Those who know me know I have a love for games.
We both do.
Often, we make up word games when we are hanging out after work.
The go to game is where you say a word and
(on the honor system) are thinking in your mind a second word.
The other participants playing have only a
few seconds to freely associate a word that is related.
You get a point if they say your word: for
instance “stop” …”light”.
If “sign” or
“it” or something else that follows is spoken, you get no point, but to long of
a pause is a point as well.
Recently, I came up with a new game. It was inspired by a few sources. One element of the game was a recollection
from a lesson I recently taught about how to write for a newspaper. In fact, I think I will call the game: the 5
W’s game. The five W’s are the major
question words that need to be addressed by a reporter, namely: Who, What,
When, Where, Why, and How. Yes, I know
it is actually 5 W’s and an H, but that doesn’t sound as catchy does it?
The other element of the game is thanks to Michael Pollan,
author of The Botany of Desire, which
Nicole and I are jointly reading aloud to each other. Reading out loud can be tricky. One thing that can make it downright
harrowing is the overuse of run on sentences and parenthetical statements. Pollan is guilty of both, to the point that
some of the book seems more in parenthesis than in the actual text. After a chuckle about this, we thought about
a book being written, where the text began with a couple words and then the
entire body of the novel was parenthesis inside of parenthesis only to end with
a closing few words. Thus the novel
would be just one statement outside of an absurdly long parenthetical side
note!
Putting the book aside, we grabbed some paper and pens and
set out on a new exercise designed to be mentally stimulating and fun to
write. The idea was to write a word or
two such as:
Ballet
Then to follow a form of answering the five W questions (and
one H) inside inclusive parenthetical rabbit trails. The first being “who”:
(a dance form founded by the French
Then next question would relate to the previous statement,
often the last word, rather than the original word. Where:
[a nationality in central Europe famous for art, food, and
national pride
Continue with the questions, letting the guiding question
dictate your direction. What:
(pride being a philosophical/religious concept largely
linked with the ego or will
When:
[that consciousness that endures from the earliest
remembered days and returns to the void after death
Why:
(a phenomenon that most people believe is as necessary as
life
How:
[life being defined by the Greeks as the art of dying well
Then you close all the parenthesis and finish the sentence:
])])]) takes commitment.
So, in the end, you have a sentence stating: Ballet takes
commitment. This could also be the title
of the piece. It is easy to do, and
kinda fun to see where your mind goes.
It is also a bit funny to try to come up with an ironic ending to your
sentence after going through the writing journey, i.e. Don’t think ahead to the
end of your sentence, keep yourself on your toes and the end will write
itself.
Perhaps there is unique humor to us as we have been reading
from this particular book, but the look of all the asides from a finished game
is so comical.
Here are our first tries at it:
The man (who was the son of Zeus [a longstanding god (until
recently residing in Olympus [this being the 3rd golden age after
the long winter (the sun having rolled off its orbital path and away from gods
and mortals alike [due to the abundant use of packaging])])]) ordered a
cellophane enclosed apple with a grimace.
Or, keeping the questions about the original statement is
fun too:
The cat (who is orange and fat [because he ate to much (at
the kitty café [on a fateful day (because he was a little depressed [due to a
lack of cannabinoids acting properly in his cerebral cortex])])]) jumped off
the top of his perch unsuccessfully trying to end his life but just bruised his
paws.
