deer of the dawn wrote:...only to meet a half-dozen or more angry-looking riot police walking toward us...
...We drove home, no incident. But I thought about how resilient and awesome Fawn of the Dawn is, that we could actually make jokes and laugh about it.
Very resilient.
I'd read that at least some branch of the? Nigerian police was nicknamed the "Kill and Go"...
(has that nickname stuck around till now?)
"People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them.
They don't take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage.
The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience."
-Flannery O'Connor
"In spite of much that militates against quietness there are people who still read books. They are the people who keep me going."
-Elisabeth Elliot, Preface, "A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael"
The idea I had was to create a sentence that sounded like a brief plot outline or even a TV Guide blurb for a druidic speculative novel. I wanted to create several variables that would be randomly supplied by a little software utility, thus supplying a plot outline that might just be crazy enough to give you an idea spark.
So I conscripted my druidic speculative novelist buddy, Jenn Mankiller, to do the coding. Thanks, Jenn!
The paragraph you see below in black is what the software generated for you just now. If you want to see another version, click "Tell me another story!" or the Refresh button on your browser. If you're using Internet Explorer on a Windows machine, you can also press the F5 key. You'll see a new story every time.
Have fun!
Note that if nothing happens, you may have to click to allow Ace X content to be shown on the page. Also, if you see "undefined" in the paragraph, just refresh the page or use your creativity to fill in the blank.
This is an epic disaster story about a hotshot who wants to earn his/her parents' respect but is prevented from doing so by a temporal rift bent on solving the last mathematical riddle. Greg Brady has designs on our hero, however. He wants to teach him/her the results of that long-held bitterness, a lesson he/she resists. In the end, through our hero's surrender and the intervention of a solar eclipse, the universe is saved.
I used to live in one of those ancient apartments in the Bronx. It was a giant place, with high ceiling and long halls. I loved it except in the summers. It was HOT and very hard to cool down. One year I took my tax refund and bought an AC. It was a 14000 btu monster. Super deluxe Friedrich. I paid about 2500 for it. Cooled down the place like a charm. Only problem was the pigeons LOVED it. Lived on it, slept on it, crapped all over it. So my father came up with a sort of bed of nails to put on the top to deter them. Well, surprise.......they loved the spiky bed of nail. Apparently it is perfect for making a nest. In moved a lovely pigeon couple that built a nest and laid an egg. Well, I kind of enjoyed it. I could peek through the blinds and be 6 inches from a baby pigeon. For any city dwellers you know that you never see a baby pigeon. They appear on the street full grown and the only sign that they are younger is the older ones become more and more motley. They did not seem to mind the hum of the super fabulous AC so all was ok. Except... I was moving. My lease was up and I was moving to Jersey. So every day I peeked through the blinds to watch the baby grow. It became bigger and bigger but it was still in the nest, the parents still feeding it. And then one day the movers came........... and the baby was still in the nest. Everything came out of the apartment, everything except the AC. So there it was, the movers staring at me, waiting for me to allow them to remove the giant AC and the baby cooing happily in the nest, its parent off looking for food. I looked at the movers than at the baby then at the movers. I opened the blinds, hoping my movement would scare it out of the nest, but no, it had become used to me. I looked at the baby, it was clearly too young to leave the nest and I was on the 6th floor.
Somewhere, out there in the Bronx I like to believe is the shell of a super deluxe air conditioner with an empty nest woven between the bed of nails. I owned the guts for many years, always looking for an outer casing for the machine, finally throwing out the 3 month old AC. And I like to believe somewhere out there amongst the million NYC pigeons is a motley, now senior bird with an affinity for spiky nails.
My father-in-law put chicken wire over their balcony in a 15th floor apartment in the Bronx to keep the pigeons from landing on the balcony. The chicken wire solution was prohibited by the apartment complex, but you couldn't see it from the ground, only from inside the apartment, so they got away with it. It seemed to work - maybe because the chicken wire didn't provide enough surface area for a pigeon to land.
And you're right, I can't recall ever seeing a baby pigeon.
"The Cheat is GROUNDED! We had that lightswitch installed for you so you could turn the lights on and off, not so you could throw lightswitch raves!"
***************************************
- I'm always all right.
- Is all right special Time Lord code for really not all right at all?
- You're all irresponsible fools!
- The Doctor: But we're very experienced irresponsible fools.
The best way to generate some random stories is to get hold of a copy of the wonderful game Once Upon A Time. The quick-and-dirty description is that each player is dealt some story cards and one ending card, the goal of the game being to tell a story using the elements on the cards in your hand that fits the ending. Other players may, from time to time, interrupt your story and begin where you left off using the story cards in their hand and trying to bring the story to their ending. The first person to play their ending card and conclude the story wins. It isn't as easy as it sounds.
