The_Round_One

Heart-breaking and anger-inducing. The anger part, of course, comes from topics that are "banned" in "The Lounge."

Somehow this is even worse than Rebecca Black! Right down to the singing into the turkey leg...bad, bad, BAD!!!

A splendid piece of writing, Mann! I just discovered the story on the day you posted the final installment. Some really magnificent turns of phrase throughout a compelling story.

United States (38 of them) Germany Denmark United Kingdom (lovely Heathrow Airport) Slovakia Austria Switzerland Liechtenstein Canada and my favorite place...the Republic of Ireland!

The happiest of birthdays to you, Podga!

I'll be adding two recipes eventually. This one is the easiest to type in my current morning fog! My father makes a kind of homemade Bailey's Irish Cream...or as we call it "The Recipe" (shout out to fans of "The Waltons!") Ingredients: 4oz - Brandy 4oz - White Creme de Cacao 2 - raw eggs 1 small can - sweetened, condensed milk Blend the first three ingredients in a blender til smooth. Add the sweetened, condensed milk and blend again, starting slowly. It's good by itself (personal experience) or added to coffee (my father's preferred mode) or over ice cream (my sister's favorite treat) Enjoy!

Imagine how many disks that actually flop that would amount to!! Despite my iTunes/digital music collection, I do tend to favor older technologies. For example, I dearly want my father's rotary dial phone whenever he decides to give it up. That, and the first and only calculator he's ever had. It does the four arithmetic functions and maybe square roots. It's almost an inch thick, 5-6" long and 3" wide. I love it! I'd love to be able to get more upset about the loss of sound quality with the move to digital (as written about in an NPR article on the same theme), but with my hearing, I really can't. I guess it really is convenience over quality though.

If it's five countries I've never been to before: 1. New Zealand 2. Poland 3. Czech Republic 4. Sweden 5. Croatia If my list can include countries I HAVE been to before: 1. Ireland - The island of Inis Oirr is perhaps my favorite place on the planet. 2. Austria 3. Germany 4. Poland 5. New Zealand

I have a whole array of stuffed animals...of course, bears, but also five Eeyores (hence my icon), a dragon, dogs, and from a recent trip to Maine, a large red lobster! They may not be very "grown up," but at least they're huggable.

This one comes from my grandmother (born in Iowa, lived in Wisconsin & Wyoming). Whenever the weather got uncomfortably warm, she'd say: "It's hotter than Dutch love." I never quite "got" that phrase. I mean, the Dutch are known for many things, but being hot lovers isn't one of them. (I'd gladly accept correction on that, of course!)

I've got almost 138GB of music on my iTunes (thanks to the library!!) and lots of musical podcasts. I like a lot of those because invariably they're not promoting acts that already have enough promotion behind them, but rather the "unknowns" or at least the "unknowns" to many people. Sadly, I've got unplayable "stacks of wax" at home, including 33s, 45s, and 78s. It's hard to find a record player anymore! Makes me really regret the boxed sets of classical music I bought in Germany in 1983 for a fortune. Oh well...

The happiest of birthdays to you, Tranquility!!

The happiest of birthdays to you, Cyn!!

Happy Belated Birthday, Houdinii!!

Having read through this entire thread, it strikes me that what everyone is dancing around is the issue of "tone." There are great ways to say virtually anything and there are terrible ways to say virtually anything. For anyone who aspires to be in a community of writers, readers, editors (and, yes, even admins!) and to be useful, the never-ending work at the mastery of tone is the ultimate goal for each and every one. One question that each and every author on the site needs to address in his or her mind (or their minds if there are collaborations going on), is whether a work is "done" once it has been uploaded or if that which has been uploaded is considered merely a first version and open to updating. Walt Whitman, as most know, revised his magnum opus "Leaves of Grass" several times and published it over and over again. Surely in an environment of pixels like this one, revision and improvement are much easier than for Whitman and are reasonable goals. I have corresponded with one author whose work I find excellent and have learned that his plan is indeed to revise the entire work. He finds the notion of getting other perspectives an exciting one. Other authors may not do so. That's a completely reasonable decision to make, but it is one that should be noted somewhere by that author. I'm not saying that an author should post that "I want only bubbly gushings in reviews" or "How does this suck? I'll let you count the ways." But some reflection of openness (or lack thereof) needs to be acknowledged. For those authors who post pieces here with the aim of improving their writing, feedback will be vital. It certainly need not be officious (which I've read) or hostile or vapid. The overall aim should be one of helpfulness. Asking questions is a great way to offer criticism without seeming threatening, at least to most people. If a character seems to contradict him/herself over the course of a multi-chapter story, the author should be made aware of that. As s/he has proceeded with the chapters, details may have slipped from their memories of what they have already written. But any questions offered should be specific ones; blanket statements of "I'm confused" or "I don't like it" don't offer anything. As a reader, if we care enough to write a review, we owe the author our best effort at articulating the source of our confusion or dislike. As one contributor to the thread has already mentioned, critiques with unfortunate tone can indeed cause people to withdraw their work. I know this has happened in my own case. When offering "correction," it should NOT sound like it. Modal verbs and explanations are vital and soften whatever blow you're about to deliver. Tonal ineptitude is a foe every writer struggles with, whether he or she is writing prose, poetry, drama, or even giving directions. Thought and consideration can ameliorate the negative impact.

Two people are in the midst of a discussion of British literature. One asks: "Do you like Kipling?" The other pauses, and says: "I don't know; I've never kippled."

It's all well and good that Nicole "The Ice Queen" Kidman "took it in stride" as she peed on Zac Efron. Isn't the REAL question "would you let Nicole Kidman pee ON YOU?" Did Zac "take it in stride?"

Good luck with it!

I wonder what inane gay thing I could come up with that would actually be "appropriate" (blech!!!!) for The Lounge?!?!?! UGH!

Figures...how craptastic!

So...apparently Chick-Fil-A has made promises no longer to donate to anti-gay causes or to be discriminate against gays. Do you think they're sincere? Pragmatic? Cowardly? And will you be going there for a chicken sandwich any time soon?

An interesting use of form: retaining the syllable count while taking the form out of the nature context in Japanese haiku. I've never actually seen a linked sequence of haiku before. I'll want to think more about that idea. Inventive!

Hi Purple! I think you've got the basis here for creating additional works (either poems or stories). The emotive content is clear; now, you'll want to channel this sort of thing into a form you craft. I'd recommend taking it out of the second person ("you"); I once read a novel that was entirely written in second person about a drug dealer and didn't really like it. You've got a lot of emotion distilled here and that's all to the good; it means you've got something you want to write about! I look forward to reading more!!

The Toronto Blue Jays' shortstop, Yunel Escobar, decided that writing "Tu ere maricon" [You are a faggot, roughly translated] on his eyeblack strips was a "joke." Major League Baseball gave him a three-day suspension. What do you think about it? Here's the picture: http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17zfg1rffid3ajpg/original.jpg

I liked the structural element in the first section (the form with variations) and then seeing it slowly dissolve into impressions, much as Alice would perceived. You've made me wish that I remembered Carroll's story better!