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November 07, 2007 |
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Running Away with Jacques Cousteau
FOUND by Susie Ghahremani
in San Diego, California
I found this tiny, bizarre Post-it note in a 1972 library copy of "The Whale: Mighty Monarch of the Sea" by Jacques Cousteau.
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Crucial Advice for ... May 23, 2007 |
If These Items Fit January 10, 2006 |
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
what a very formal goodbye for a runaway.
also, i'd like to be a mighty monarch of something someday. what could i be a mm of? hmm.
it sounds like principal skinner wrote it.
I think the lack of punctuation implies great urgency. This kid means business.
I always loved visiting Grandma... Por kid. My Grandma was the best.
So, shortly after the little runaway left for good, the godmother became interested in whales and used the note as a bookmark?
WTF?
L, nothing says "I'll never forget you, godchild" like sitting down with a good Cousteau novel.
"The Godchild: Mighty Monarch of the Streets"
I'd be a little peeved if I left my child with his godmother and she let him run away and then hid the evidence in a Cousteau book.
Just a tip: If you are running away and don't want anyone to stop you, it is probably not a good idea to leave a note warning them.
I guess this Godmother wasn't the Fairy Godmother.
Nightingale and Sean: This note isn't a warning, it's a cry for help written to someone who IS the Fairy Godmother but who is in denial about their godchild's unhappiness. Said godchild tucked the note in the bookd the FG was reading, to warn her: either take magic action, or I'm outta here! "Don't try and stop me!"--but oh, how I wish you would.
Makes me wonder, if "mother" is actually the wicked stepmother, and FG has been watching so many After-School Specials that she thinks everything will fix itself in 44 mins (with commmercial breaks).
Spam protection will be a total bummer for any Europeans not raised with English nursery rhymes...
Something seems so impersonal about calling your mom "mother". Just by that I picture a sterile, stern household where there's no laughing or cussing.
Mother: " Stay in the lines Catherine, what will people think?"
LOL Mel!
Somehow the formal tone and the fact that the child addressed it to his/her "Godmother" makes me think that this was not a real runaway note, but one used in pretend play. I like it, it's cute!
Perhaps said mother has found herself in trouble and told child to stay at said godmother's house until she can sort this mess out. Child wanting only to be with mother despite the trouble she has found herself in and/or caused, defies this wish and takes off in persuit of said mother.
Godmother seeing this formal post-it having been posted to the front of her current library read, enters a state of panic and takes off looking for the child she is supposed to be watching. 2 months later, when mother, godmother and child are safely in Mexico (or Canada if you prefer) the land lord cleans out the Godmother's appartment and returns library book without ever seeing the aformentioned note.
-End Scene
It sounds like lyrics from an Everclear song. The title of the song would be "Godmother" I'm going to run away/I don't want to stay here/I don't care what motter says/I'm going/Don't try and stop me/
I'm guessing Art Alexikis has a new hit on his hands.
Well, well, well. Looks like our finder has her own Wikipedia entry. And the fact that she illustrates children's books makes me a little leery....but thanks for letting us know what book it was in. Date and all!
Turbo, Don't you think that literary types are just more likely to be in libraries, and observant of the minutaie in life? I mean, reading obscure books, realizing the import of 'finds', being a fan of found, etc. I think most of the people who like this site are those who are just to the left or right of normal. Those who don't float on a raft in the midstream, but find the tributaries just that much more interesting.
I think if this was a false post, she'd be more creative about it, after all, she is an illustrator.
Wicked Godmother, don't want stay here!
I don't know mona, Turbo may be right, it does sound suspicious, you know those children book writers (especially those British) are always throwing in some evil stepmother or aunty. I know she’s from San Diego, but maybe she’s taking a page (pardon the pun) from across the pond.
yeah tori. this has the same tone as the notes i used to write when i was cookin up some drama with my dolls and stuffed animals as a young child.
My sister left this *almost* exact message when she ran away... except she left it on the message machine.
Hmmm... Turbo, you have piqued my interest. Perhaps Suzie IS a fraudulent find finder. Maybe she is the godmother holding some child captive.
i'm insulted that anyone would think i'd use Found fraudulently. i'm also insulted that anyone thinks my handwriting would be that atrocious.
I bet your handwriting is fabulous, Susie.
Maybe the godmother was actually very bad and after she sold the child to the gypsies, she wrote the note as a red herring to throw people off the trail. Godmothers can't always be trusted. Susie, however, is an upright and worthy pillar of the children's literature community and would never stoop to such machinations. Unless she was short of cash.
My deepest apologies, Susie. I am just a natural skeptic. No insults intended. And I bet your handwriting smells like roses.
This was obviously written by a 45 year old man trying to make a grandiose affair of his finally moving out of his mother's house. He actually had to sneak into his godmother's retirement home in order to stick this Post-It note to her giant tube of Fixodent.
This note disturbs me. It is, as others have mentioned, apparently a very cold household. What has been done to this child to make her crack? I hope it all worked well for her. And I hope her mother loosened up and allowed her child to call her mama.
Whiskey: Are you into Irish folk music?
Ok, I followed the link from her Wikipedia entry to her site and I looked for an illustration with non-cursive handwriting. The best I could find is under Buy Now: Recipe Cards. Her "s" usually has a big round top and a little bottom that trails away. This note has an angular top and the bottom curls up under. Not a match. Also, the artist's "u" has a "foot" on the right, the note does not. Not a match again. My conclusion, the note was not written by the artist.