Hashi Lebwohl wrote:The best way to generate some random stories is to get hold of a copy of the wonderful game Once Upon A Time. The quick-and-dirty description is that each player is dealt some story cards and one ending card, the goal of the game being to tell a story using the elements on the cards in your hand that fits the ending. Other players may, from time to time, interrupt your story and begin where you left off using the story cards in their hand and trying to bring the story to their ending. The first person to play their ending card and conclude the story wins. It isn't as easy as it sounds.
Sounds a bit like "Consequences" - a game we played at parties when we were kids. Always started with "name" (turn over the top of the paper and pass to next child) "and name" (ditto) did [anything] (ditto) and the consequence was ........... Always ended up with what we thought as hilarious stories - for 10 year olds of course.
I am playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order!
"I must state plainly, Linden, that you have become wondrous in my sight."
During those years in the Bronx I had many neighbors come and go in the apartments around me. Most were fine but there came one time when they moved in next door. It started with a lot of music, cursing and thumping. I attributed it to move in day and went about my business. It started with a lot of door pounding, shouting and fighting. Strange men and women, of Hispanic decent (there is a reason for mentioning their heritage), would come to the door into all hours of the night (and morning) often ringing my bell by mistake. There would be loud fights at the door, screeching babies, fights inside that would make my walls shake, smells of burning food, oil (and chemicals) wafting through to my apartment at all hours. One day I came to my door and on the other side of their door two or three dogs heard me and flung themselves howling at the door. Later I learned that they had installed three large gargoyle like pit bulls, ladened with heavy metal chains around their necks to guard the door. They never walked these dogs, the smell of which was evident from the start. I went to the manager of the building and complained, I called the owners and complained. Nothing. Anyone that knows NYC tenant law knows the owners have no rights nor power. Getting someone out of the building is close to impossible.
I was in hell. And then it got worse. These occupiers began to leave trash outside their door, which was 3 " from my door, and they (and I by default) became a roach and rodent haven.
So there came a day when I hit overload. I was unable to sleep due to the insanity. Dogs, drug dealer, loud crashing noises that made me react to what sounded like gunfire. I mustered up the courage and knocked on their door. Immediately the gargoyles slammed the door, screaming to tear my flesh from my bones. Then someone on the other side looked through the peephole and shouted "what the fuck you want". I said in my best milk toast social worker tone that we needed to talk about the noise. To which I got a prompt response. "Fuck you, you white @#^%$#. You lucky I don't cap your ass."
So that was it. I was living in the middle of a gang takeover of the building.
Now, I am nothing if not creative. I have many many hispanic friends. Among them I had two or three that practiced the Santeria faith. I had been to numerous cleanings and such and although I do not believe any of it, I thought it was fascinating. So I waited. There was always a quiet time between 9am and 11 am when the hoard slept. I woke and went to my draw. I took out an old pair of pantyhose and cut the foot off. I went to my hairbrush and cleaned the hair out and put it in the stocking. I clipped my nails and put the cuttings in the stocking along with various things like a raw chicken part, the contents of a used teabag etc. Anything that looked funky. I tied up the packet. I had a coconut ( I love raw coconut) which I broke in half. Quietly I went to their door. I tied the packet to their door handle, placed the broken coconut in front of the door. Finally I took baby powder and drew a white line of powder across their door.
And I went to work. I returned that evening to silence. Silence. Silence. The next day I went to work and again returned to silence.
Sometime that week, not sure when, they moved out. I never saw (or heard from) them again.
Dog crap is tricky stuff at the best of times. Never amongst peoples favorite material, by and large the worst thing that happens to most of us is the occasional mis-step on the pavement that results in a few moments of cursing and foot-scraping on the edge of the kerb.
Spare a thought for me then, when, on a particular Sunday morning in the veterinary practice I had exercised a large number of dogs in the yard and was in the process of lifting up the errr....**it with a short metal handled shovel. I had got my 'tecnique down' for this job and by practiced 'scrapes' I could collect the bulk of the crap onto one shovelfull without the need for much shovel emptying in between. The yard was a bit old and the concrete mot as smooth as it skould have been, and as I took a sweep at one lump I saw a movement at the yard gate. Looking up I saw a particurly toothsome lady client who I had always been convinced [no doubt totally wrongly] had a bit of a soft spot for me. Misjudging the 'scoop' the edge of the shovel caught in a crack in the paveing, the crap flew off in a body and I stumbled forward and put my size nine straight into the middle of it. Now come on - most of you feel a bit vexed if you tread in one peice, but which one of you has ever before met anyone who trod in 25 lumps simultaneously!
