What do I do now?
admin posted in Uncategorized on July 20th, 2007
The story of the BITWRATHPLOOB is told in the posts on this site. If you are curious about what it is, where it came from, why it exists, what’s going on with its hair and so forth, please read the posts, visit the Flickr group, and see the FAQs page. However, if you have come to this page because the BITWRATHPLOOB has come into your hands, here are a few things you need to know.
Firstly, the BITWRATHPLOOB belongs to no one. It cannot be owned, and if you are entertaining any ideas of keeping the BITWRATHPLOOB, disabuse yourself of them right now. You can think of the BITWRATHPLOOB as a chain letter made manifest in wood, rope, felt, and troll-hair. If you keep the BITWRATHPLOOB longer than necessary to complete your mission, great woe will betide you.
What are you supposed to do with the BITWRATHPLOOB? Your mission is this:
- Photograph the BITWRATHPLOOB. Take pictures of him (it?) with your dog, your boyfriend, your kids, your car.
- Place him on the mantle for a few days and imagine what it would be like to have it staring at you for the rest of your life. Thank whatever external forces you believe in that the BITWRATHPLOOB was not a gift from a relative who visits and asks you why you are not displaying it.
- Above all, though, photograph the BITWRATHPLOOB in some setting which is emblematic of where you live. Put him in front of the Gateway Arch if you live in St. Louis, or the Kremlin if you are in Moscow. Take the BITWRATHPLOOB for a ride in a Venetian gondola or on the Buenos Aires Subte. Let him see the pyramids along the Nile, or watch the sunrise on a tropic isle. Just remember, baby, all the while, the BITWRATHPLOOB will be moving on. Let your temporary possession of the BITWRATHPLOOB be a colorful thread in the tapestry that is his (its?) eternal global journey.
- Upload the pictures to the BITWRATHPLOOB’s Flickr group, enjoy previous pictures, and acquaint yourself with where he’s been and who has had him.
- Log in to this website (contact a former custodian of the BITWRATHPLOOB if you don’t already have a log-in) and write a short entry about your time with the BITWRATHPLOOB. Please include a photo, and be sure to state clearly where you (and the BITWRATHPLOOB) are.
Now it’s time to pass him on. The next recipient of the BITWRATHPLOOB needs to meet a few key criteria:
- Reasonably reliable. This means the person will have the minimal organizational skills to complete the mission as outlined above and pass it on. We can’t have the BITWRATHPLOOB ending up in the back of someone’s closet because you chose your lazy college roommate who doesn’t know where the post office is.
- Somewhat tech-literate. Each guardian of the BITWRATHPLOOB will need to know how to work a camera, log in to a blogging platform, access Flickr, and so on. If your great-aunt can’t do these things without training, don’t send him (it?) to her.
- Geographically appropriate. The goal here is that theBITWRATHPLOOB is to circle the globe and visit as many distinct places as possible, so priority should go to a person (meeting the above criteria) who is in a country, state, or province the BITWRATHPLOOB has yet to visit. Check the map pages (nations of the world here; U.S. states here; Canadian provinces here). If you get stuck consult previous custodians; we’ll be maintaining a database of potential BITWRATHPLOOB recipients in far-flung corners.
- Appropriate sense of humor/horror. Don’t send the BITWRATHPLOOB to someone who wouldn’t understand it or, heavens forfend, want to display it proudly.
Finally, a tradition has been growing which involves including toys, gifts, local trinkets, etc. in the box you package the BITWRATHPLOOB in, so think about stuffing something in to soften the addressee’s horror at opening a box to behold a bucktoothed rope-armed troll-haired pantsless wood bear.
Oh, and one last thing. Don’t forget to mail the head. It comes off rather easily.