Dear Godmother,
You haven't been a very good guardian. I'm too unhappy with the Prince, and I've fallen in love with my tutor. I don't care what my stepmother says, I'm not staying just because he's the Crown Prince. I want to be happy, not Queen. Don't try to stop me by using your magic, I won't be stopped.
- Cinderella
Nothing screams "Stop Me, Please, For God's Sake" like writing "Don't try to Stop Me"
I, too, think this was just part of some kids play/pretend.
I can't believe you can possibly think bad of this godmother. There's definetly something about the way this note that is obviously shouting "Meet me in Budapest in 2020, so that I'll have the chance to tell you how I missed you through all those years since I ran away"
Yes, it's all very deeply disturbing and Cinderella-esque. Good find.
I thought it looked like it was from a children's game, too. We used to play games that would involve a plot like this all the time.
I haven't thought any of the finds were creepy for a while, but Handwriting, I thought your coment was!
And hooray for Beth.
Dear resident authority figure,
You're ruining my life.
Back off.
Let me be free and spread my wings and fly.
What's for supper.
Let me be my own person.
Get me a beer woman.
I don't feel so good today, can I stay home.
This food tastes like shit.
You're starting to look more like grandma everyday.
Let me sleep.
What do you actually DO around here?
Thanks so much for your help.
Hold still while we blow a cap in yo face.
I find it interesting that the note writer got all but one of five apostrophes where they needed to go, but didn't do a darn thing with any other sort of punctuation.
curious.
Very sorry Suzie. But what can you expect? We speculate on everything. It wasn't serious anyway.
Chrome,
I just noticed that too. It took about four visits to the site today before they caught my eye, but those apostrophes are definitely suspicious.
The fact that the apostrophes were not omitted makes the all-around grim state of punctuation in this note seem contrived. I think their inclusion was merely an oversight.
LOL! I remember leaving my Mom a note like this and I took my suitcaes and filled it with stuff and then went and hid in the backyard and waited for her to come find me lol I mean I was like 6 where was I really gonna go :P I like this find :)
My cousin and I would "act" out stories or have soap opera fueled Barbie doll sagas. This note looks like it could be a little dramatic twist in a child's play scene.
I think it sounds like something a child copied out of another book, maybe for a book report, and then forgot that s/he had "parked" the post-it note on another book.
Note how the handwriting is so neat at the beginning, and then it gets really scrawly, like the kid didn't care anymore. Maybe it was a kid who played a game with her older sister or someone who happened to be reading the Cousteau at the time and who closed the book on it to join in the game. Somehow, I don't think a real runaway note would be written on a sticky note- kids get their inspiration from movies when writing these notes, and the movie notes are always on a clean sheet of blue-lined paper, or a torn page. Not a sticky note. I do agree that this is very creepy though...
woah! flargy! im a fan, dude. u rule on FOUND! lol, sorries. i obviously go on FOUND too much...! anyway, i feel awful for this kid. imagine feeling so mad, or sad or helpless that you have to write this sort of note and even follow through with the actions said in the said note. poor little guy. or girl. XD
I love that song Mother Mother by Tracy Bonham.
I hate to be a party pooper bt something about this just screams fake
People please stop writing LOL, I mean it.
Shooters in the Hall's comment is a little creepy given the shooting in that high school in Finland. Hmm...not a funny tragedy.
lol tang!!! but seriously i get your point...of all the times i've seen lol on message boards, chat rooms, etc, and even when my kids do the lol thing on aim you know that no one is really "lol". its just like a nervous habit or lack of anything else witty to say. and my not-computer-savvy friend thought it meant "lots of love" lololol
Tang, I'm elling oh ell at your comment.
I laughed out loud at Tang's comment, because I am guilty of typing "LOL", but I only write/type it when I've actually laughed out loud at what I've seen, read, or written. I'd been using various other abbreviated phrases in my journals for years before the whole internet speak came into being. (IDK, OMG, OMFG, FWIW... LOL wasn't among them)
Hey, at least I don't SAY "LOL" in conversation, like I've heard some people do. (yet.. dun dun duunnnnn)
I've come to the conclusion that writing LOL in a message is the new cyberequivalent to the verbal tic "you know" or "right". People just put it in to mean "I am mildly amused." While ROFLOL can mean "That is really funny" and LMFAO means "this actually made me laugh when I read it."
The vibes I get from the Find are deadly serious. I would have said it was written in the 1940s or 50s except that it's on a Post-It note (when were they invented?).
Sounds to me like a seriously scared and repressed little girl (or maybe not so little) who has made up her mind to get out whatever the risks or consequences, but is well brought up enough to address her mother and godmother formally, as they would expect.
Hope she was OK. Perhaps she'll see this and let us know, 35 years on.
Tang:
lol, sorry.
:D
check out Nick's note: http://foundmagazine.com/find/788
ha ha ha*, Jason, when I saw this find, yours was the first that sprang to mind. I couldn't remember when it was the Find of the Day, though. Thanks for the link!
*doing my level best to curb my use of "LOL". For Tang's sake. Cuz I really like Tang. It's the orangey drink the astronauts drink.
Post it notes were invented in the 70s (I think...) I still think it's weird that it was written with a black crayon....
LOL principal skinner!!! good one nicko
Something I thought of when I read it was that kids usually go to their godparents after the death of a parent (on a permanent basis, anyway) which could mean that the kid had gotten a speech about how their mother had wanted them to stay with the godmother so that they would be well cared for, but the kid's not wanting any of it. Who would?