Heard from the office next to my cube, mere moments ago:
(chuckling) “Yeah, a rose by any other name… is… still a rose!”
Category: Pulverbatch
In the lobby of each floor in the building where I work is a yellowing, framed floorplan, with the fire stairs clearly labelled. Today I noticed that the one on my floor had been pulled off the wall (leaving a different color of paint behind) and replaced with a much newer plastic frame labelled “EVACUATION PLAN.”
The piece of paper in the frame was blank.
I will probably post about presents later
For the first time, I can say that I’ve posted a year’s worth of Anacrusis without skipping a single day. It would have been much sooner but for the two days I missed before last year’s Worst Christmas Ever.
Christmas was much better this year, but we all missed Joe.
Via Kevan comes a 1978 speech by Philip K. Dick about science fiction, solipsism, Gnosticism and Disneyland that everybody else has probably read before. Regardless, it offered me the best answer to the question “why write?” I’ve ever encountered:
“What if our universe started out as not quite real, a sort of illusion, as the Hindu religion teaches, and God, out of love and kindness for us, is slowly transmuting it, slowly and secretly, into something real?”
Man, all I post lately is little link blurbs, but I have to plug this: Holly’s amazing crossword-based constrained-writing project and PhD thesis is finally going online! Two stories in and I am already jealous of her ideas, in both format and content.
Jake Berendes sums it up
“flawlessness is not the goal. a compulsive habit of creation matched with an editorial mindset is a far more viable goal.”
Okay, let’s be men for a minute. 101 words isn’t much of a challenge anymore. I’ve been cramming stuff into that space for almost two and a half years and, like a man who plays Tetris every day, I pretty much know what is going to fit where.
I don’t want to change that constraint on Anacrusis because, while challenge is an important part of a constraint, it’s not the only part. It’s an easy selling point; it’s a convenient finish line on days when I’ve got very little material. Besides, I like the form and I’m not done playing with it. But the fact remains that as a device, the word limit has lost much of its ability to stir up ideas.
So. Something new, with occasional interruptions, starting today.
Sumana asked the other night whether there was any depth to which I wouldn’t sink for a story idea. I have discovered that there is. I just can’t try to pawn this off as fiction.
C O R Y
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PALO ALTO, CA — Researchers at Stanford University have announced that the hole in Earth’s ozone layer is rapidly being filled by another stratum of the atmosphere.
“We’ve done spectroscopic analysis,” said Doctor Cory Wonkette-Searls on Thursday, “and Dooce Gaiman at Washington State has obtained confirming results. The replacement gas is coming from the blogosphere.”
“I wouldn’t want to be in Antarctica right now,” he added. “Wheeoo.”
The ozone layer absorbs ultraviolet radiation, and has been depleted by chlorofluorocarbon pollution. The blogosphere, composed of superheated air and self-absorbed methane, is separated from life on Earth by several orders of magnitude.
I was going to explain why I hate this but that’s unnecessary, really.
The department that occupies most of this floor, at work, has decorated with a theme for today. The theme is Hillbilly Wedding. I want to die.
There’s a woman who works in my building whose name I don’t want to type exactly, for fear of Google, but which is pronounced “Ah NET tuh.” Short E. Her last name is Doss.
A few minutes ago, I heard over the building intercom: “Anita Doss, please dial zero… Anita Doss, please dial zero.”
A couple minutes later, this time in an impatient tone: “Anita Doss, please dial zero… REPEAT, Anita Doss, please dial zero.”
Five minutes pass. Then, sounding harrassed: “Anita DESS, please dial zero…”