President of Peace? You fucking idiots!
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
A quick tale from which I emerge with no great credit, one summer I was suffering under the onslaught of a particularly bad 'ant invasion' in my kitchen and having dusted, sprayed and hot watered every available surface and crack I seemed at last to be winning. Wiping my hands and looking round, surveying a 'job well done', I spotted a lone ant on the spirally coiled hob ring of my old electric cooker. Develment seized me, and reaching out I turned the Knob for that particular ring element up to full, safe in the knowledge that in no way could the ant run the length of the coil before being fried. Quick as a flash however, the cunning blighter dropped from the ring through the gaps in the coil and made good his escape across the base plate below the rings. So there you have it, and I pass through life in the knowledge that I am one of the few individuals of the world [perhaps indeed the only one] who has been out-witted by an ant.
President of Peace? You fucking idiots!
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
When I was 19 or 20, I had a sort of crazy friend who lived in a delivery truck that was modified into a camping thingie. It was really cold, so he decided to light a fire inside the truck on a way he thought would be controlled. Well, of course, the fire didn't stay controlled and started spreading around. We laughed as it went and just watched for a while because we both knew he has a water canister with about 20 litres in the truck as well.
When the fire was on the verge of going out of control and burning his truck down, he reached for the opaque water container's handle, putting extra effort into picking it up since water is heavy. The container shot up into the air at his effort, being nearly empty! We laughed more and the smoke was really filling the truck now. My friend eyed the fire and the little water in the container. He shrugged and drank all the water and let out a satisfied sigh! Now, there was no water at all. He reached for aftershave for some reason and poured that on it, spreading the fire more. The fire was on the cabinet now and the smoke was very thick.
I left the truck, still laughing hysterically, and he stayed in there and finally got it out using blankets. I'll never forget the moment he realised there was almost no water and then drank the little there was while the truck burned.
Monsters, they eat
Your kind of meat
And they're moving as far as they can
And as fast as they can
Last week a girl came up to me in 3rd grade and complained, "Mrs D, Joe won't work with our small group!" Joe, a sturdy, all-guy boy, had somehow got stuck with 3 girls to study Native Americans. I walked over to his desk, where he was hunched, his hands on his head. He looked up and cried out, "They're giving me makeovers!"
I died.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. -Philo of Alexandria
ahhhh... if only all our creativity in wickedness could be fixed by "Corrupt a Wish." - Linna Heartlistener
Tonight, at BW3's, I observed a table of five late teen/early 20s college students at a table together. Two guys, three girls, all nice looking but not over the top attractive. (Hell, anyone under 30 and not fat is nice looking nowadays lol!) Anyway, it was one of the saddest things I ever saw. They did not interact with each other!?
Seriously! All five heads were down rapidly typing on smart phones. For the whole hour I was there! WOW! Sure, there was some conversation and interaction, but it was extremely minute compared to the texting/non-conversational phone usage.
I wish I could relive the 90s. Over and over- each decade until I wad dead. Everything I needed to live a very comfortable life and nothing I didn't.
Never underestimate the power of denial. - Ricky Fitts
Many years ago when I went through a phase of taking LSD quite often and it could be anywhere - at someone's house, out clubbing, going out to the sticks, etc. On one occasion half a dozen of us ended up at someone's house and one of the guys rented a couple of videos, so we sat in watching. He had a studio apartment on the first floor with his main door leading out to the hallway from the front door.
Anyway, we watched the videos and did all kinds of crazy shit as usual, with the exception of Glenn, who didn't do acid, so he just sat there smoking bongs.
We were halfway through the second movie when suddenly two police vans screeched to a halt outside, the back doors opened and out jumped what looked like and endless line of cops in riot gear.
Needless to say, everyone in the room shit their pants at this stage. I was the one who had brought the acid to the house, and my first thought was that I still had two tabs in my pocket. I pulled out the bag, still not sure what to do with it, and as I did so, just about everyone in the room decided that I was the person to give their stash to, so I ended up with half a dozen baggies of acid, weed, etc. Not knowing what else to do, I turned to Glenn as he was the only one not tripping, and dumped everything onto his lap.
Glenn got up, opened the door to the hallway, ran outside and a moment later came back in and closed the door. By the time all of this had happened, we probably should have had the front door kicked in, but no one realized that there was no activity inside or outside the house.
As everyone came to their senses (as much as they could), we realized that the cops were nowhere in sight - they had all headed to the house next door. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, one of the guys went into the hallway to get the stuff that Glenn had taken. As he went out he said "Glenn, where did you hide..." followed by uncontrollable laughter. He came back in and said to everyone that they had to come out and see something.
