Macabre sixers. Some fiction. Enjoy briefly.
Stories in six words, they said. I expanded the brief a little. Some of these are not fiction. But they are all macabre, somehow. In no particular order, here goes.
**********
- I tried. I failed. Bloody hospitalized.
- He sliced. I fainted. Phantom pains.
- I hold your hand in mine.*
- The guillotine rose. It fell. Fini.
- "I'd say shoot an undergrad."..."Better?"
- "I do!" "I do." Now war.
- Saeta. Solea. Candlelight. Pinot. Solitary misanthrope.
- He lied. They died. I wrack.
- Ice melts. Air smells. Blind suicide.
- Cow eat cow. Factory, cheap. Madness.
- Butterfly. Gerrymander. Hack. Twiddle. Banana democracy.
**********
*This one is not original, obviously. Kudos if you know the man. If not, wait for a bit.
**********
- I tried. I failed. Bloody hospitalized.
- He sliced. I fainted. Phantom pains.
- I hold your hand in mine.*
- The guillotine rose. It fell. Fini.
- "I'd say shoot an undergrad."..."Better?"
- "I do!" "I do." Now war.
- Saeta. Solea. Candlelight. Pinot. Solitary misanthrope.
- He lied. They died. I wrack.
- Ice melts. Air smells. Blind suicide.
- Cow eat cow. Factory, cheap. Madness.
- Butterfly. Gerrymander. Hack. Twiddle. Banana democracy.
**********
*This one is not original, obviously. Kudos if you know the man. If not, wait for a bit.
posted by Tabula Rasa | 11/01/2006 11:06:00 AM
49 Comments:
Nice!
I would write
The guillotine rose. Fell. Unending blackness.
The guillotine rose. Fell. Then again...
n!
Ok, you asked for it. Another one:
"Her dissertation idea got published today."
n!
"Oedipus Rex loved his mother" (*)
"Tonight will be fine... for a-while"(+)
(*) just 5 words, inspired by the same guy who held your hand in his.
(+) not original, yes I've been in a Cohen mood for awhile, and yes I cheated with the last word... but if you count it as 2 words, I'm still good "on average"
Halloween themed:
"I thought you died?" "I did."
Girl checks noise in backyard. Brutal.
"Let me show you my cellar."
Looked at the mirror. No reflection.
Hell-Oh there. I see the Good Count's sucksessors are all half-alive and kicking.
The undergrad story is sick and twisted, just the way I like it.
szerelem:
thankee. as for the suggestion, you see the difference between what you've been reading and what i've been reading, dno't you? orhancan versus the journal of consumer research. gah.
n!:
the more the macaberer, eh?
and as for your second story -- glad to know you've reached that stage. i reached it at almost exactly the same time, except my version was "he saw his dissertation idea in the acr program schedule". and the sequel: "he chased the other group for five years. tbc."
rahul:
how about: "oedipus loved his mother. not funny."?
the cohen one could be construed as a weather report :-D
mt:
nice :-)
km:
heh heh. we tells it as we sees it -- teaching semester impending and all. although we does realise that we have some undergrad readers, but hey, they'll grow out of it :-D
ADDENDA
... although we does realise that we have some undergrad readers, and proud we are of them, yes, yes
I read. I bled. I red.
Howzat, mishter? And yes, found ya out. Tho there.
And speaking of 'I held your hand in mine', here's another: Now there's a dirty old man.
TR: On the tangential dissertation note, I should be glad then. Look where you landed.
Let the chase begin...
n!
bleh. what is this undergrad nonsense. one is highly offended. salil, come out and defend our kind you lazy wine drinking, paella making fool.
in fact:
sententious, unsightly prof. tenured. skip class?
Scout: 1, TR: 1
Grab your popcorn, kids. This could get interesting :D
Not original :
"Sweet dreams are made of these"
and leading to hopeful originality :
"There is a significant interaction. Yeaaaahoooooo."
