Showing posts with label oral storytelling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oral storytelling. Show all posts

10 November 2008

The Aristocrats

Here's what Wikipedia has to say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_aristocrats
Here was South Park's take: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUILIfuzKzU&feature=related

A guy walks into a talent agent’s office and says, “Man, do I have the act for you.” The talent agent has seen it all before, or so he thinks, so he says to the guy, “I’m pretty booked right now. Come back some other time.” Not wanting to leave, the guy says, “I promise you, sir, this act is completely unique. Just give me five minutes to tell you about it.” The manager says okay, and the man describes his act.

“I walk onstage, followed by my beautiful wife and my two adorable children, one boy and one girl. We have great outfits on – sequins, feathers, the whole bit. We join hands, take a bow, then all of us step back except my son who, in the spotlight, walks over to a table in the center of the stage. From a terrarium on the table he takes a live gecko. Accompanied by a drumroll, he then swallows the gecko whole. The drums keep rolling, and after a second he throws it back up and sets it on the table.

“Next my wife and I take center stage. On our way there I grab a large syringe from the table. My wife takes off her shirt and as the audience cheers, I give her a seemingly-impromptu spinal tap. I drop my pants as she takes a bucket of ping-pong balls and a speculum from the table. I bend over, ass to the crowd; my front is visible on a giant projection screen at the back of the stage. My wife then kneels down, opens my anus with the speculum and starts shoving ping-pong balls – lubed up with her own cerebrospinal fluid – up there. As she does so, my daughter kneels in front of me and, as her image is projected onto the back screen, begins sucking my dick. I now have ten ping-pong balls up my ass, and as my wife steps away and the crowd applauds, I start firing the balls out of my ass and into the audience. Usually my wife passes out at this point, because of the spinal tap. Once the last ball is in the audience, I ejaculate into my daughter’s mouth; she chokes on my semen and then vomits. She tries to get up but slips in the cum and puke and falls to the floor.

“My son then returns, clutching the dead gecko, which has gone into rigor mortis. He then proceeds to fuck my exhausted daughter with the rigid gecko while I give him a reacharound. My daughter has a loud orgasm as my son comes all over her stomach. I give my wife an adrenaline shot, my son helps my daughter to her feet, and we all join hands to take a bow. The crowd goes wild!”

The manager, dumbfounded, asks the guy, “Holy shit, what do you call an act like that?” The guy says, “Why, sir, we call ourselves The Aristocrats!”

17 October 2008

The Ozarks

Vance Randolph once compiled a bunch of Ozark stories in a book called "Stiff as a Poker." It's kind of cool, pretty funny, and an awesome concept. Here's a quote I like from the introduction:
"...the profanity which adds force to an oral narrative becomes monotonous in print." -- p. xii

I agree. I use profanity a great deal in "real life," but far more seldom when I'm writing. It's tedious. I'm kind of melodramatic, so in my life everything's "fucking" this and "fucking" that and "damn" such and such; I have a great amount of feeling to express, but when telling a story out loud, there's considerably less time to express it in due to listener attention span. However, when writing a story, the audience has a longer attention span and a writer has longer to decide on the perfect adjective - or other descriptor - for an emotion.

And I like that. In both cases. I like the distinctions and nuances. I enjoy both methods of storytelling and appreciate their differences, because it gives them character and colour. Huzzah.

27 September 2008

Quotes from Boccaccio

"And whenever a day passed without her having set eyes upon him, she was restless for the whole of the following night." -- Third Day of the Decameron, p. 206

"Since you are not imperceptive, you will undoubtedly have become well aware, long before now, that I am deeply in love with you, not only because of your beauty, which without any question surpasses that of every other woman I ever saw, but also on account of your laudable manners and singular virtues, any one of which would be sufficient to capture the heart of the noblest man alive. It is thus unnecessary for me to offer you a long-winded account of my love for you. Suffice it to say that no man ever loved any woman more deeply or more ardently, and that I shall continue to do so unfailingly for as long as life sustains this poor, suffering body of mine, and longer still; for if, in the life hereafter, people love as they do on earth, I shall love you for ever." -- Third Day, p. 223

"Since, as you perceive, I belong to you unreservedly, it is not without reason that I will venture to address my pleas to your noble heart, which is the one true source of all my peace, all my contentment, and all my well-being. Dearest beloved, since I am yours and you alone have the power to fortify my soul with some vestige of hope as I languish in the fiery flames of love, I beseech you, as your most humble servant, to show me some mercy and mitigate the harshness you have been wont to display towards me in the past. Your compassion will console me, enabling me to claim that it is to your beauty that I owe, not only my love, but also my very life, which will assuredly fail unless your proud spirit yields to my entreaties, and then indeed people will be able to say that you have killed me...in order to forestall so regrettable an outcome, instead of allowing me to die, take pity on me whilst there is still time, for in you alone lies the power of making me the happiest or the most wretched man alive. It is my hope and my belief that you will not be so unkind as to allow death to be my reward for such passionate devotion, and that you will gladly consent to my humble entreaty, thus restoring my failing spirits, which have turned quite faint with awe in your gracious presence." -- Third Day, p. 224