Inspiration for my ongoing 100-story shtick hails from a group, Oulipo, who would submit to voluntary and quirky constraints in writing. A famous constraint was to avoid that most common symbol in most Latin-born patois. (I’m doing it now, obviously.) Most famous of such works is a full book, A Void, by… uh… G*org*s P*r*c. Now for my own story:
No Letter E
During two-odd humid post-high-school months of 2006, I sold cutting tools for cooking food, out of a catalog. No folks bought much. Actually, no folks bought any. But I truly thought that no tools of any sort, of any cost, could top said cutting tools. And I did coax my mom into buying my dad a folding shiv for his birthday.
It (Dad’s shiv) got our mailbox on a particular day: a day I was riding (Mom driving) to an airport for a church missions trip. Think of it: I pry apart this box, I pull out this shiv (sorry), I say “Look how unharmful!” and (you know this story by now) I cut my hand, forming a crimson contour across my baby-soft palm. I was truly adding insult to injury. So on my first hot long uni vacation (that is, following an additional trip around Sol) I sold donuts, in a normal fashion: in a donut shop.
Wheeew. After writing something voicey or constricted, I get a mental hangover when I try to talk and think normally again. It’s like walking after a long bike ride and wondering why I’m moving so slow. Here’s this week’s recommendation.
CHALLENGE MEGABERG by u/BronzePhysique
Iceberg charts are a longform meme format. An iceberg chart lists trivia about a certain topic, sorted by obscurity. There’s an iceberg for horror movies, and for the NYC subway, and for illegible metal band logos.
The CHALLENGE MEGABERG is an iceberg for all of human experience.
The top tiers are filler; skim them. Start reading at the “unique” tier: “Theorum namesake.” “Emperor near-death rabbit swarm.” “Lost Wu Tang enjoyer.”
Then the “mythical” tier: “With a donkey’s jawbone I have killed a thousand men.” “Wolf titty-sucking-based government system.” “Literally just rolling a stone up a hill a couple of times.”
And then comes the real story.
Read if you like: 17776, Conan the Barbarian, The SCP Foundation
"in a normal fashion"