August 3rd, 2012 / 3:03 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Ken Baumann—
from da generous Shane Jones: I have a lot of author copies for Daniel Fights a Hurricane and I want to give a few away. I was thinking a contest at HTMLGIANT where people can win a copy by creating a new kind of weather in the comments section and say what its effects are. I’ll pick three “winners” and send the copies out this weekend.
“the chill”–where trees don’t blow in the wind but are shuddering at the thought of becoming self-published novels. also, clouds are big paper mill factory farts that birds and planes can’t fly through or else they come out as copies of the DVD ‘Nixon’
The inhabitants of sections of low lying ground may spend an entire day regretting even their most minor actions during the bizarre weather phenomenon known as a “ruenami”. Luckily the aftermath is minimal, and once it subsides they go about their lives.
“Gorilla Monsoon.” When Gorilla Monsoon season sets in, you can expect a deluge of body slams, ddts, and broken tables. You can tell the Monsoon is coming when shit starts turning blue and breaking character. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sugarslam2011/5920211700/
Static: named after the periodic TV annoyance, a blanket distortion wherein people who venture outside risk being misunderstood either in speech or action. During periods of static, it’s not uncommon for bonds to be broken, fires to be set, great & traumatic art to be created.
altlitstorm: the atmospheric explosion when tao lin’s fans and haters clash, but like a tree felled in a vacant forest, nobody hears nor cares
womb – a warm, dark, methodical sky program
“When She Smiles At The Breakfast Table” the fields fill with lightning and melt whatever goats care to go on grazing, starlings drop like firecrackers or baseballs in foul play, and she continues smiling with a mouth full of mushy Cherrios. I sit there in color nearly catching fire.
The Triskaidekian Gauntlet: when 13 clouds vomit water for 13 minutes onto 13 people.
Flog: Low lying atmospheric condition during which authors
use every corner of the internet, and particularly blogs, to promote the be-jesus
out of their new books, concocting cockamamie contests and other publicity
stunts in such pursuit, resulting in eventual loss of visibility of the actual
product in question in the eyes of potential customers. A portmanteau of WTF log.
Custodians, all-night convenience mart clerks and other graveyard shift laborers describe a phenomenon called “auto-da-fé” that occurs in sprawling, arid cities of the American southwest. In late summer between 3 and 4am, thousands of driver-less cars mobilize and stream in from the suburbs on invisible currents to clog inner-city streets. There they honk mournfully, cut each other off, double-park at random while blasting AC from open power-windows. The end of the event is signaled when an arbitrary few park themselves in vacant back-alleys and spontaneously combust. Dry night breezes fan the flames while their less penitent colleagues head back to 2 or 3 car garages, engine-blocks still softly ticking when their owners belt themselves in for the morning commute.
Finding oneself in a ‘What the Hail’-storm evokes strong feelings of incredulity at the simplest aspects of daily life. Breakfast is useless. Cars are magic. Life, itself, is a confounding mystery. This existential anguish is forgotten, however, when the heat-seeking, grapefruit-sized ice bombs begin to fall from the sky. Then, there is only cover.
Black Rage- A mix of sunshine that burns the skin and a voice from the heavens screaming GET YOUR ASS IN THE HOUSE. The effects include White Lady Tears and mass panic. Not to be confused with Black Rain which includes strippers and twerking and is generally a sign of seven years of abundance.
the old rinds of dilated pupils fall away on the way home from the doctor’s office and collide with hot air stuck on the overpasses. the effect makes large fists of wind that do nothing to the crops, nothing to windows in the cities where the drops were administered, but when the wind touches against the top layers of water in the river/the pond/the puddle/the swamp/abandoned quarries/the sea nearby, a sound is made. it is often similar in tone and richness to that of mid-range violin owned by an eighteen year debating between majoring in music or biochemistry. for a long time, outdoor stores are unsure of what equipment they should sell to prepare people biking to work or going on fly-fishing trips. weather stations release sound clips meant to predict what the river/the pond/the puddle/the swamp/abandoned quarries/the sea will sound like against today’s fists of wind/eye appointments. often the sound is much different and some musicians move to create a new field of music study which explores how adding/taking away nearby water will change the sound. some of them think bowls/small tanks are the answer. in the winter, the months of silence become eerie.
the cloud of knives first appears to be a mist or fog. this hides its speed.
A Biting Casper is an unnatural event, unique to the
Northeastern part of the United States, that lasts from October and December
each year. It is classified as “columns
of friendly gusts and pervasive condor-like clouds circling children between
the ages of six and thirteen and sweeping them off to vacant old Victorians. Once there, the children listen to an appeal
for friendship from a creepy, closeted wraith with veiny eyes and misty jowls. After the wraith’s appeal and requirement
that they accept his friend request on Facebook, they can leave the
building. Those children that do not accept
the wraith’s friend request within a day of the event develop painful bite
marks on their inner thighs and nose, which remain until the friendship is
accepted. This biting condition is primarily
prevalent for children in the inner-city and country, but the symptoms are curable.”
