Monday, July 19, 2004

Just Six

For some mysterious reason, Page Six--home of salacious gossip seven days a week--ran this bit a few days ago:

July 17, 2004 -- ERNEST Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in six words. The result: "For sale: baby shoes, never used." It's rumored that Hemingway thought it was his greatest work, and it's invariably offered as the standard to which micro-fiction should aspire. Stirred by the mini-masterpiece, BlackBook magazine asked 25 of today's writers to offer their own original six-word story. Some produced more than 10 narratives in less than an hour's time, while others took weeks to labor over a single half-dozen word-set. Among the submissions were John Updike: "Forgive me!" "What for?" "Never mind." From Irvine ("Trainspotting") Welsh: "Eyeballed me, killed him. Slight exaggeration." Norman Mailer: "Satan — Jehovah — 15 rounds. A draw." Rick Moody: "Grass, cow, calf, milk, cheese, France." Tobias Wolff: "She gave. He took. He forgot." Michael Cunningham: "My nemesis is dead. Now what?" And Jerry Stahl: "You are not sh - - . You are!"

So I've been sitting here giving myself a headache trying to think of one, and this is all I've got:

"More?"
"No more."
"Really?"
"Not really."

It's past my bedtime. Maybe something better will come to me in my dreams. Meanwhile, wanna play?

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