Over the past couple days since The Alphabet Party jam, certain sparks of inspiration caused me to revisit things. It occured to me that I, E, and C would have a noticeable chemistry going on, and both K and G needed to display one of their occasional behaviors.
Special thanks to Christian for his awesome idea of the Q and U attraction.
Some things are never done…
Too cool. Somebody’s harnessed their OCD and put together a collage of movie clips with quotes from 100 to 1. If you want to follow along more closely, the complete list of the movies is here.
#11 will always be my favorite.
The Alphabet Party
by Jace Daniel (b. 1969)
Once upon a time there was the letter A. Abiding alone in an apartment ample enough to accommodate his abundant arrays of attractive artifacts, he aspired to arrange an assembly for amusement and sent out an abbreviated email of acronyms to allure all his acquaintances:
FYI:
Party at my place tomorrow night. TGIF.
BYOB (JK).
BTW, RSVP ASAP. KIT.
GTG, BRB, TTYL, TTFN.Awaking in the A.M., A arose in anticipation to adjust his appealing abode for the affair. As an accomplished afficionado of asparagus and artichoke appetizers, he artfully adorned his activity area with ambrosial aliments after attacking an army of ants. At about dusk, his guests began to arrive.
The first guest to show up was B, A’s best buddy and bona fide bouncer from Brooklyn. “Aloha,” addressed A.
“Backatcha, bro,” bellowed B, boasting a six pack of beer and a bottle of champagne. “Brought brew and bubbly.”
“Appreciate it,” A acknowledged.
In came C, A’s Cambodian Catholic cousin and croquet coach. Clever, content, and conspicuously chipper, C was comparable to a cheery cherub cloaked in camouflage. A chef and connossieur of cuisine, he carried a crate of chocolate chip cookies, Chinese chicken, and a curried clam concoction, complemented by cans of cinnamon citrus cider and cocktails.
“Contributions for the celebration,” claimed C, casting his Chevron cap in the corner.
“Awesome,” answered A. “All good?”
“Can’t complain,” chimed C.
A delightfully democratic developer of delicious donuts dove through the door. “Dudes!” he declared directly.
“All,” dictated A, “This is D. He lives down the drive.”
“Cool,” claimed C, cross-examining. “Career copasetic?”
“Day by day,” disclosed D. “Do disregard that I’ve been dabbling in Danish distractions for decades. Now I’m delving into dispicably dishonest deeds done dirtier than the devil.”
“Bastard,” blubbered B as another guest emerged.
“At last,” articulated A expressively. “Everyone, enter E. The evening’s entertainment.”
After the ensuing exchanges, E, an emotionally eradicated engineer from Ethiopia, eventually exited to the kitchen, escaping everyone to experience the enjoyment of eating every entree else evade energetic euphoria.
In flew F, a freeloading frog-legged Filipino fisherman from Florida. With a funky forehead and fat forearms, he frankly flaunted a fondness for full-blown festivities.
“There’s F,” announced A, almost affectionately. “Actually arrived!”
“Fuckin’ A!” flourished F.
Then the oddest of couples came through the door: G, a gullible German geographer gone giddy with glee, with his girlfriend, H, a hot hula hoedowner from Hawaii.
“Howdy!” H hailed, offering handshakes and high fives. “Hello!”
“Aloha,” acclaimed A.
“Howzit!” heralded H honestly.
“Buenos noches,” beckoned B.
“Hola!” howled H.
“Cheers,” chanted C.
“Ha!,” hollered H. “Hip, hip, hooray!”
“Great,” guffawed G gregariously, greeting the guys and girls.
In walked I, an Icelander illustrating an interesting and inspiring imitation of an irritatingly irate Irishman. “Idiots!” he insulted.
A jubilant jive-speaking Japanese Jehovah’s Witness jacked back. “Jerk.”
“Ignorant imbecile!” invoked I.
“Jo mama,” J justified in jest. “I be a jolly judo instructor from Jerusalem. And all that jazz. No joke.”
E walked up with a platter of snacks, attempting to cool the situation off. “Eggplant?” E offered enthusiastically.
“Colossally considerate!” chatted C, consuming eleven expeditiously.
“Easy!” exhorted E, eating equally enough.
I immediately interfered, incriminating, “Incompetent individual! I before E.”
“Except after C,” countered C cockily.
Chewing conditionally, C carried the chow to I.
“Ick!” insulted I. “Inadequate.”
J jumped in joyfully. “Jalapeños!”
In walked K, an know-it-all keeper of kaleidoscopes from Kuwait, with his landlady L, a luciously loud lollipop-licking liaison from Lithuania.
“Little late, love,” leaked L.
“Keep it kind-hearted, kid,” laughed K.
In walk M, N, O, P, and Q, five middle-aged single letters on the prowl for action.
“Mama mia!” marveled M, the mature mistress of metaphysical musings. “What a monsterly massive mob! My moment to mingle!”
“Nonsense,” negated N nymphomaniacally, nearly nicking her nail on a nice Nagel. “Nearly not ’nuff.”
