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Found Magazine

What:

Lost and Found.

Found Magazine founder/editor, Davy Rothbart was trying not to get lost when we called him last week. He and his songwriting/guitar-slinger brother Peter are on the road with Found’s Denim and Diamonds Tour. Waiting for a publisher’s shipment of copies of the new Found book, Requiem for a Paper Bag made them leave Houston late; it was a long way to the next stop, Little Rock, and a detour had thrown them off-course. Peter was at the wheel; Davy managed to navigate and talk at the same time.
It’s not quite a book tour — they’re selling the new one, but, says Davy, the show is not really based around the book (which BTW, is reviewed elsewhere in this edition). “I’ve been reading new finds people have sent in, and my brother has some new songs, and I’ve been sharing some new stories that I’ve been working on for This American Life [he’s a regular contributor to the NPR radio show]. I’ve usually been reading one or two stories from the book — Jim Carroll wrote one that’s kind of gross, but funny and deep in a weird way — I’ve been reading that one,” he noted.
Since Davy and company began the project with the first magazine in 2001, the Found empire has expanded to encompass four books, a CD, a 7-inch record, a spin-off magazine, Dirty Found (for R- or X-rated finds) and of course a website (www.foundmagazine.com).
There’s always been a steady stream of finds sent in by readers. They post one per day on the website. “We get maybe 100 or 200 a week; they all get sent to my folks’ house,” said Rothbart. “They live a few miles from me in Ann Arbor, so I just go by and pick up a crate of mail once a week. My mom will open up the more interesting envelopes, say if it comes from overseas or maybe someone decorated it. I told her it was fine for her to open the mail — it’s a lot of fun to do — but I asked her to do what I do: write a sentence or two on the outside describing what the find is and put stars on the best ones. Now when I pick up the mail, she and her friend who helps her have opened some of the mail and written something, but there’s always a few that are open but with no writing. Inevitably that’s like a Polaroid of someone’s dick or something only appropriate for Dirty Found.”
The latest addition to the empire: an Off-Broadway play based on Found stories opened over the weekend. Rothbart gave an improv troupe called Story Pirates a collection of found notes. “What they did was take the notes and try to imagine the story behind it,” said Rothbart, noting that the what’s-the-story-here? question is what makes Found work. “All the found notes are like fragments of stories. Each note is like a riddle where you try to fill in the blanks and guess the rest of the story. That’s what I love about it, the intrigue, and wondering about the lives of the people who lost the finds.”   
Doors open at 7:30 p.m. for Found’s Denim and Diamonds Tour Sunday, June 14, at the Arcata Theatre Lounge, 1036 G St. Admission is $5. Call 822-1220 for further details on the local show. (You’ll have to ask Davy why it’s called the Denim and Diamonds Tour.)
- Bob Doran

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