Gravity Pockets are characterized by spontaneous and severe shifts up or down in the force of gravity, usually effecting areas up to 81 cubic feet. Although unnerving to consider, most who find themselves in a pocket suffer little more than mild nausea and the occasional sprained ankle from being thrown off their feet. In a particularly extreme instance, a pair of second graders in Illinois were launched 350 feet in the air, though both survived with only a few broken bones and bruises between them. Some speculate a gravity pocket was behind the sudden bursting of the football immediately following the kickoff of Super Bowl XXVII in 1993 though this has not been scientifically proven.
Whorenado, where we get sucked up into the sky’s vagina.
whether vain: an atmospheric particle-storm that attracts the human vitreous humor to reflecting surfaces preliminarily to manual spasms of admiring or timid adjustment
[So far, I’d like to vote – “I’ll pick” means ‘mob rule’, no? – for ruenami and flog.]
Seasonal event where the earth and sod will grow up around your ankles and hold you in place. Marked by high levels of introspection. Referred to as ‘Loam’, as in: ‘Each Loam I wear extra high socks and carry a bottle of water with me in case I am forced to think for a while.’
Smogma – Smoky fog as a result of no one washing their fucking balls.
Weariness is a storm system characterized by the presence of, but complete lack of movement of clouds, wind, and precipitation. All of it just hangs there, and we only get wet or pushed when we bump into it. Which we, of course, must do in order to get home from work.
‘mountain dew’ – everything in the world becomes mountain dew
Whoa, these are scary good. I’ll let this run until tomorrow morning and pick the three winners in the morning.
The air is incendiary. Not enough to be catastrophic – you can go out in it and only risk singeing flyaway hairs or gauzy scarves. Happens mostly in dry climates, in urban areas, at 50-70 degrees.
So… basically “Pontypool changes everything”, the Mel Bosworth version?
motherfucking bellybuttons and loin cloths will fall from jelloclouds. 40 LYPH straightline peckerwinds. slothfunnels formed in rural communites will suck the hair from the bodies of people and replace it with wires and booby tassles. their teeth will be extracted. bone is a vitality of calcium for the slothcanoe, which is the inverted version of the slothfunnel, which starts as a newly minted dime from the dreams of our collective politics. the structure is anemic bonemeat made from rain. the weather will be called something but everybody will forget what it was. tomorrow when you look for the forecast on your television or radio or newspaper, you will find evidence that the new and blessed day before you will maim your searching face and set you on fire, but only if you make it through the slapping paddles of the slothcanoe. gold medals will be given to any and all survivors, regardless of whether they are second or third place. regardless of whether they’re worthy. they will all be worthy. worthy is a word carved from weather, motherfucker.
the Jonesin’-for-cast:
cloudy with a chance of Shane
“worthy is a word carved from weather, motherfucker.”
That sounds like what “Mercury Retrograde” is supposedly
Moonson Why do we have to go down there?, the children say. They almost never get a straight answer because, well, children never do. Every year the people of the hills crouch around hissing gas lights in ancient concrete shelters. Waiting it out. Fighting off the boredom with board games and little cruelties. When you’re older you’re told of the times it lasted not just days or weeks but months, whole families starving or going crazy down there. And you learn to listen at the iron hatches for the feet and voices of the offspring of earth’s only natural satellite, walking where you used to walk, playing where you used to play, taking your dog. Moonson may just last a day or five and when it’s over, well, it’s over and all your stuff is yours again to play with when you wipe the spittle off.
type of jet-stream anomaly where a gust of wind from the arctic meets a rapidly upward-bound thermal, causing the cooler air to nose-dive toward the land, plume into a reverse mushroom cloud, accumulating water particles along its descent resulting in a sudden and unpredictable bucket-of-water-like splash that ranges in intensity from ‘refreshing’ to ‘catastrophically meteor-like’, called a ‘bwhoomackle’
“Whether” — new kind of state of the atmosphere at a place and time as regards heat, cloudiness, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc., used in writing by people under thirty years of age. (See “grammer.”)
HYDROSTATIC HITTIN IT: Where the temperature of water volume between gyrating torsos of junior high merboy and mergirl in undersea stylin’ to Positive K’s “I Got a Man” is measured by submarine balloon thermonovel in itoldya°. On weekends the barometer persists in dropping the Don Juan on the yeahbaby critical pressure readout. Increased heat index when school mermarm crabs the ruler turbo-booster style between their fleshy fin loveletters.
Calloway Spray:
light “jizzle” spewing from warm fronts stemming from an insecure system
manifesting itself in the form of shock value. CS masks itself as a bona fide writer storm, but
ultimately fails. This system is more mirage than monsoon. However, it picks up
momentum when given more attention than it deserves. There’s no need to panic.
