Monday, February 11, 2008

Six Word Memoirs

Happened across these great six word memoirs on NPR (link leads will lead you to 25 quick reads!) Stories vary widely. Some are inspiring, like Wendy Lee's Asked to quiet down; spoke louder. My favorite? Nothing profound, just sat around. The project is from Not Quite What I was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure from Smith Magazine, 2008. It's based on Hemingway's famous six word novel, "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn." I blogged before about six word stories when Wired had a similar gig for sci-fi. I thought my own six word sci-fi was rather brilliant: War rages until women oust men.
But it was not met with critical acclaim.

Think long and hard (or short and concisely) about your six word memoir and post it in comments, why don't you? Mine:

So much ambition, just getting started.

Buffy Season 8

I've been doing some non-conventional "reading" lately (for me). Listening to a lot of short story podcasts (Selected Shorts by Symphony Space is a great one. Some of the best stories I've listened to recently are Alan Gurganus's "It Had Wings", and "The Red Fox Fur Coat" by Portuguese writer Teolinda Gersao.) and a great set of comic books about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That series has inspired some interesting reading material, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale (2003), a collection of essays by contemporary philosophers. I read it a few years ago and really enjoyed it. It has probably the best description of Post-Modernism I've ever read, and I even put a chapter on the syllabus for a class I taught on contemporary art.

Any fan of the television show is sure to love the comic books (Dark Horse), a continuation of the series, although I doubt others would really catch on. I have a tendency to get frustrated by comic books - too short, don't like being left hanging at the end, but, I appreciate the art form. And the Buffy comic book continues with some of the strongest themes from the tv series, feminism, friendship, and a hefty dose of girl power.