Love and Creativity

December 11, 2006 9:59 PM

Inspired by this Mefi post: Do you know of any other creative declarations of love?

They could be from the media (books, movies, TV, etc), or something you've personally experienced, or just something you've heard of.

I love creative ideas like these and am rather inspired to try something like this out (perhaps not a graffiti trail, but something similarly inspiring) so any ideas are great - sky's the limit.

Thanks!

posted by divabat to Grab Bag (16 answers total)

Van Gogh surprised a prostitute with his severed earlobe, professing his love. Now that's creative.

Write a number of love poems/notes, or find small, interesting/beautiful objects (colored glass, antique carved chess piece, go nuts) place them into invidual envelopes with the dates you want the person to open them on. Or tell them to open one anytime they've had a bad or stressful day.

The prolonged scene in Amelie (movie) where she leaves progressive instructions for the stranger to follow is cute and could easily be adapted for personal use. At the end of the trail -- you! -- with a picnic/key to your hotel suite/airplane tickets/bottle of champagne/whatever.
posted by empyrean at 10:32 PM on December 11, 2006

I flew from Australia to America when she didn't know about it. She was directing a play and I walked out on stage after rehearsal ended. I was going to say some romantic line from the play but completely blanked out with this wonderfully weird joyous thing that happened when I saw her.
posted by twirlypen at 10:36 PM on December 11, 2006

This is not quite the grand scale of the post you mention but, my SO used to leave little notes on my car at work if he was in the neighborhood. It thrilled me. He still puts little notes and pictures in my purse, etc. It still thrills me.

Maybe I'm easily thrilled ;)
posted by Kloryne at 10:36 PM on December 11, 2006

There are some good examples in Yayhooray's The Specialness of Handmade Things threads: one and two.

I made this book of interpretations of Tool lyrics for my mother's birthday one year. I thought it'd only take me a few weeks but it wound up taking a full seven months.

It might be time to start hatching some new ideas for a present for my wife. Hmmm...
posted by eek at 12:16 AM on December 12, 2006

My girlfriend and I live in Vienna, Austria. She visited her family in Villach last week, and I wanted to do something romantic for her when she returned.

I made a nice card with her name, "Special Delivery" and "Time-Sensitive Information" on the envelope and took a train toward Villach as she was riding on a train back to Vienna. I disembarked from my train about an hour outside of Vienna, and boarded her train 20 minutes later (sounds like one of those math word problems). I made my way slowly through the cars and saw her before she noticed me.

I asked several passengers if they'd deliver the note to my girlfriend, but they all declined (boring Austrians... j/k, sorta). I had to deliver the envelope myself, but surprising her on the train was still a lot of fun.
posted by syzygy at 2:10 AM on December 12, 2006

CmdrTaco proposed to his girlfriend via a post on the geek news site Slashdot.

And wasn't there some guy who stood in front of the webcam outside an Apple Store at like 5am and held up signs that asked his girlfriend to marry him?
posted by pollystark at 4:12 AM on December 12, 2006

The artist for Penny Arcade proposed to his girlfriend via his comic.
posted by slimepuppy at 4:21 AM on December 12, 2006

I don't really want to go mooching round bmezine at work, but I'm sure I read an article by one of the admins on there (actually, I think they both are admins) about how he and his girlfriend each bit part of the other's finger off.
posted by corvine at 4:53 AM on December 12, 2006

A good friend of mine took her girlfriend to Disneyworld, they went to the aquarium (that glass hall where you are surrounded by water) and he had arranged that while they were there, the girl dressed as the little mermaid would come and show her the ring from inside the water, while he proposed, outside the water. Some of our mutual friends think this is lovely, I think it is awful.

Just as a side note, their relationship ended up going terribly wrong for reasons seemingly unrelated to the way he proposed.

Though I still don't know. A proposal like that, IMHO, is a jinx and I'm sure it had everything to do with everything that went wrong afterwards.
posted by micayetoca at 5:34 AM on December 12, 2006

one important mistake: it should say "a good friend of mine took HIS girlfriend..."

sorry if this spoils it for you after you read the original comment.
posted by micayetoca at 5:35 AM on December 12, 2006

I used to send love letters, written to one, to several thousand subscribers. I now do something similar to several hundred. I haven't archived all of them--I've sent out over 200 so far--but I'm pretty sure some of the archives contain events similar to what you're looking for.

I also randomly send off "issues" or "entries" via snail mail to people on my list (one of my issues asked for people's snail mail addresses and about 200 ppl replied. I've only done about 9 so far).

I also wrote a 70 page letter to a girl I was crazy about (actually, same person I mentioned in the thread you linked to) and had it professionally bound and delivered with a soundtrack and bottle of wine.

In a similar vein there was once linked off the blue an archive of handwritten love notes. There were quite a few of them but I can't remember the link.

Also:

A friend's boyfriend loved a particular dish at a this restaurant. The friend hired the chef/owner there to teach him how to make it. I thought that was wonderful but it might just be a creative gift rather than an expression of love.

Another friend went on a date with an email buddy she'd never met and he made the whole date into a treasure hunt complete with maps and clues and the help of friends and passers by.
posted by dobbs at 7:08 AM on December 12, 2006

For our second 'anniversary', I made a picture-slideshow-video thing set to music. It has pictures of us, friends, family, as well as pictures of our little 'inside joke' type things (bands we saw live, comedians we like, Borat makes an appearance, Gary from Team America made the cut, even that guy whose cake Opie and Anthony stepped on...) It was pretty pathetic and sucked and I never finished it, but I showed it to my girlfriend anyway. She LOVED it, even in its crappy, rough draft form. That was October.

Now I have fine tuned the video and it is awesome. the music matches up perfectly, the slide transitions The last slide says 'Ms. nineBLUE, will you marry me?' She has no idea I have finished the video, or WHY I finished the video, or that I have the ring already, or that the proposal is coming...I will sit down with her on Christmas Eve morning and show her the video and at the end, I will pull out the ring. boom.

We will always have the video to show the people who want to know how I proposed.
posted by nineRED at 7:13 AM on December 12, 2006

One birthday I woke up and found small (business card sized) notecards laid out on the floor in a trail to the kitchen. Each card had one line from a poem he had written for me. The trail ended at the kitchen table where he had arranged a cup of Starbucks coffee, a Danish, the newspaper and a vase of roses. That was just the first 5 minutes of my birthday....
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:15 AM on December 12, 2006

Oh, and ouch.
posted by dobbs at 7:23 AM on December 12, 2006

A guy I knew once laid a trail of hershey's kisses through his house to the shower, where he had placed a giant bouquet of flowers. The card read, "Now that I've kissed the ground you walk on and showered you with flowers, will you be mine?" I couldn't very well say no at that point (though hindsight indicates that I should have). Ah, the things you'll fall for when you're 16...
posted by vytae at 7:47 AM on December 12, 2006

My wife and I have LDRed it a few times in our relationship. Anytime I'm away for more than a week I try to get a set of presents together that go together but can be wrapped individually. I wrap each piece and then ship them all in a single box. One piece is to be openned each day and they are labeled for the order to be unwrapped.

So for a quick example say the theme was bath. The items might be: potted flowers, pair of votives, pair of votive holders, fancy body scrub, bar of scented soap, body wash, bath beads, bath sheet, body butter, robe. Open order would be in listed order.

It's fun, gives a present everyday but saves on shipping, and gives you something to talk about. Lack of shared experiences is one of the banes of LDRs.

I've gotten tricky a couple times as well by putting the effort into selecting sub presents that don't seem to go together and then having the last couple tie everything together.
posted by Mitheral at 1:16 PM on December 12, 2006