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John and Chris Meet in the Middle

2014-02-25 (said on 2014-02-22 — implied: date said in the video; uploaded 3 days later) · documentary visit · John, Chris Waters · 3:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Personal life (also: Projects) · mode: Personal update · tags: guest or collab, on location, self promotion, civic or action cta

John and his best friend Chris do The Art Assignment's first assignment, meeting at the exact geographic midpoint between them in a forest in Indianapolis; John finds it an adventure they would never otherwise have had.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Phone call: John and Chris agree to do the meet-in-the-middle; John will bring a book, Chris a snack

  • ★ On the phone John and Chris agree to do 'this meet in the middle thing'; John offers to bring Eugenia Price's Beauty from Ashes if Chris brings a snack. — 00:00:05

00:00:33 — Sarah's PBS show The Art Assignment has premiered; John's assignment is to meet a friend at the exact midpoint

  • ★★★ John announces that Sarah's new PBS show, The Art Assignment, has just premiered: she visits working artists around the country, gives art-historical context, and they set an art assignment. — 00:00:36 · Sarah Urist Green, The Art Assignment
  • ★★★ John's assignment: pick a friend and meet that person at the exact geographical midpoint between them; he and his best friend Chris chose each other and must get there by 2 o'clock. — 00:00:47 · The Art Assignment
  • ★★ To viewers wondering how this is art, John says they should watch the first episode of The Art Assignment. — 00:00:53 · The Art Assignment

00:01:03 — John and Chris hike to the midpoint: public vs private space, forest in the middle of Indianapolis, thick brush, Chris spots John

  • ★★ Chris Waters: Chris asks whether art is just some guy hiking with his dog to arbitrarily meet a friend he made an appointment with three hours ago; he finds it exciting and nerve-racking. (playful) — 00:01:05
  • ★★★ John says the assignment makes him think about public and private space: on one side of a fence the trees belong to someone, on the other side to everyone, which is odd. — 00:01:19
  • ★★ John marvels that he is right in the middle of Indianapolis, a city of one million people, and yet it is just forest. — 00:01:33 · Indianapolis
    • check: one million — doubtful
  • ★ John says the brush was so thick that he would have given up if he didn't have to meet Chris, whom he didn't want to leave worrying. — 00:02:00

00:02:32 — The meeting: lunch, John gives Chris a book, both reflect on adventure and travel 200 years ago

  • ★★ John finds the place beautiful and the outing a cool thing that they would never have done otherwise. — 00:02:54
  • ★★ John gives Chris a book he thinks he will enjoy, Beauty from Ashes by Eugenia Price, whom Chris hasn't heard of; John affirms it is a good book. — 00:03:01
  • ★★ Chris Waters: Chris says the meeting made him think this is how people travelled 200 years ago. — 00:03:18
  • ★★ John adds that people then agreed to meet at a set time with no way to contact each other if they couldn't make it. — 00:03:24
  • ★★ Chris Waters: Chris says that the meeting made him feel like a kid again. — 00:03:28
  • ★★ Answering Chris, John says he hasn't felt that kind of sense of adventure since he was a kid, and that it's fun. — 00:03:31
  • ★ When Chris tells him he needs to get out more, John replies that the internet is its own kind of adventure. (playful, hedged) — 00:03:36

00:03:50 — Sign-off

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description invites viewers to join The Art Assignment and lists the rules: pick a friend, find the exact midpoint, agree a time, don't communicate until you meet, document and share it. — video description · The Art Assignment

Humor (significant)

  • Chris, filming, narrates John's arrival through the brush as Jeremiah Johnson or Davy Crockett, a frontiersman in a fancy Amsterdam jacket. — 00:02:17

    “Like a spry jungle cat springing in to the spring snow.”

  • Battered from the hike, John explains the idea behind his outfit. — 00:02:44

    “Like maybe a businessman who just got lost in the woods.”

  • John says he brought Chris a book; Chris admits what he expected. — 00:03:09

    “No, I thought it was going to be an unnecessary plug for The Fault in Our Stars.”

  • John says he hasn't felt that sense of adventure since he was a kid. — 00:03:34

    “You need to get out more.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Chris Waters · The Art Assignment

Also: Beauty From Ashes · Davy Crockett · Indianapolis · Jimmy John's · PBS · private property · The Fault in Our Stars · Williams Creek

Only in the description or credits: Eugenia Price · Sarah Urist Green

Also centred on Chris Waters: How I Made Friends

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