I always wanted to hide copies of Piano Rats around the city and leave it up to fate who found them. Today, I officially made an effort with eleven books. The books went super fast (20 minutes?) on Milwaukee Ave. Within 1 minute, two people in heavy gold chains and shiny sneakers snatched them up and exclaimed “CAN’T KEEP A FUCKING SECRET!??”
Several hipsters passed by, picking them up and slipping it in their back pockets. Lots of people took pictures. Lots of people almost stepped on them. Then, a dude stood over the remaining few FOREVER, smoking a clove and skimming through some pages… I thought he was kind of cockblocking the books so finally I snuck over to him and said hi. He told me he worked for the tribune and had a Bukowski tattoo that said “What matters most is how well you walk through the fire” which is one of my favorite books, no joke. Then I met a “philosopher” with a dead tooth and large belt buckle (he was still kind of cute) who pulled out a notebook and told me he was writing a story on the realism of the universe. There were lots of charts on the notebook I didn’t understand. I told him “good luck” and he took a book.
I returned to my hiding spot a few feet away just as some gorgeous blonde lady in a fancy car pulled up. She saw my set up, knelt down, ripped all the “free stickers” from the screen-printed bag Shawn Stucky helped me make, tossed the remaining 2 books on the ground, and disappeared back to her car with the totebag. That’s where my experiment ended.
read excerpts from Piano Rats here: http://issuu.com/frankielliot/docs/pianorats
