Other day, I was reading a new utne reader, and there were (natch) a couple of articles worth mentioning here at the nonist. One article concerned six word novels written by famous scribes. Since that issue is so phresh, google did not return any result for me to link (in fact, one version of my search was bit of a googlewhack {returning only one result} concerning flash fiction, or very short stories). Anyway, Hemingway, as I recall, wrote this six-word novel:
For Sale: baby shoes. never used.
So: do any of you nonists have a six word novel you’ve been slaving over, that you may wish to share with the rest of us? Here’s a few of mine:
Adultury? She’s your sister. Oh well.
All she needed was some discipline.
Aaarrrg! The treachery. My poor balls!
pancakes for dinner? you selfish bastard!
who loves you baby? no, seriously.
give me liberty! or cash prizes.
live! love! laugh! weep. cough. die.
waiting for jesus? try a snickers.
"Ebola!” Charlie gasped. Wonka slowly smiled.
"Walter! Necrophilia?!?” “Better than you, Bernice.”
Once, there were trees. And people.
Elvis has not left the building.
My phone stinks. Did that hurt?
murderer?! but he seemed so normal.
there are two kinds of people.
wait, “don’t” push the red button?
shit. shower. shave. stumble home hammered.
more haiku-ish than six word novels…
once upon a time… the end
secret papal autopsy report: a woman!
the puppet crawled off my hand.
martians invaded new jersey. nobody noticed.
A solar flare burst forth. Stargasm.
jaime: “shit. shower. shave. stumble home hammered.” wins the ‘Dublin your pleasure award’ for most joycean entry.
More please!
"More? More gruel??? Little ragamuffin! Bollocks!”
He sang like a castrated pterodactyl.
Blind from birth, Meade understood caves.
Lavinia sprayed estrogen. Men took shelter.
kill the infidels, father always said.
who knew genital warts could mutate?
the gringos would have to go.
theosurgical specialists remove sinful homosexual thoughts.
"this spear killed jesus. commence bidding.”
frat boys, geronimo’s skull: massive curse.
kicking a dead horse… it’s done
And so c’est word pronounces the bizarre little saga finished. fun puzzle, though, building a tiny tale out of six moving parts.
maybe we should do some kind of exquisite corpse thread next? Perhaps the running comments could be the workspace, in which writers add their bit to an ongoing story, or possibly add images, or simply offer links you think the reader should investigate (whether for artistic effect or information, or belly laughs).
I wonder if there’s an exquisite corpse software hack/tool that can be done, say for dogwaffle, which is a nice open-source paint program. This tool, as I see it, would permit visitors to the web page to choose a rectangle or other tiling shape on a virtual canvas, infinitely large if necessary. When you choose a specific area (which probably should be contiguous to any tiles already drawn) you sould see the neighboring tiles around yours, or the whole picture, and your edges should mesh with your neighbors so that forms relate to one another. See rules for traditional exquisite corpse:
http://www.nicedog.com/carol/corpse/corpse_howto.html
Their creations are organized as a tower of flat rectangles. But rectangles and squares are not the only possible tiles; triangles, hexagons, and even penrose tiles can be employed, any of which could lend an Escheresque air to compositions using many small tiles.
In any case, check out Andrei Codrescu’s nifty literary magazine/agora, also called the exquisite corpse.
http://www.corpse.org/
two lovers, different sides of fence.