What I hadn't thought about when I gave Glenn everyone's stash was that he had been sat there for a couple of hours smoking bongs. He probably thought he had done a good job at hiding things, but what I was confronted with when I got into the hallway was a small hillock under the front door mat - he had just lifted it up and shoved everything under it.
It entertained us for quite a while, and Glenn was ribbed about it for quite a while after that. People would bring it up and ask what would happen if the cops had politely knocked on the door to ask questions: "Some questions? Sure officer - come on in. Oh, mind you don't trip over our stash"
We have always used correct words for genitals when talking with out daughter, but a couple of years ago she was getting "penis" and "peanut" confused. One day she told us "Girls have vaginas and boys have peanuts".
While this was amusing, as usual we tried to correct her and tell her that the word is "penis", and that peanuts are a type of nut. She thought about it for a while and corrected herself: "Girls have vaginas and penis you put in your mouth"...
Once upon a time, there was a burdened Clown. This Clown was ever so burdened. This Clown was ever so burdened to the point that this Clown decided to go out amidst his herb garden and collect clover amongst the weeds. This Clown started at the fomenting clover pile for at least half a life time. This Clown then ignited the entirety of the clover with a glancing blow. This Clown wearily felt a ghost of contentment.
This Clown meditated for a leap year and following published a helpful book, "Happiness Forces Gravity." Scores of lonely, ordinary folk bought the helpful book. This Clown no longer clocked in at any normative tasking. This Clown no longer required to qualify time. This Clown no longer needed to quantify time. This Clown had once a trade crafting umbrellas.
In the weeks following hordes of disillusioned, ordinary folk failed to publish helpful books. Scads of brooding, ordinary folk not realizing they had, in fact, failed to do such. Throngs of confused, ordinary folk were unaware of their status as non-authors. Mobs of bitter, ordinary folk had better things to attempt than scribbling out helpful books.
So teeming masses stuffed helpful books in decorative boxes affixed with padlocks and decorative plain brown wrappers. Hence there were flooded front lawns challenging the status quoted. Thence hearth and homes and houses were provided access to helpful books. Whence then they had spirited mobiles hanging from ashen trees. So allowing for fixed generations publishing helpful books about random subjects and harrowed objects. Allowing much a life transfixed upon repeating quests, questing for some amount of happiness for an unlimited scope of several eternities.
I love this thread.. been thinking about how I've wanted to bump it & post stories for like 3 weeks now... so here are 2.
Last November, a good friend passed away.
He was a real tried-and-true faithful friend to many - but his friends were all familiar with his hot temper.
A couple of us went to clean out the apartment.
When I was moving the phone, I dropped the handset and was like, "Aaghhh!" ("oh no, I dropped something!" right?)
A friend who had been his roommate for some years came over to see what was wrong.
When he learned it was just that, he said matter-of-factly, "I can tell you that phone has been thrown harder than that!"
And I laughed so hard, because it was so true.
Okay, after one that revolves around missing someone who died, I may need to post a funny one...
(...and this one next sticks with me & I've wanted to write it up.)
Once, a teenager told a story of him & his friends on the (public transit) bus in Vancouver.
They were going for sushi after a soccer game or something, and they were goofin' around being all like, "Sushi... Sushayyy... Suuu-shaaay!"
So people started lookin' at them like they were weird.
Then he says they were like, "Oooh - attention!"
I was sitting there thinking, "Yup... I get that!"
But I didn't reveal the extent to which I was... just like them!
[Edit: just fixed up a few things. first story was really missing some explanation in the first sentence... I failed to say what I was trying to.]
"People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them.
They don't take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage.
The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience."
-Flannery O'Connor
"In spite of much that militates against quietness there are people who still read books. They are the people who keep me going."
-Elisabeth Elliot, Preface, "A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael"
When our younger son was a toddler, I remember when he started to notice and comment on how different animals have two eyes. (yay, bilateral symmetry!) The little gears were working...
The dog, the horse, the duck, the octopus, the insect.. they all have two eyes. Not just one or two isolated 2-eyed creatures; a pattern was emerging.
One day, he ran up to me while I was in the kitchen to share his latest epiphany.
He was so young that he had to catch his balance on the handle of the oven door after his rush to get there.
"He haves two eyes!" he declared.
Pretty sure I knew what was coming, I asked, "Who has two eyes?"
"Brudder!" ("Brother!")
"People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them.
They don't take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage.
The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience."
-Flannery O'Connor
"In spite of much that militates against quietness there are people who still read books. They are the people who keep me going."
-Elisabeth Elliot, Preface, "A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael"
