Fridaynight, 3rd of December 04. There are rare moments of real life wikis. I just had one.
A bar here in Venice. Very small, a narrow lane outsides, a little hidden, close to Rialto. "Osteria alla botte", there is a barrel standing besides the door (botte = barrel). I like many of the people who go there regularly, and I go there pretty often myself. Since a while this bar is non-smoking - I mean: there has always been some life outsides on the 8 meters of the narrow lane left and right of the entrance door, but eversince it turned to non-smoking life basically moved out onto the lane, no matter if it's winter or foggy (or even if it's raining). You buy a drink insides, then you go out again. Those staying insides are mostly tourists anyway. These few meters of the lane are ours, and whoever has to trespass them has a difficult time as actually walking right through our bar. I've many times wondered why these few meters are so special, so lively, so "wiki". They really are in no way especially inviting. It's just that the bar is there and all these people keep returning back there and that it's fun to stand there, outsides in the lane, with a drink in your hand. I've many times whished, I could make someting like these few meters real-life online. In virtual-life. In wiki.
Today now was special.
Simone is a pretty big guy who has a charming way with women. He's pretty creative in the community, they have a newsletter about local party stuff too, he's attaching weird manifesto on the walls around the bar and helps organizing the karaoke-sessions that are held there once in a while. I do not participate in these activities much as I feel I do not have the time for it, but I somewhat make part of this hoard. An hour a day. Or two ("La botte" is closed on thursdays).
It was early this evening today when Simone tore out a roll of scotch-tape. He securely attached the end to the grip of the drawer of the bar's window a little above our heads and he tore the tape down moving over to the opposite wall about 2 meters away. Half of the people passing that lane come to enter the bar actualy. Simone moved up his tape barrier whenever people were passing. Crazy guy. That was the beginning.
Being into charming women Simone recently uses little fluorescent stickies, you crack them in the middle and they make green light for some hours. He usualy puts them in his mouth to greenishly smile to women (which impresses some of 'em more than you might think of in the very first moment). He took a light-stick, activated it and attached it to the middle of the tape he was holding. Now there was kind of a magnificient light on a fairly invisible tape hovering over the lane. More people were arriving and had to pass the barrier. That's when the thing caught attention. 20 people in the the lane maybe.
On the opposite side of the lane is a little window. Attaching the end of the tape there the weird light moved up above or heads. Again: Scotch-tape spanned across the lane, a fluorescent light stick attached to the middle of it, enough people around.
I do not remember exactly how it started. But out of a sudden everybody contributed, attaching the weirdest things to the tape and everybody was watching how it changed, it was a real-life "recent changes" place catching all our attention: a rose Simone had bought from one of the passing-by rose-seller, handkerchiefs, bon-bons, an olive on a stick, keys, a glas, an aspirin, a used flight ticket, 5 €, long rizzlas and even a piece of "something" got attached there within few minutes. For quite a while nobody looked anywhere else than at our collective piece of art anymore. Strangers stopped and searched their pockets for objects to attach. Collective applause. The "recent changes" had banned us. I felt the story and rushed home fast to get back with a camera. 15 minutes of a walk. When I retured a second tape had just been spanned.
Later the precious contents carefully got removed from our common "thing" (not to destroy it but for moving it to better places). It was all perfectly wiki. There had been no original intention to do it, it just happened by itself, everybody had joined in, it had been fascinating to see it evolve for everybody and the final results partly even got elaborated further on better places in the end (like the rizzlas for example).
Somebody asked me if the condom that I had attached to the tape actually has been a used one (which it hadn't, naturely). "Anni e anni e anni fa", I answered. "Ma lo ho lavato." (- years and years and years ago. But I washed it).