One is deliberate, the other is accidental. One can reveal a feeling or thought you’ve had within yourself, the other reveals what someone you don’t know was thinking, feeling, or experiencing. If you think PostSecret and Found Magazine couldn’t be more different in content, consider this: both provide, under cover of anonymity, a truly compelling and honest look into America’s psyche. In PostSecret, an ongoing community art project started by Frank Warren in 2004, people design one-of-a-kind homemade postcards scrawled with an unsigned message (“My mom’s mullet always embarrassed me”), collected in Warren’s book A Lifetime of Secrets (which he brought to Elliott Bay Book Co. last week). Meanwhile, Davy Rothbart’s Found Magazine celebrates the release of its fifth installment, “The Crime Issue.” Found is filled with scanned images of “found” letters, notes, and photos plucked from sidewalks, trash cans, books, and telephone poles. Like an adult version of show-and-tell, Rothbart will share his recent favorites (both hilarious and weird), though audience participation is where the real fun happens.

Thu., Oct. 25, 7 p.m., 2007