January 2006
33 posts
An obvious joke about public speaking fears
A single-panel comic that is just a drawing of a tombstone. The epitaph on the tombstone reads, “He preferred death to public speaking.”
Seems like a cute, inoffensive joke that might work on a mainstream greeting card.
An editor who gets the last laugh
In the preface to a book by a first time writer who is just now getting published, the book’s editor makes fun of the writer of the book for so readily agreeing with all of her proposed changes, gloating that his original ideas were better, but now it’s too late for him to fight for his creative rights.
Tofu pyramids and the genius of Greg Richardson
Greg Richardson, my Angelica Kitchen co-worker who once schooled me on the rules of love, has also taught me much about cuisine and life. I first realized his brilliance when he taught me how to cut a square of marinated tofu or tempeh for the sampler plate.
I had been mindlessly cutting each square into four triangles by slicing them diagonally, and then randomly stacking them. Greg took a more...
$20 paranoia
A character steals a $20 bill from a store. Paranoid of getting caught, he never carries $20 bills in his wallet for the rest of his life.
Catpostrophe
A T-shirt with a cat curled into the shape of an apostrophe. Underneath the cat, it says, “Catpostrope.”
The beauty of starvation
A more beautiful way of describing someone’s death by starvation: “And then she famished into the air.”
A movie that includes all the re-writes
If you filmed a script that contained all the original dialogue and action, as well as all the re-writes, characters would say their original, clunky dialogue first, then correct themselves and say more polished versions of the same things.
Events would transpire, but then they would transpire again in slightly or dramatically different ways - more logically, and more symbolically.
Or, if the...
God's plan
God, upon witnessing events that he didn’t expect: “Oh, shit, she’s stepped out of my plan. Repeat! Stepped out of God’s plan!”
Blaming the friend first
Master criminals rob a bank overnight. When the bank guard discovers this, his first thought is that his friend who visited him at work the night before must have stolen all the money.
He calls his friend and accuses him of robbing the bank and trying to take advantage of their friendship. His friend says he didn’t do it, but the guard doesn’t believe him.
The guard feels pretty bad...
Fake bad translation T-shirts
You know how when people go to Japan, or some other non-English speaking country, they buy T-shirts that have an English word or words on them that nobody in that country would wear if they knew what it meant? Like, say, a T-shirt with a hampster on it, and the hampster is saying, “Tattoo!”
For a while, Joe and I we were going to start a line of T-shirts with intentionally awkward and...
Take it to the next level, even before it's on a...
A lot of times, when high-falootin’ writers are dicussing an issue that they know has been talked about in the press before, they will make sure their readers know that the writer knows that she’s not talking about anything new: “Despite all the ink spilled about the racism in the government’s response to the Katrina catastrophe, what most people overlooked...
Communicating with the past
If you ever have the opportunity to speak to people in the past through some sort of time warp, but you can’t think of anything to say, one polite stock phrase would be: “Hey, we like what you did. Too bad you’re dead.”
A nighttime observation
The best place to masturbate is on top of the Empire State Building, because you can look down, see basically everyone in New York, and fantasize about having sex with a thousand people at once.
I would suggest the Hancock Tower as a close second, but the name of that building provides a distasteful insinuation in this context.
The Owner has Absolutely Lost his Mind!
Why do business owners always slash prices when they lose their minds? Why not a business owner who loses his mind and then makes prices unreasonably high? Or prices that fluctuate arbitrarily? Or just destroys all his merchandise and kills all his customers?
The Opinion Game, from Jocelyn
“Along the lines of a long-term role-playing game, this is The Opinion Game. It requires a group of close friends (say, 4-6 players) and every player randomly draws one Opinion out of a hat (it doesn’t have to be a hat, but geez, why shouldn’t it be?). Each player will be nonchalant, even apathetic, about every other single topic or decision (no matter how great or how small a...
Q, X and Z will finally have their day
A language that makes sure to use every letter of the alphabet equally. Obviously, not every sentence or word would have to use every letter the same number of times, but overall, if you were to say every possible thing you could possibly say in the language, the letter use would balance out perfectly.
This would have to be a highly regulated language, even more so than French.
Cashier Power, from Leah Caldwell
“Cashiers that give prolific advice.
“For example, I registered for a german class at school and then quickly dropped it. When I returned the books, the cashier said to me, ‘All done. It’s like it never happened.’ I felt his words gave me a closure of sorts.
