pataphor in Still Life
"... After she had completely soaked the foam rubber mattress with her bitter weeping, she hurled the mattress out the window into the blackberries below.
... Seizing the Camel pack, she squeezed it in her small fist, toppling the pyramids and busting the dromedary's hump. Mummies ran from the pyramids in panic, dragging their wrappings behind them. Water spewed form the camel's cracked hump like a fountain of tears."
202
Still Life With Woodpecker
Tom Robbins
... Seizing the Camel pack, she squeezed it in her small fist, toppling the pyramids and busting the dromedary's hump. Mummies ran from the pyramids in panic, dragging their wrappings behind them. Water spewed form the camel's cracked hump like a fountain of tears."
202
Still Life With Woodpecker
Tom Robbins
It felt dark at two o'clock. Liz got points in Ester's books for having a winter wedding. She asked herself if she would have her wedding in winter ... then she realized that it was the wrong question. The correct question was: Will I ever have a wedding?
Ester was happy when other people got married, but for herself -- she couldn't yet imagine it. When she was a kid, she had childlike fantasies like all her friends. What kind of dress, what kind of garden, what kind of cake, what kind of groom ... But she didn't have any similar fantasies as an adult. Besides, weddings were so expensive.
The real question in her mind was not, will I marry this person? It was will I have children with this person? That seemed more binding than any wedding certificate.
Ester was happy when other people got married, but for herself -- she couldn't yet imagine it. When she was a kid, she had childlike fantasies like all her friends. What kind of dress, what kind of garden, what kind of cake, what kind of groom ... But she didn't have any similar fantasies as an adult. Besides, weddings were so expensive.
The real question in her mind was not, will I marry this person? It was will I have children with this person? That seemed more binding than any wedding certificate.
Oulipo
some constraints of Oulipo (from wikipedia):
- S+7, sometimes called N+7
- Replace every noun in a text with the noun seven entries after it in a dictionary. For example, "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago..." (from Moby-Dick) becomes "Call me islander. Some yeggs ago...". Results will vary depending upon the dictionary used. This technique can also be performed on other lexical classes, such as verbs.
- Snowball
- A poem in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer.
- Lipogram
- Writing that excludes one or more letters. The previous sentence is a lipogram in B, F, H, J, K, Q, V, Y, and Z (it does not contain any of those letters).
- Prisoner's constraint, also called "Macao" constraint
- A type of lipogram that omits letters with ascenders and descenders (b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, p, q, t, and y).
- Palindromes
- Sonnets and other poems constructed using palindromic techniques.
Old men jaywalked across Broadway because of the sidewalk construction. Canes click clack. Ester couldn't even get her mom to jaywalk. An old man waved down a taxi, and then walked away. Maybe he waved goodbye to friends across the street. In any case, it put the confused cabbie out for twenty-seconds, until he pulled back into traffic and roared away. The billboard above the bus-stop was an ad for Coors Light, "Colder than people from Toronto" it said. Ester laughed. Her December breath was visible. The bus was taking too long. C'est la vie. Vancouver transit was getting better, they said. Screw it, she'd walk. It was only twenty-five minutes to huff up the hill. Maybe she ought to hail a cab. Punctuality is a virtue, and one she didn't want to start slacking off on. Bridal showers were special days, at least it was a special day for Liz. And Maybe Ester and the bride weren't as close as they used to be. But Ester could still make use of the special day. Taking taxis, receiving packages in the mail, and getting your hair washed at the salon, all made for a special day.
At the corner, waiting for the light to change, two 20-something women were having a fake argument. A pseudo passive-aggressive expression of their appreciation for each others' capacity to use faux sarcasm to mask that at the bottom of their hearts they meant the words they were saying, and sarcasm was their vehicle of warning.
What a hot crock-pot of spitting talk. Why was communication so complex these days? Words layered like hair. Blame the internet, they say. She crossed the street. tweet tweet tweet. A kid walked the curb like a tightrope. Ah, to have such a mind.
Looking west up 12th, the street opened up like a tunnel. A cab passed by, but she didn't hail it.
At the corner, waiting for the light to change, two 20-something women were having a fake argument. A pseudo passive-aggressive expression of their appreciation for each others' capacity to use faux sarcasm to mask that at the bottom of their hearts they meant the words they were saying, and sarcasm was their vehicle of warning.
What a hot crock-pot of spitting talk. Why was communication so complex these days? Words layered like hair. Blame the internet, they say. She crossed the street. tweet tweet tweet. A kid walked the curb like a tightrope. Ah, to have such a mind.
Looking west up 12th, the street opened up like a tunnel. A cab passed by, but she didn't hail it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
