop box.

*I had a really pleasant conversation with Harry and Mary Miller, who moved to Spartanburg last year after fifteen years working for an American University in Egypt. He is most likely coming by tomorrow to make art and show art in front of the box.

* A woman named Becky came by and gave us a gift certificate from her and her son for free lunch at Zaxby’s once we’re out of the box.

*Mr. Bucko Brandt bought us a box of Krisy Kremes!

*Channel 4 came to get a little piece of the action

*Philip Belcher took our sushi order and brought us each a roll.

*Lydia brought us a superlong peacock feather. An anonymous donor brought us a sweet binder.

*Jan, who turns 67 today and is still looking great (Happy Birthday Jan!), left us her simple pleasures in the drop box in response to our prompt: “a beautiful day, beautiful smiles, sharing your lives.”

I think all this morning activity really set the mood for the entire day. Even though the morning was clearly the busiest part of our day, it seemed as though there was always a steady stream of people to talk to. I did not anticipate how tiring it was going to be, talking to so many people. I just hope we are being good hosts.

The Box as a Way of Life:

I can see how life in the box can get exhausting, and the longer we are in here, the harder it is going to get. This thing is taking on a life of its own; I see Rachel and I struggling to retain some sense of normalcy and still stay within the rules. The three one-hour meal breaks have turned into sanity breaks—the things we absolutely must do so we don’t lose it. Eating has become something we sacrifice. Either people bring us things, or we make sandwiches from the fridge in the back. There really is not time for unrelated art in the box. Simply staying involved in box life has become a full-time job. So much so that Rachel and I were actually anxious yesterday, oppressed by all of the box things we had to arrange, and before a certain time. What’s funny is that these things are so far from any reality that it is hard to remember what they are once they are over and done. In this way, the box has taken on an objective that the “Mission Statement” or any other purpose soundbyte could have never anticipated: the experiment of the whole thing, the practice of altering your reality in a drastic way and entering a new one, with a new rhythm and new rules. I have become most interested in this element of the whole thing.

Activities:

“In The Box” was really not so hoppin’ as an activity. We put frames on the windows and asked people to put something up to them for us to draw/write about. We only had a few takers, which was a little disappointing because it was so active around here yesterday morning. It has been disappointing in general that a lot of people, though they seem to be getting a kick out of being voyeurs in this experience, are reluctant to get involved themselves. Why is that?

Although, when we started this thing, we said that if we got even five people to participate in every event, it would be a success. Our goals have naturally expanded because there have been so many more passers-by than we anticipated, but I think we should keep that in sight. We did have five participants for this in the end.

“Sound Booth” was fun. Rachel and I rolled down her curtains and hid, with a headset. It was connected to a speaker out on the street. There was also a mic out there. So we could converse, blindly, with whoever was outside. We played a lot of word games—the kind where you make a story from each person offering a word, or a sentence. We sang “Row, row, row your boat” in a round. We read from Harper’s, from travel books, from ghost books, from Miranda July, from VIBE Magazine (provided by Ken Culver earlier in the day, Thanks Ken!). The highlight though was asking someone to sing a song they were embarrassed to know all the words to. Heather sang “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” (if you don’t recognize the song from the title, trust me, you know it, you just don’t want to). It ruled.

Other Tidbits:
Sleeping in the box has been better than expected. Nothing invasive or uncomfortable, although Wednesday night there was a very loud knock at some point and I was too scared to look so I just ignored it. There was also hammering over the window around 6, and there was window washers squeegeeing at 8. They were reluctant to clean the windows when they realized we were sleeping in there, but I think they thought it through and decided that it was their job. Last night was fine– I didn’t sleep as well as I did the night before. Around 2 am I heard someone scream in the loudest, scariest voice I ever heard “I HATE YOU!” On a closer listen, he wasn’t talking to us, but fighting with his friend over shotgun.

When I woke up yesterday morning, in the my pajamas, in the window, it was a little surreal. When I first walked outside to the enter the studio I overheard a woman explaining this whole thing to her friend. “It’s like reality TV,” she said. Reality TV, performance art, whatever. There’s usually only a very fine line.

Thanks to everybody who brought us things, to Mark Ferguson and Hoondirt. Thanks to Casey and Palmetto Sound for setting up our sound activity. Thanks to everyone who’s come to visit for your interest.

I will leave you with these things:

SINK + SHOWER = LOVE

Baby Missile (from our image diagram):

And two responses to the simple pleasures prompt left in the drop-box:

“Walk on the grass @ GSP [Greenville-Spartanburg Airport]. It is positively sinful” with a little drawing of bare feet on grass.

“Gum– sweet and juicy. What’s more simple than that?” left with a stick of Wrigley’s.

One More Thing:
The drop-box prompt for today is Your Parents. I like this one so much that I am encouraging email drop-box submissions with any musings in the subject.