Anyway, I ordered a case of 288 rubber ducks on Wednesday in preparation for Tuesday's ducking.
On Thursday, I found a message left on my cell phone asking me to call back Kites, Tails and Toys.
Apparently, the yellow rubber duckies, which I can only assume are the most popular variety, were on back order and wouldn't get to me until May.
Well, fuck that.
So, we replaced the yellow rubber ducks with pink, blue and yellow plastic ducks.
They got to me the next day. Amazing how much bubble rap comes in a box of ducks.
So, we set out for the duck drop with a box of 132 ducks (they had to cut back to meet the price of the case of 288) and a package of sidewalk chalk.
One by one, we tossed the ducks into the fountain.
We soon realized that these ducks were not very adept swimmers. Despite the fact that the company alleged that the ducks were weighted, most of them floated on their sides. Corporate bastards.
We then began to chalk the fountain. Beforehand, I was asked what I thought it should say. I suggested the standard slogan, "What is GALL?" coupled with the meeting time and place.
Shockingly, I was met with scoffs of disapproval. We settled on various duck references and puns.
Becky wrote "Keeping free art afloat."
Chris wrote "In case of air raid: duck" referencing our previous social experiment.
I wrote "What is GALL?" and the meeting time and place...
After a couple of minutes observing our handy work as we are wont to do (for like a half hour), we noticed two things:
1) Plastic ducks tend to form social cliques
2) There are always a few emo ducks that try to escape
The first observation, I found to be quiant: plastic ducks interact much in the same way that high schoolers and foreign nations do.
The second observation I was more or less fine with. However, Chris was upset by the idea that ducks might tend toward the side of the fountain. So during our half hour of idle observation, Chris assumed the position of a duck herder (duckherd?), mother duck.
When, we returned the next day, we were greeted by orange and maroon balloons sharing fountain space. I completely forgot that the anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting was the 16th.
Of course, there would be something in the fountain, because in our post-9/11 world, we Americans like to relive tragedies for as many years as possible. I suppose it's like College Basketball teams striving for consecutive NCAA championship trophies.
I felt that the situation was a visual metaphor for theatre in its representation of comedy and tragedy.
Because it was tragic that the ducks were floating on their sides.
Balloons always struck me as festive...
By night, only two ducks remained in the fountain.
--Mike Isaacson GALL President
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