“Perhaps cashiers should realize the gravity of some purchases (or returns) and give reassurance...
The House of Always Winning
A Casino called either The House Always Wins or The House of Always Winning.
Probably the second one, because in that one, the fact that gamblers are the ones losing isn’t quite as explicit.
An expert at something that doesn't exist
I once wondered this about myself, but I suppose it could apply to a character. What if I were an expert at something that doesn’t exist on earth (never will exist, or only existed in the past or distant future), or venus, or any forseeable life for myself? Like say you had the propensity to be really good at race car driving, but race cars had never come into existence in your lifetime.
I...
If you thought taking Christ out of Christmas was...
What do you get when you take the Christ out of Christianity?
Inannity.
Joe and I came up with that together.
My very first movie scene idea
I think I was 10 or 11 when I first thought I wanted to write movies. I even remember my very first movie scene idea. Remember, I was 10 or 11 when I thought of this!:
A man in a straight-jacket is upside down in a TV commercial. He screams, “never wake a sleepwalker!” Then there’s a scene of a sleepwalker walking to a fridge. Someone wakes him up, and he explodes. It cuts back...
The Smock of Huntsville
Here’s an idea that my dad actually completed. It’s a prison uniform on which Tom Delay’s face mysteriously appeared. A happy coincidence, since my dad hate hate hates Republicans.
He’s selling it on Ebay here.
Right now it’s at $10, which is a steal, considering that it includes a notorized certificate of authenticity, rights to reproduction, and a nice story.
Making your food more fit for your beliefs
Some people avoid caffeine for their health, but a few even have a religious aversion. Those would be Mormons, whose “Word of Wisdom” (Doctine & Covenants 89) command against the consumption of store-bought wine, tobacco, and “hot drinks” (later interpreted to mean caffeinated drinks.)
Good Mormons will avoid coffee and tea, but almost all of them still eat chocolate,...
How to kill at a stand-up comedy open mic
Joseph Weisenthal had the idea to sign up for open mic night at a stand-up comedy club, find out who was going on just before him, memorize that person’s entire act, and then repeat that person’s act word-for-word right after him.
No matter how good or bad that previous person’s act was, Joe’s reciting of it would have been hilarious.
Would have, because he never did it....
Yahoo! Answers
About a year ago, my friend Joe Weisenthal came up with an idea that he was sure would revolutionize the internet. It would be a web site for questions.
It would be better than a usenet group, because the questions would go to anyone who was tagged as having an interest in those issues, which would eventually be thousands.
For instance, say you live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. One of your interests...
Awake? Asleep?
Like AIM telling you who is online and who is offline, this device would tell you who of your friends is asleep and who is awake. That way, if you need to call someone, you don’t have to be afraid of waking them up. And if someone promised to call you in the morning, you can look at the asleep/awake detector and be like, “Damn it! They’re awake and not calling. What’s going...
The Planets: Sedna
A symphony celebrating the somewhat newly discovered quasi-planet Sedna. The symphony would be called “The Planets: 2003 VB12,” after the scientific name for the planet. Listening to it would raise humanity to higher heights.
Ensuring a Healthy, Moral, Productive Marriage
In states that don’t allow same-sex marriages (Texas, for instance), there should be a law requiring that just before the Priest, Rabbi, Judge, or Secular Humanist Friend pronounces a couple married, he or she should take the couple behind a screen, command them to disrobe, and make sure once and for all that the people about to be married have opposite genetalia.
If the couple passes the...
Steal lyrics from unintelligible songs and make...
Old fogies always complain about how you can never understand the lyrics in songs these days. Whine, whine, whine! But they didn’t get to be old fogies by being idiots and going to sleep on railroad tracks, now did they? In a lot of songs, it actually is impossible to deciper the lyrics!
So my idea is that you find super-popular songs with lyrics that are absolutely impossible to...
Shy With Totalitarian Leanings
Someone who is so shy, she romanticizes the fictional totalitarian worlds of books like We, 1984 and Brave New World, imagining that she would love to live in a time when everyone is expected to conform and blend in. All she’s ever wanted to do was hide and blend in.
Supplement for replacing minerals lost in...
I’ve seen vitamin supplements directed toward alcohol drinkers, which puport to replace all the vitamins and minerals you lose when you get drunk; if you take the pills at certain intervals while you drink, you shouldn’t feel any of the after-effects of alcohol the next day.
I wish there was a vitamin supplement like that for male masturbation, which replaceded all the zinc and...