DAY COMES, NIGHT GOES–THEY JUST WANT TO BE TOGETHER, EVERYONE KNOWS: So I kept teasing you all, talking about this cool weird-o writing exercise I’d found. I reveal it: Anthropomorfic*.

You look at me like Manuel, and say, “Que?”

Anthropomorfics: Very, very short fiction (I’m limiting myself to 150-250 words) in which the “characters” are allegorical abstract nouns or hemi-allegorical (what?) concrete nouns. I’ll be posting two or three of these a week from now until the New Year. In this post I’ll list the pairings I’m considering. The italicized ones are my favorites: ones I’m almost certain to do. If you want me to do any of them, itals or not, please write in, as I guarantee I will write any pairing you people choose. This is, after all, a writing exercise, not a writing mud mask or jacuzzi session! …Also, if you end up writing this kind of completely bats thing, let me know. It is always comforting to find that “we’re all mad here.”

* Website includes descriptions of sex, and stuff. So might some of my writing exercises. Some stories need sexual description, as some stories need melodrama; but with both of these elements, a little goes a long way. For what it’s worth, I think blasphemy is worse than sexual sin, and at least equally appealing in its typical literary depictions; so if you want to get on my case about the things I write, please be forewarned that I really have thought about this quite a bit and am thus far unconvinced that I need to lace-knickers my stories for the Lord.

Here are the possibilities:

love/hate

Subtext/sub!text

Present/Subjunctive with implied Past/Present

Absence/Presence

High Heel/Foot

Nature/Art

Newspaper of Record/Tabloid Press

Word/Deed

Genius/Madness

Spine/Book

Ugly/Beautiful followed swiftly by Ugly/Sublime

Modernity/Postmodernities

Natural Right/Natural Rights

Ars Longa/Vita Brevis

Church/Liquor Store

Tradition/Cliche or Tradition/Addiction

Never/Seldom; Never/Someday; Never/Now

If/Then

Either/Or

Text/Penumbra; Text/Intent

Shot Glass/Mug

Open Parenthesis/Close Parenthesis

Progress/Return

You/She

Bird’s Nest Soup/Moo Shu Pork

Us/Them

Soliloquy/Chorus

Power/Freedom

Wife/Mistress

Trilobite/Coelacanth

Venice/Rome

War/Postwar with implied Antebellum/War

Imposed/Discovered

Night/Insomnia

Creation/Procreation

Choice/Circumstance

Mashed Potatoes/Vodka or maybe French Fries/Vodka

Love Interest/Sidekick

Means/Ends

Liberty/License

Alazon/Eiron

Bitterness/Repression

Nobody/Anybody or Anybody/Somebody

The Life/The Work

Reason/Faith

Books/Whiskey

Knowledge/Truth