“Objection,” opposed O, an obese oceanographer and overly-ordinary optimist. “Opportunities. Options.”
P, a pompously provocative Polynesian pixie in permed pigtails and a purple pullover, praised in parallel. “Phenomenal possibilities.”
Q quaked in a quiet quandary. No quarrel, no quibble, no quip.
“Righteous!” roared R, recklessly rumbling into the room like a random runaway railroad rig, reaching P. “Rendezvous?”
“Preposterous plan,” perceived P purposefully.
“Rejected!” rooted R.
His sidekick S, a sassy snakelike Swiss swinger from the South sporting sixty-seven Sterling silver stickpins in his Stetson, smirked. “Shunned,” he snickered, smiling. “So sad.”
Then and there trekked a tall and talkative theologian from Tibet toting tremendously tactless things of taboo. Tools of the trade.
“Illegal intentions!” invoked I. “Inform the inspectors!”
“Chill,” consented C. “Calm down and condone.”
“Flex your freedom,” fortified F.
“Granted,” giggled G. “Give the guy grace.”
“Tattletale!”, taunted T truthfully, turning to the tyrant. “Try tolerance. Tell that to thy trooper, twit!”
“Absolve,” advised A, admirably amending the altercation, adding, “Accept, admit, approve, and authorize. Admonish abominable abuse at most.”
“Hear hear,” harked H happily.
“Everybody endure,” echoed E.
“Oh, oodles,” observed O. “Are those Oreos?”
K and G each remained silent, which is something they’d do from time to time.
U, an understandably upbeat umpire from the unit upstairs, entered the party unpunctually with his two lady friends, V and W.
Q, on a quest, quoted quirkily, “I need you.”
“Unlikely,” uttered U uncertainly, veering to V and winking at W, “Unlimited underminings.”
“Vodka?” voiced V vivaciously.
“Wine?” wailed W.
“Unsure,” undertoned U.
In walked X, an extravagant xylophone-playing Xerox expert from Xanadu, and his ex-wife Y, a young yodeler from Yugoslavia.
“This is the spot,” exclaimed X.
“Yep,” yelped Y.
“Y, you’re here!” applauded A, appropriately astonished. “Accompanied by?”
“X,” explained X, extending his hand excitedly.
“Exactly,” yelled Y. “My extroverted ex-husband. The exploiter of Xanax.”
“Aha,” apologized A, attentively aware. “And where’s your new boyfriend, if I may ask? The zealot of zebras I met at the zoo?”
“You mean Z, the zesty zoologist from Zimbabwe,” yodeled Y.
“Affirmative,” asserted A.
Y yawned. “He’s sleeping.”
Can a smooth-talking robot initiate good conversation, generate witty responses, and reveal profound thoughts? See what happens when two chatbots speak to each other. The article is a small sample from DISCOVER’s special issue, The Brain: An Owner’s Manual, on sale through late June, only at newsstands.
A few conversations between chatbots ALICE and Jabberwacky: [click to continue…]
The band name “Aerosmith” reads exactly the same when rotated 180 degrees. Created to be a gift from Dan Brown to Steven Tyler. The look of the long-standing Aerosmith logo was retained, while turning it into a rotational ambigram.
Source: John Langdon
One of the things that’s always irritated me is the notion that, in art, everything is subjective. According to this philosophy, there’s no absolute value to art, which implies that art can be neither good nor bad. It trivializes good taste, and belittles artistic talent. It’s in fact suggesting that anything is art if you want it to be.
I’ve long since concluded that the blanket phrase “art (and taste) is subjective” is a cop-out, typically voiced by people who use it as a crutch to shroud their own lameness, and store the word “subjective” on the same shelf as the biggest words in their vocabulary.
I remember struggling with this issue while studying 20th Century Music in college, where we were forced to endure nonsensical pieces of noise that were seemingly created solely for the purpose of breaking classical rules and shunning tasteful sensibilities. According to this “art is subjective” philosophy, I could go urinate on the wall and call it a masterpiece. (Not that I haven’t already done so.)
Paul Graham wrote an outstanding essay on this topic, taking many words out of my mouth via my subconscious.
“I wrote this essay because I was tired of hearing ‘taste is subjective’ and wanted to kill it once and for all.”
— Paul Graham
Big Mahalo.
A Woman’s Prayer:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray for a man, who’s not a creep.
One who’s handsome, smart, and strong,
A man to listen all night long.
A man who thinks before he speaks,
A man who’ll call, not wait for weeks.
A man who’s gainfully employed,
And when I spend his cash, won’t be annoyed.
Pulls out my chair, opens my door,
Massages my back, begs to do more.
A man to make love to my mind,
A man who’s sensitive and kind.
A man to love me to no end,
A man to be my very best friend.
Filed under “aaawww…”: A dog feeds tiger triplets and her own puppy, right, at the Paomaling Zoo in Jinan, China, Wednesday. The cubs’ mother rejected them.
