What I’m Blogging

The November issue of Wired has an interesting article about stories written in only six words. Count ‘em, six. November is also the month of the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), better known as 1600 odd words a day in linguistic hell to complete a 50K plus word something or other.

…so what’s yours?…

This year I’m taking a break… I just can’t do the 50K thing. But I might be able to do six. So consider it a Meme…. come up with your best six word short story and we can make November a ShoStoSixWorMo instead.

Some examples;

For sale: baby shoes, never worn. – Ernest Hemingway

Longed for him. Got him. Shit. – Margaret Atwood

It’s behind you! Hurry before it – Rockne S. O’Bannon

And mine, you ask?

Birth, stuggle, death. Rinse and repeat. – Ric Knight

So what’s yours?

This morning, the harbinger of cold left it’s calling card on my windshield. It was the first snow of the year. Not a blizzard by any stretch of the imagination, but a clear reminder that the annual Canadian deep freeze has begun again.

…Bears may be the number one threat to America…

Now is the time of frosty rituals and rememberances of warmer times. The liner goes into my coat, sweaters come out of storage, my wife starts making threatening sounds while waving gloves at me.

It is at times such as these that one wishes that humans had followed the evolutionary path of our ursoid brothers. What a joy to sleep, warm and safe in bear-like bliss while the wind howls outside. No shovel needed to clear the driveway. No driving on icy roads with morons in SUVs. Just sweet slumber; dreaming dreams of salmon and picnic baskets. Bears may be the number one threat to America according to Stephen Colbert, but they sure know how to handle winter.

Oktoberfest has its origins in a wedding that happened on this day in 1810. The Bavarian Crown Prince Louis, later King Louis I of Bavaria, married Princess Therese of Saxonia. The royal couple celebrated on the fields in front of the city gates with a horse race, and they invited the citizens of Munich to attend. All across Bavaria there were similar festivities, and everyone enjoyed the party so much that the following year they decided to do it again. Eventually it became a tradition. The Oktoberfest in Munich is now the largest festival in the world. Every year, nearly six million people attend, and they drink more than 10 million pints of beer.