Yesterday was like any other Tuesday on Locust Walk. Students rushed to class, bikers weaved among crowds of people and campus clubs hawked their events to passersby. Everyone was in a hurry to get someplace.
Everyone except Liz Barry and Bill Wetzel, a pair of 20-somethings clad in rain jackets who set up two folding chairs at 36th Street and Locust Walk.
They spent the day sitting next to a three-foot sign that read "Talk to Me."
And talk to them people did.
Wharton and College freshman Lena Zurkiya stopped to ask for directions, and ended up conversing for half an hour.
Zurkiya says their conversation ranged from the politics of the Middle East to her major at Penn.
"We even talked about squirrels," she says.
Barry and Wetzel have spent the last two years camping out in New York City, simply making conversation with strangers. They stay with friends or sleep in a tent outside, surviving on about $10 a day.
Wetzel conceived of the "Talk to Me" project, which involves setting up their sign in public places to solicit conversations, in May 2002. He says he is interested purely in meeting new people.
"We're curious, and we're game for a slightly crazy idea," Wetzel says. "People ask us to write a book, but we have no plans. We're so busy doing this thing that we don't have time for any grand visions."
The pair's stop in Philadelphia is their first on a "Talk to Me" bike tour across the country. They left New York City last week and plan to meet Barry's family in North Carolina by Christmas.
Wetzel says that their conversations with Penn students got off to a slow start yesterday because several passersby thought he put up the sign as a part of a fraternity's pledging activities.
"I was out this morning, and three people within 20 minutes asked, 'Is this some sort of hazing?'" Wetzel says.
He adds that many students seemed too hurried to stop and ask about the project.
"It's been pretty interesting watching people our age being completely too busy to talk," Wetzel says.
But many Penn students did find the time to get to know the pair between classes.
Their sign "said, 'Talk to Me.' It was a sign from above that we should stop," Zurkiya says. "I wish I could do it myself."
By the end of the afternoon, Barry and Wetzel had attracted a crowd of freshmen from the Huntsman Program, who asked them to say "talk to me" in their respective foreign language. The group made additional plans to meet tonight for more conversation.
"Can we come to your floor and have a global debate with 20 people?" Wetzel asks.
Huntsman Program freshman Ryan Borker has the answer. "You can, but you have to bring food."
Wetzel and Barry say they were impressed with the level of conversation on campus.
"It went from a sedate morning to an extremely intellectual evening," Wetzel says. "Wherever there's people, something will happen.
"This is a nice campus," he adds. "It's like a gothic Candyland compared to the rest of the city."
Last week, Barry and Wetzel set up their sign at City Hall and 30th Street Station, and they plan to visit Camden and North Philadelphia in the next few days.
"There are times we feel more like witnesses rather than [pursuing] our life, our plan," Wetzel says. "The sign turns cities into this kind of living encyclopedia."
