June 16, 2006

Friday fiction frolic: The School by Donald Barthelme. A short, short story --dark, but funny, one of his best. Or if you're a music fan, another one: The King of Jazz which has the best lyrical description of music i've ever read.
posted by StoryBored 18 years ago
  • What are you favourite short, short stories on the web? (Short,short = less than five minutes to read, so Heart of Darkness don't count).
  • Ye've put me in a dark mood with that loverly little gem, StoryBored! Let's have a bit of the master. I've had this knocking around in my head for days. Berenice
  • I read that as "friday friction frolic"!
  • That's 'round the back.
  • *queues up*
  • *reads Berenice* What a nice story....Ooo yew monkeys, yew have too many TEETH! HAHHAHAHHAHAHA! *advances slowly with pliers*
  • Ooooh...thanks, StoryBored! Donald Barthelme completely blew me away when I first started reading his stories in high school. I remember reading 40 Stories while not paying attention in English class and trying to hide the fact that I was quietly laughing myself to tears. Well it's just more Barthelme, but here are another couple of old favorites I could find online (both from here if you're interested in still more): The Baby The Policeman's Ball
  • You're welcome, Flongj! Thanks for those two extra ones!
  • Tobermory by Saki.
  • tech note for tracicle: for some reason it is difficult to impossible to go from one thread directly into another thread (as for instance in clicking a title from the sidebar); find I have to go back to the index page and then enter the second thread.
  • i tried to read 60 stories, from reading about it, it would seem to be a book that was really quite cool, but never moved me--in fact 60 in a row like that bored me to tears... maybe i should start again and stop trying to read it front to back
  • I have a collection of Fredric Brown's short stories, most of them about as short as this one: Nightmare in Grey And of course this is an essential short story: Harrison Bergeron
  • So where's this Friday Fraction Frolic happening?
  • It started half an hour ago but is now three quarters over.
  • Kudos to Bees (that was my first cup of Saki) and Arzakh for yer contributions!
  • This isn't my favorite by Roald Dahl, but it'll do.
  • So next Friday can we do Happy Hour?
  • Bien sur!