- PM
anasuya:
heh, yes. though in a sense it sounds like a plug for "feminine products" :-D
n!:
"let the chase begin..." is only four words -- you need two more for the punchline ;-)
scout:
heh heh heh. one could begin to quite enjoy this. how about:
1. Office hours. Suck-up. Where's my airgun?
OR
2. Giggly back-benchers. Innocent looks. ZAP! Baygon!
hahahaha. and don't even begin to think about salil. because:
3. The man on the outer. Sleeps.
AND
4. Off wandering. Sorry, Professor. Make-up quiz?
:-D
PM:
no, no, it has to be macaber. how about:
Significant interaction! Wrong direction... Re-run? Reposition!
Ok, TR,
"Significant interaction, but of manipulation check".
"Scheduled defense. Forgot to inform committee"
- YKW
scout: Risotto, not paella. As I've mentioned before, there IS a difference. :-)
TR: Nice. :-D
Although a more relevant one, given the cricket on at the moment...
Business prof boring. Watching Kallis instead. :)
My abridgement of an old science fiction story, I've forgotten who wrote it.
Supercomputer: "Yes, God does exist... now."
Ah, shooting undergrads. What a wonderful idea. Except that if they're like the undergrads in my class they're going to come complain that they only got shot in the thigh while other people in their class got shot in the head.
And given that it's post mid-term season:
Empty room. Ungraded papers. Open window.
also:
St. Peter: "This one's control group."
pm:
nice one on the interaction. very true to life :-D the defense one sounds like something from phdcomics. here's my response to the interaction one:
"p < .05! Shit it's the F."
salil:
bullseye :-D
rahul:
oh yes. that's one's excellent.
falstaff:
yours too? i guess the only ones not like that are hanging out on the blogosphere, eh?
loved the st. peter!
gah!! why do masters/phd types hate the undegrads in their classes??
We have to work twice as hard you know. give us some credit, dammit!
szerelem:
you're getting macroeconomic on us again, aren't you? making this comment space all earnest and serious. the masters/phd thing might a simple us versus them matter. i mean, if they're not the TAs -- in which case they just hate the undergrads for generating all that grading.
Let me chip in on the side of the undergrads. :)
They're a fine bunch, I think. So eager, and respectful! I see a little bit of myself in each one of them. It is not nostalgia, but rather a sense, however imperfect, of the kinds of difficulties that awaits each one's peculiar disposition. It is not a judgement, but a kind of wish that those difficulties find them soon, and lead them on to wisdom.
Does it make sense?
...of course, as opposed to simply "auks!". ;)
1. should i retaliate? ah, me bollocks!
2. franny was right. academia? for sadists.
there km. it's scout 2, tr 2.
and salil, you disappoint. i was hoping you were gonna say:
business prof boring. watching KELIS instead.
ws:
crikey, going soft in your old age, again :-D what side are you on? and you didn't even stick to the word limit!
("are you on de baaad side?" is a lovely six words.)
scout:
nice and spirited :-) but what's a kelis?
"down came engine, broke piggy's bones"
"jack fell down, broke his crown"
"couldnt put humpty together again"
one wonders who wrote these, and why. sorry baby-rhymes is the only place my mind works these days.
=D
guilty as chared. but still gah!! its the masters/phd types who are the actual pain. =P
scout: Kelis... who?
Kallis, on the other hand: A cricketer even the English found boring. :-)
TR: A few other fun ones...
Hungover this morning. And in pain.
Should have killed him last night.
I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay. :-D
[No points from guessing where that last one's stolen from.]
kundalini:
could only have been a macabre mom, eh?
your last one is only five words, btw. may i suggest:
"Couldn't put Humpty together again. Omelet."
szerelem:
we're allowed to hold you to that at some point down the line, right?
salil:
no guessing required there, i hope. i thought of stringing along a bunch of six-worders from songs, but then decided that would get out of control. (went ahead and did it with "i held your hand..." anyway.) but if we're quoting macabre lines from pop culture, there's not many that can top "This parrot is dead. Whump, whump."
Some from political culture:
Bush I -
"Read my lips: no new taxes."
Quayle explaining why six words are enough -
"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."
