Subject: I just made 115 jars of blackberry jam...
From: Misha <[email protected]> Date: August 12, 2017 at 5:51:49 AM EDT
My beloved,
Congratulations! You made it! The week is nearly at an end and we’ve arrived together at the end of this, the very last gishwhes-as-we-know-it.
Over the years, gishwhes has grown from a lark into something I never imagined it could be when we started, (and not to brag, but I have a pretty expansive imagination). But you—the gishwhes community— have turned this lark into something unexpected. gishwhes is the embodiment of gestalt; thanks to you, it really has become greater than the sum of its parts. Over and over you’ve proven that you could rise to the most absurd challenges. We’ve seen nuns dangling off rope swings and vinyl Castiel toys ascending into the heavens, hang-gliding stuffed animals and gravity-defying sandwiches. This week alone we’ve seen courage and crushed buses, cinematic acts of generosity, and more underwater board meetings and choirs with exposed gums than I’d ever expected to encounter in my lifetime. Over the years, we’ve also proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that there’s nothing you guys can’t do with a little hot glue, some imagination, and enough menstrual hygiene products. For that knowledge alone, I’ll always be grateful. I know it's been a rewarding and, I know, trying week at times for all of us; I just finished making 12 blackberry pies, 115 jars blackberry jam, and 20 square feet of fruit leather, and I still have more than 25 gallons of berries that I'm trying to find ways to contend with.
Not too shabby for a lark. You did well, and I’m honored to have been your cruise director on this strange little voyage.
As we head into the last day of the Hunt, a lot of you are wondering “Okay, Misha, what’s next?” I'm glad you asked. Rest assured, there issomething coming. I’ll tell you more soon, but in the interim, rest assured: you can’t get rid of such a strange and world-upending thing as gishwhes so easily. Meanwhile, we've got a lot to do still. After the Hunt there will be FEGVEP, our first-ever gishwhes volunteer extraordinare program to help with reviewing submissions, that you can take part in. There will be our judging and, of course, a winner and a winners’ trip. There will be sortiing out the future of Dancescape, Fiona Sargeant's dance school in South Africa that you've raised $150k for (and counting!)... Then, there will be the something new... but we’ll talk more about that later. I’m excited. I hope you are, too.
So thanks. Thanks for the stomach cramps I got from laughing too hard at all of your submissions. Thank you for more blackberries than any one man has a right to call his own, and above all, thank you for joining me on this weird, wild adventure time and time again.
The future is calling us, and it’s full of promise as we take things next-level. I can’t wait. Are you ready? Let's do this.
Your friend and eternal co-conspirator,
Misha
The Gishwhes Historian is a project to archive Gishwhes-related information including emails, hunt updates, timelines, and more.
If you’d like to help, we have a list of missing content here, or you can fill out one of our surveys.