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My agent told me a few days ago that
Readers Digest is interested in
taking a look at my upcoming book, Mammoth, for possible
condensation.
Wow! What a concept! I
had never in a million years thought of that possibility. I hate it, of course,
it offends my artistic sensibilities, unless the money is good, in which case I
love it.
I told
Spider about it, and he remembered
an old Mad magazine
schtick about condensing well-known classics. The one he cited was Gone
With the Wind:
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"Fiddle-di-dee!"
BOOM!
"Thank God that bloody war is over."
"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."
[The End] |
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Loved it! Loved it so much that I was inspired to write a few of my
own:
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Call me Ishmael.
“Thar she blows!”
“Die, foul fish!”
Glub, glub, glub.
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A Christmas Carol
by
Charles Dickens |
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“Bah, Humbug!”
“I wear the chains I forged in life!”
BONG!
BONG! BONG!
BONG! BONG BONG!
“God bless us, every one!”
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“I’m gonna make
him an offer he can’t refuse.”
BANG!
“Luca Brazzi sleeps wit’ da fishes.”
“I’ll take care of you, pop.”
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
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riverrun, past
Eve and Adam’s,
(540 pages of incomprehensible prose omitted)
A way a lone a long a last a loved a long the
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“Stop! Thief!”
“I’ll track you wherever you go, Jean Valjean!”
“Man the barricades!”
BOOM!
“You’re free to go, Javert.”
SPLASH! Glub, glub, glub.
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“Colonel
Cathcart wants 50 missions!”
Ka-BOOM! Rat-a-tat-tat!
“Milo is bombing the squadron!”
“That’s some catch, that catch-22.”
Yossarian jumped.
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Stranger in a Strange
Land
by
Robert A Heinlein |
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There once was a
Martian named Smith,
Whose life was a lot like a myth.
He said “Thou art God!”
Which we grokked was quite odd,
But so is “Revenge of the Sith.”
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“I love you,
Jennifer!”
“I’m dying, Oliver!”
“I’m sorry, Jennifer.”
“Love means never having to say you’re sorry, Oliver.”
“Die, Jennifer.”
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I do not like
green eggs and ham.
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You’re making a
terrible mistake. Don’t read this book.
Okay.
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Let there
be light!
Noah, build Me a boat!
“Let my people go!”
“We come from the East, following a star.”
“Behold the man!”
BANG!
Ouch!
BANG!
Ouch!
BANG!
Ouch!
“It is
finished.”
“I’m baaaaaack!”
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I don’t know. Maybe that last one’s a bit too long. Maybe I should
cut those parts about Noah and Moses. Maybe the Wise Men, too.
You can do it with poetry, and with even better reason. Poetry is
even more clogged with unnecessary sentences that don’t advance the
plot than prose is, plus, it is lousy with needlessly confusing
words and with imagery. I don’t know about you, but one image per
day is about all I can handle.
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Once upon a
midnight dreary
“Nevermore.”
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I think that I
shall never see
A tree.
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The Charge of the Light
Brigade
by
Alfred, Lord Tennyson |
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“Forward, the
Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay'd?
No, cuz they were all daid.
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Gunga Din
by
Rudyard Kipling |
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YOU may talk o'
gin an' beer
When you're quartered safe out 'ere,
And it was “Din! Din! Din!”
You’re a better man than I am, but you’re dead.
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I saw the best
minds of my generation, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the African-American streets
looking for an angry fix.
(Al: too much. Cut 5 adjectives. Editor, Readers
Digest poetry division.)
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Whose woods
these are I think I know,
But there’s no point stopping, they’re filled with snow.
Giddy-up!
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The Love Song of J
Alfred Prufrock
by
TS Eliot |
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I should have
been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
Do I dare to eat a peach?
Not with these claws.
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Things fall
apart, the center cannot hold,
And what rude beast slouches toward Bethlehem?
Stand up straight!
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Twas brillig.
“Beware the Jabberwock!”
Snicker-snack!
“Callooh! Callay!”
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Anyhow, they are fun and easy. I may add more as they occur to me.
And I thought it would be fun to ask for contributions. Maybe we’ll
post them. If they’re short.
Really short.
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