Clinton slightly abridged -
"I did not f* that woman."
Cheney (one imagines) to Whittington -
"You harbour quails, you're a quail"
GW "who needs six words" B -
"They misundersestimated me."
"Mission accomplished."
ewwww! ouch! that hurt! each one of them....macabre indeed!
TR
:) I guess you could say I'm on the cute side. Oh, and for sure, I'm getting old, but some part of it must also have to do with class sizes. I am guessing you teach very large classes, whereas I teach an advanced seminar class of 9 students. Very different dynamics.
rahul:
i guess these are stories... but the last one needs another word. (and the only one i can think of is "duh".)
m:
:-D we are like that only.
ws:
yes i could say you're on the cute side but mrs. ws might be tempted to bop me upside the soft and delicates :-D
i generally have these undergrad congregations -- last year was 55 per section and the year before 45; this year they're saying it'll be 36 so i'm hoping. i did do a phd class of 5 and that was a very dynamic different indeed (i think i blogged about it back in april). but then the phd students are the nasty ones, right? ;-)
hmmm my phd class is some 9 people. Small classes are terribly fun. The dynamics are completely different.
tr and salil: Kelis. Woman. Singer. Boobalicious. Milkshaker. Remember the song?
ignorance, i say.
szerelem:
exactly. good fun.
scouty:
you wouldn't be talking about celine dion, would you?
- Confused in Kowloon
She said, Whoa no, Guadalajara won't do
Oh, this gets betterer and betterer.
One wild and crazy undergrad talks about Kelis, another pink-cheeked undergrad talks of Kallis and the Dead-loving Professor quotes from Steely Dan.
Please don't let thread-rot set in yet.
so come on, move it along!
i for my part am extremely frustrated. blogger's been taking a dozen minutes to load every page, and several comments i've typed on several blogs have vanished.
oh and scout: i'm from hong kong. we drink soya products.
tr - i'm having the same problem not only with blogger sites such as yours, but with gmail.
Curiously, beta blogger sites (such as mine) are fine.
I initially thought it was my ISP, but tunnelling through other accounts (my work account and my old US account) didn't help.
This morning though, my work account is fast, but my home connection is still slow for blogger and gmail only -- it's fine for other sites.
Their status page says nothing about the current problems.
"Internet addiction. Google slowdown. Civilization ends."
Milkshaker? Song?
Never heard of it, let alone heard it.
And I'm not going out of my way to look for it right now - not when I've got Black Sabbath playing. :-)
(I... am... IRON MAN!)
Old man's disgusting. Trust nobody. Rinse.
rahul:
yes, identical symptoms. google's the new microsoft.
salil:
er, yes.
aqc:
hah! one man's meat is another man's poison, eh?
please do visit the following url, tr and salil.
http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Kelis/Milkshake.html
meanwhile, nice come-back professor. :P
Don't listen now, liars everywhere*
*Very unoriginal
One web-free weekend and I miss all this?
Come on now, you old fogies haven't heard the Milkshaker song? Ok, ok... neither have I, but it sounds strangely familiar.
@Salil - Does this remind you of Shoaib Chuckhtar?
"Nobody wants him
He just stares at the world
Planning his vengeance
That he will soon unfold".
dun-dun
dah-dah-dah
dah-dah-dah
dah-dah-dah
scout:
did too. do the folks at poi-tre a favor. don't send them the link. (although the words do sound familiar. i think i heard a friend sing it once.)
ghost:
*also only five words :-)
mt:
you wannabe!
TR - you keep complaining about "only five words". I'm pretty sure six was an upper limit. Check out entries by Robert Jordan, Graeme Gibson, David Brin and others in the original Wired article.
Help! She bit bob off him.
(yeah, i know. My mind's nasty.)
- IAT
rahul:
aha. the "upper limit" actually makes it less interesting for me -- one could conceivably award the prize to a one worder that goes: "NO!!!!!" i prefer the framework that six words provides. makes things more comparable too, in a sense.
iat:
neat :-) i take it that's a sequel to aqc's story above?
Post a Comment
<< Home