But folks tend to overreact when monochromatic pockets are promoted as
prodigious. When encountered, ignore this system. It will easily and thankfully
pass (Not to be confused with James
Franco Doldrums or Tao Lin Hot Wind.).
Calloway Spray:
light “jizzle” spewing from warm fronts stemming from an insecure system
manifesting itself in the form of shock value. CS masks itself as a bona fide writer storm, but
ultimately fails. This system is more mirage than monsoon. However, it picks up
momentum when given more attention than it deserves. There’s no need to panic.
But folks tend to overreact when monochromatic pockets are promoted as
prodigious. When encountered, ignore this system. It will easily and thankfully
pass (Not to be confused with James
Franco Doldrums or Tao Lin Hot Wind.).
writer should have a strikethrough, oh well
The clouds are changing. No longer to they just hang above our heads horizontally. Now they are touching the ground, vertically, so that their lightening bolts come at us from the sides and the tops! Also, the rain shoots out powerfully, knocking over small children and animals who are not strong enough to withstand the watery blast. God help us all if hails. The government, having little creative capacity but taken to drinking as of late (this weather is stressful), has called this new kind of weather “Oh Shit” weather. “It’s Oh Shitting outside.”
Weatherlessness – like a coffee without coffein, like a wine without alcohol. People go outside and there is no weather anymore. Neither it’s snowing nor raining. It is not sunny. It is not cloudy. It is even not your another boring day mood. It’s just no weather outside houses. And inside people. But since we have to focus every phenomenon with our scientifically glasses – let’s call it weatherlessness.
This was pretty much impossible. To pick the winners I read each entry three times. I then made a list of my favorites which compiled eight people total – Sam Salvador, Erick Stinson, Don, Shannon, Shaun Gannon, Alexeander J. Allison, Peter Markus, and isScottHammer. I read each of these entries multiple times and went with a “gut reaction” to who should be the “winners” and get copies. If you’re listed below please email me at Sejones85@gmail.com your address so I can mail you a book tomorrow. Thanks everyone.
1) Don – “the triskaidekian gauntlet”2) Shannon – “black rage”3) Shaun Gannon – “cloud of knives.”4) Alexander J. Allison – “loam”
an inconvenience: wherein it rains tiny people that populate the earth and replace its existing inhabitants. this will actually be inconvenient for the tiny people because all the existing buildings, cars, tools, etc will all be too large for them. eventually they’ll evolve and expand and become closer to the size of the earth’s original inhabitants and it will rain tiny people again. and again. all the time, tiny people. inconvenient tiny people.
It is very cool to pay for this book anyway. Respct.
A cataclysmic event occurs, involving misplaced French toast, and it sets off a chain of bizarre weather phenomena including, but not limited to, double rainbows, ivisible floods, a rain of needles, purple rain, gummy worm lightning, a reverse solar eclipse (where the sun and the moon keep us from seeing ourselves), tornadoes that churn bad ideas and crash into our bodies but leave the landscape intact, rising humidity, severe draught in underwater cavern systems, lice storms, and earthquakes caused by all the animals moving at once. “It’s the perfect weather to kiss in,” I say, to nobody at all.
Dude.
Dude?
This just seemed a bit harsh.
Also, hi. You are awesome.
oh. didn’t mean it that way, just joshin. shane is great and so i bet the book. and i did the whole thing too with silly contests etc, so.
hey! u r awesome!
Glorgus. Basically the sun turns completely red, like blood red and it creates this thick air, like so thick you can tear sheets out of the sky and fold them up and use them as tablecloths and then every tree starts shedding bark and underneath they release this cocktail of chemicals that get inserted into clouds like little darts poking through mounds of cotton the result being a reaction these plasma-like blobs that hang in the air, little Glorgii, and we all think, all of us humans, we all think “hey, this must be sustenance,” you know because EVERYTHING is about us. But, oh, oh, oh, we’re wrong, it’s not sustenance, in fact each little piece is part of The Tree, the only tree, the tree from which all other trees came and so all us dumb humans start eating the Glorgii and the Glorgii, within seconds of being ingested begin to seek out the other Glorgii to attach to, and here you are thinking “Oh, like, Voltron,” well Jesus Christ not everything that breaks apart only to come back together to become one, singular unit needs to be compared to Voltron you fuck
The Tongue Twister is a tornado made of tongues shouting biblical gibberish which can be heard as a distant rumble up to an hour before the tongue twister is visible. A popular origin story states that the twisters are sent by God as punishment for Esperanto. The funnel shape is meant to represent an inverted Tower of Babel. Recitation of the following five times fast is thought to offer protection from the storm:
Bricks burned hard spurned, thus turned one tongue plural.
It rains red for the rest of days.
Weather: LSD rain
Effects: anarchy, then possible metaphorical suicide (death of the former self)In the event of rain: the CIA is watching you – put your head down & fake insanity to escape capture
whether – weather that is dependent upon your relation to it.
Helter Swelter:
the apocalyptic heat wave of the future which will end all human life and leave the planet alone.