1000 Fields of Roses

Last week I participated in GISH – the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt.
It’s an annual event, run by Misha Collins, and attended by various people worldwide. The registration fee for GISH goes to charity, and the hunt itself consists of a list of items (over 200 this year). The items can be weird artistic endeavours, charitable acts, acts of kindness, or frequently a mixture of any of these… participants organise teams or are put into teams, and then collaborate to complete as many of the items as they can. The winning team goes on a trip; this year’s winners will go to New Zealand.
As this is my first year I did not know what I was getting myself into. I started confidently, though, until I came down with a virus towards the end of the first day… it’s possible that a dash of fever/delirium helped with brainstorming interpretations of items!

Here’s my efforts, in order of submission.

Item 27 – Beard garden
Biggest boy was very patient with me – it’s harder to thread flowers through a beard than you’d think. As he gave me the virus, though, I considered he owed me some patience…

Item 99 – Let’s see a close-up picture of your bowl of cereal (at that point when somehow you’ve managed to eat most of the floaty cereal and there’s only weird tasting milk left and a few odd shaped cereal pieces). But in this milky-sea, let’s see a scene from a hollywood movie: A tiny pirate ship battle ala Pirates the Caribbean, a bloody shark attack from Jaws, or that scene in the Titanic where Jack decided there was no way for him to get up on the piece of plywood with Rose (even though there clearly was).

Lego mini-figures don’t float. Surprisingly, neither do jelly babies.

Item 154 – A carnivorous plant, a severed finger or two on the ground nearby, and an adjacent sign that shows us the thought bubble of what the plant is thinking.

…involving a quick visit to Bunnings for a loan of a Venus fly trap.

Item 52 – Helicopter parents.

A visit to a friend – we told the boys to look exasperated. I think they did well.

Item 129 – Remember your favorite childhood book? Get a copy, write a note on the inside cover explaining why you loved the book so much, and gift it to a child

Borrowed a child from another friend – she liked her new book.

Item 88 – Banana blacklight messages. As all gishers know, bananas emit fluorescence as they decompose. Score the skin of a banana so that when it starts to brown, the edges, under blacklight, reveal a portrait of a really rotten political figure from history.

I don’t have a blacklight – this was rigged up using coloured sticky tape over the flash on my i-Pod camera. Not sure it worked completely…

Item 16 – Mis-quotes are so embarrassing! Everybody thinks Darth said, “ You are a part of the rebel alliance…” But what he really said was, “…the rebel appliance.” Show us how your toaster or vacuum helped vanquish the Dark side.

I had to google a lot to work out how to do some of these. This is my first attempt at editing a YouTube clip and adding music/sound.

Item 171 – CLUE: E tu, Caesar? wpvq ecguct, ngvvweg tgpfgt. pqv ocpa rgqrng mpqy vjku, dwv tqockpg vqicu ygtg cnn vjg tcig kp ecguct’u fca. nwemkna, aqw lwuv hqwpf c rcig htqo cp cpekgpv tqocp hcujkqp ecvcnqi. oqfgn c tqockpg ngvvweg vqic.

A caesar shift cipher, two letters back, which translates to –
Unto Caesar, lettuce render. Not many people know this, but romaine togas were all the rage in Caesar’s day. Luckily, you just found a page from an ancient Roman fashion catalog. Model a Romaine lettuce toga.

Lettuce is very difficult to sew or pin – it’s quite brittle and easily torn. This was achieved by pushing a straight pin through the spine of each leaf and the material, and being very careful draping it.

Item 164 – Bake a cabbage pie, then calculate volume of a single slice of the cabbage pie using Pi. Show your work.

From a Russian recipe. Surprisingly tasty.

Item 155 – Using only the contents of your spice cabinet, create a portrait of one (or all) of the Spice Girls.

For future reference – when “painting” with pepper and paprika, try not to inhale.
Spices used: Sporty – cinnamon, Ginger – satay (I didn’t have any ginger, and the colour was close), Baby – Himalayan salt, Scary – paprika (because it’s a scary spice!), and Posh – black pepper.

Item 92 – Chocolate love. Miniature chocolate bust sculptures of Misha and the Queen.

This is one of the items I’m most pleased with. I took ages to start it because I couldn’t quite figure out how to do it. My initial attempt was by melting the chocolate into two small glasses to serve as a kind of base and then carving it, but the chocolate was too brittle. I found a recipe for modelling chocolate which was fairly easy but very messy, and modelled the figures like clay. Just for reference –
This is Misha

This is the Queen

The likeness is uncanny 😀

Item 84 – It’s time we brought fore-edge fresco landscape painting into the 21st century. Create a fore-edge painting on a book’s leaves that is invisible normally, but at the proper angle reveals a scene from Supernatural.

For comparison, here’s the scene.

Item 153 – As you know, the latest nail trend is the Jared Pedi-lecki: paint your big toe to look exactly like Jared Padalecki, complete with tufts of real hair. Or, if this seems vile to you, you may do this with any of the Supernatural cast or any prominent politician or musician.

Now this one was… not good. It was a hurried, end of day thing. I had to chop off a chunk of hair, too!
This is Jared Padalecki – he’s an actor in Supernatural (as is Misha).

Final submission – done about midnight on the last night. I’m quite pleased with this one, as well, even if it’s not perfect. Castiel is Misha’s character on Supernatural.

Item 162 – A painting of Castiel alive in the time of dinosaurs. (You may do this with traditional media or digitally.)

Pretty much every item started with me thinking it was terrible and wondering how I was going to finish it. I originally thought I would only be able to do about five, but that expanded over the week. I’m pleased. And tired.
Time for some sleep!