island94.org

My birthday is coming up on the 24th of November. Twenty-six. In the tradition of my friend Rebecca, below is a list of things I would like.

Intangibles can be emailed to me at bensheldon@gmail.com

Tangibles can be mailed to me at the address below (email me if you need postage/shipping subsidy):

GEO: 42.315195, -71.102057

Consumables (singular)

Please leave your name in the comments if you plan on getting me one of these, so I can take it off the list and not get a bajillion of them.

1. Sack of beans for pie crust pre-baking (ie, I want the SACK, not necessarily the beans)
2. Colorful ~4 cup teapot (not kettle) with tea strainer
3. Banana Fruit Case (a lightweight case for carrying bananas unscathed)
4. Silicon Baking Mat (for cookies, etc.)
5. Ceramic loaf pan

Consumables (multiple)

1. Small ~1″ buttons— fun, emblamatic or colorful… but not ironic
2. 1.5-2″ ribbon (~2 feet worth) for brim of hat
3. Multicolored v5 pens (red, yellow, green, etc.)
4. Loose mint, kukicha, jasmine tea
5. Smartwool socks (medium and heavy weight) for normal size foot (US 10½)
6. Small wind-up toys

Mixed Media

1. The name of a book (or a physical copy if you’re feeling generous) you like that is about (or contributes to a better understanding of) design, color theory, visual literacy or with magical realist (basically any spectacle that gives you giddy chills) themes
2. A drawing of a bicycle (or other bio-motivated vehicle) you love or would love to have
3. A sticker, postcard or primary scrap that represents or espouses an idea or ethos you both believe in and would defend to your grandma (or equivalent old-timey values stereotype… and no irony: it’s too complicated and she wouldn’t find it funny anyways—she’d tell you to say what you mean)
4. A picture of an animal (or animals) that you regularly see

Geo-Contextual Bonus

Find a public spot in your neighborhood or regular route. Compose a short (~300+ word) real or imagined anonymous first-person narrative that begins “On this spot, …” (update: I removed the requirement to write the statement in the first-person.) Write the narrative such that it gives a potential reader the same sense of hope, wonder, and authentic symbolism that you would have should you, on that very spot, look down to find a fresh copper penny heads-up and, picking it from the pavement, find a perfectly minted heart upon the other side… and then putting it back on the ground, heads-up, for someone else to discover (i.e. write a story whose reading equates to that experience, not a story retelling of such an experience). Securely post with tape or staples your story to that spot in an easily viewable place. Send me the location (street address or cross-streets), a photograph of the posted story, and a copy of the story.)

The message and photo above was taken by my friend Rebecca and features Mabel.

My friend and coworker Rebecca made an extensive list of things she’d like for her birthday. I really like her rationale:

my list is all about ‘you’ because I’m curious who will answer, what you will come up with, and because it will mean that on my birthday I’ll be thinking about people thinking about me, which is a cozy thing to think about.

So here I am and all the best on your twenty-third…

a picture of your shadow

a recording of you reading a poem, singing a song, or saying a sentence

Pint Pot and Billy From Eureka: The songs that made Austrailia compiled by Warrent Fahey. Version as sung by Cyril Duncan of Hawthorne Queensland. Recorded in one-track with Garageband and my MacBook’s built-in mic.

a sentence with a word you like

Seven knights drove up to Flushing.

a description of a tree you know

I know a family of trees on a block along my jogging route in my neighborhood. Jamaica Plain is known to be full of trees, but usually the varieties are pretty well mixed. On this block though, a whole grove of Ginkgo trees grows, or as close to a grove as you can get in urban Boston.

The trees are all about 20 feet tall with rough gray bark. In the spring and summer they are deep green. In the Fall they all turn a self-conscious bright yellow, in contrast to the other trees’ reds and oranges.

One tree in the grove is set back off the street. It has a wound on its sunset side. The tree is also female, the only one, and is neighbor to the grove’s lone outsider: a juvenile Callery Pear that is always losing branches.

an mp3 of a song you like

Greatest Gatsbees(mp3) by (famous band) Houseguest. Goes great with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Wolf Parade.

a video of you eating a cookie

a drawing of your mittens/gloves

the html hex or rgb of a color you like

20 212 74 or #14D44A