Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Be Brief

If it's Tuesday, there are more primaries and Paul gets to mouth off.

Briefly.

The editors of Smith have put together a clever little book, "Not Quite What I Was Planning."

Writers and readers contributed their memoirs with one stipulation. Each had to be six words long. The inspiration was apparently the tale of Ernest Hemingway being challenged to write a novel in six words. The result: "For Sale: baby shoes. never worn."

Yep, he was that good.

Here are some efforts from the new book.

"Found true love, married someone else."

"After Harvard, had baby with crackhead."

"Love me or leave me alone."

Author Sebastian Junger wrote: "I asked. They answered. I wrote."

Novelist Dave Eggers: "Fifteen years since last professional haircut."

Comic book writer Harvey Pekar: "Fight, work, persevere. Gain slight notoriety."

Okay, here's my effort. "Bitch. Moan. Type. Bitch. Moan. Zzzz."

What's your six-word autobiography?
******************************
BRIEF COMMENTS

On The Miami Herald's website, readers comment as much about other readers as about the stories themselves. Here are two posted yesterday.

First Reader: "I wish you people would learn how to spell."

Second Reader: "I wish so two."

Briefly,
Paul

14 comments:

  1. That was fun. What's next?

    I know it looks like only five words, but it's really six, except "what's" sounds better than "what is," which is a bit too formal if you ask me...

    Great post, Paulie.

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  2. "Never a dull moment, mes semblables"

    (semblable: fellow creature. Had to look it up, but sort of had the gist of it from "The Wasteland")

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  3. Any news on the PLBW front?

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  4. Gave my heart to wrong guy.

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  5. I love nice brief interesting sentences.

    or

    A book I will buy soon.

    or

    What the hell does PLBW mean?

    Jim

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  6. Fiction career didn't go as expected.

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  7. PLBW?

    I am, as usual, clueless.

    If anyone knows, critic and raconteur David Montgomery needs your help. http://www.crimefictionblog.com/2008/02/plbw.html

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  8. My Penn State pal Carmen Finestra has a great 6-liner:

    JUST BEAT MICHIGAN BEFORE I DIE.

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  9. Here's one:

    "Find humans interesting, like cats better."

    ;-)

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  10. I've never been called a raconteur before, but I like it. It sounds kinda dirty.

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  11. Writes advertising. Writes fiction. Is redundant?

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  12. Paul, the last part of your post reminds me of an email my husband received from the receptionist at a company he was working for - she sent it to each member of a team working on a certain marketing project. It went something like this: "I happened to see the proposal distributed yesterday and felt I had to say something as I was an English major - some words are spelled incorrectly. But at this stage I expect my comments are mute."

    And it wasn't a joke.

    Cracked up over that one.

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  13. My wife got a company-wide email once that contained the phrase "all intensive purposes."

    I'd always thought that was just a joke... But nope.

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  14. Oh!!!! Don't get me started. I was once at a company cocktail party and heard a business associate offer our VP the use of her "condom" in Hawaii. I also heard the same person warn a litterer not to "defecate" the scenery. You just can't make this stuff up...or can't you...

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