The Great Odd – Performance Art Piece

This month at the Walking Gallery in Pomona Ca. I brought out the Great Odd and had the public ask me any questions they wanted. The Great Odd is character my wife and I created to reside in a box and answer questions, similar to the Wizard of Oz. We had some technical issues at times but the majority of the night things went off without a hitch.

I was trying to come up with something for the June 2010 Walking Gallery. I wanted to do something where I would hand out fortunes. I wanted to give fortunes out that had a non-fortune on it. Just weird little quips for people to read and wonder what the hell is this? I was trying to think of a good delivery method for the fortunes and was drawing a blank. At a party in May I met with some of the other gallery participants and discussed what I wanted to do. They told me that someone else had done something similar the month previous when I was unable to attend. It was something like a stuffed animal that you had to reach up the ass and grab a fortune. Well I wasn’t going to top that delivery method was I?

Distressed I went to my wife and discussed my trouble with the fortune idea. She asked why I didn’t just dress up like a genie and give people fortunes verbally. That didn’t really do it for me. Then she suggested doing a God box where I could be inside and people could come to the window to ask me questions. I was a little hesitant at first but after some thought I came up with the idea of using a large cardboard box to sit in and answer questions.

I drove around looking for a big box from the department stores in my area with no luck. I wound up at Home Depot as my stop and was feeling a little let down since no one keeps their boxes anymore. I talked with customer service and they were nice enough to take my number to let me know if they got one in. I got a call that night that they had a box and I could come get it the next morning.

I had planned on working on this project for the whole week before the Walking Gallery but I had some family problems and was tied up all week. I had only one day to finish the box and get out to the gallery. Luckily my wife was down to collaborate with me on the “Odd Answers” box.

My wife has a knack for design and attention to detail. When she offered to team up with me and help build the box and help me bring people in to ask questions I was all for it. I wanted it painted gold but as for the rest of it I was up for her suggestions. She wanted me to create a name for myself so she could work on lettering. I wasn’t sure what name to use but my wife liked the idea of the wizard behind the curtain like the Great Oz, but we’re the Odd Family so how about the Great Odd? I loved it and she used that to create the lettering for “Odd Answers”.

We had very little time to get it setup. My wife printed the lettering and started working on the design while I went around and purchased paint and fabric. When I got back I painted the box gold and she added glitter to make it shine. We worked tirelessly to get the lettering cut out on black board and then cut the window and mount the fabric and the frame. We finished with an hour to get ready and find some dinner to eat. I piled all the stuff into the van and we were off.

For voice we had several options. I was originally going to use my megaphone so that it would sound like a drive through. Then my wife suggested using filters for the voice with my guitar pedals. I got out my delay pedal and my portable guitar amp, both battery powered, and tested it out in the kitchen. My little Digitech PDS1000 has held up strong over the years and gave me some good options to tweak my voice from within the box. All I needed was some extra batteries and we were good to go. I brought the megaphone as a backup, which was good because the batteries ran out and I had some issues in the dark and the megaphone was an awesome quick grab to use.

The biggest problem was that people couldn’t hear me. I mounted the small amplifier inside the box so that all sound would come out of the window and be more mysterious. My little Danelectro Honeytone was just not cutting it. People had to lean in and listen close due to the outside noise at the art walk. There were various bands and people talking so my wife had to help people by telling them my answers when they couldn’t hear me. It worked out ok but next month I want to get something more powerful and possibly mount it outside so that we can eliminate this problem.

I’m walking from the van to the staging point inside the box holding it above my head and looking out the window following my wife down the sidewalk. I realize that I cannot see well enough to make it safely through the city without having a guide. I really feel grateful that my wife is there with me. All of my stuff is packed in a Slayer saddle bag around my shoulder and my wife is carrying my chair walking in front of me so she can route me safely to my destinatios. There is a curtain clipped to the back of the box so that people cannot see me once I am inside. I believe we’re ready to go but I am nervous. Will I be able to come up with funny answers to entertain people quickly? Am I going to pull it off for the whole night? Whatever may come I am down to try and make it work.

It went fine, more than fine, I loved it. All the people asking questions had a lot of fun with it. Some people came back and asked multiple questions. The first question I got was “What’s my name?” I didn’t know why they would ask something like this. I am not a soothsayer I am The Great Odd. I wasn’t sure how to answer but out of all the questions I got that one the most. I tried to come up with a name that matched how they looked. I also got a lot of questions about when the world was going to end, how is their love life going to be, when will they die. A few people asked some unique questions and I think I had the most fun with “What is the meaning of life?” All the answers seemed to be food based (I don’t know what that was about). I did not write down ideas it was all ad-lib and I liked the challenge of trying to come up with answers on the fly.

At the end of the one hour walk that the Walking Gallery takes we moved over to the booths where people sell handmade goods. My wife’s friend has a booth and she wanted to see the Great Odd but couldn’t leave her booth. We got mobbed there with a new set of people who hadn’t seen us on the corner or that just showed up. Then when we left to make the trek back to the car we got stopped twice by groups of young kids who wanted to ask more questions. By this time I was down to my backup device, the megaphone. I think that my answers got even better in the second hour of questions and the megaphone made it fresh for me because I could play around with the “Drive Through” feel of the voice coming out of the box.

When I was making my way on the last leg of my journey to the van I was being followed by a rambunctious group of teenage girls all yelling “What does he look like in there? Grab his ass! Pull the curtain off!” Right before I turned the corner one of them reached into the box past the curtain and grabbed my ass! If this wasn’t a success nothing would be.

My wife and I are working on ideas to dress up the box and resolve some of our technical issues with the sound system, but really it worked very well and we have to do it again. We are toying with the idea of jewels on the lettering and lights around the outside of the window. I am also looking for a louder battery powered speaker system to broadcast The Great Odd’s prognostications. If people cannot hear my answers then the whole process loses its power and effect. We have also been thinking of adding a donation slot for people to donate a little cash to the battery and decoration supply fund. We are both torn on this because I don’t want people to feel they need to pay for an answer. It may take away from the fun to have them feel like they need to pay or that we expect to get paid. I just want to do the art piece and see what happens and what the people want to know.

No matter what we’re gonna be back next month. We’re also thinking about finding some other places to pop the box down and answer some questions. I don’t think it would fly in just a standard location but that idea of "Will it work or not?" is very attractive to me. I would be interested in hearing from anyone reading this what they think I should do. Should I just start bringing the box to normal places with heavy foot traffic and try to get people to ask The Great Odd some questions? What would happen if I did this in a place that would not be used to weird stuff happening on the corner? Those questions are for another day. Either way The Great Odd will return.