Log in




Categories » ‘On Writing’

Blob Together – Celebrating Sea Blobs and Theodore Carter’s Writings

April 9th, 2012 by

We, meaning me, here at The ABSURD Circle are engaged in many absurd activities. Like hand painting game tiles and rewriting obscure game rules to advertise a small press book of collected short stories of an unknown author to a micro-audience… and having a blast while doing it… and thinking this is highly productive as well… while imagining that a grass roots movement may spring up around the best writer I’ve been reading and critiquing for the past ten years.  Whew!

Labor of Love you say?  ABSURD Obsession?  Complete waste of brain power and time?  Pursuit of expression of the indomitable human spirit?  Art?  All of the above?  Sure.

Anyway, here is the game I rewrote and redesigned that was inspired by my favorite writer’s book.  The Life Story of a Chilean Sea Blob and Other Matters of Importance by Theodore Carter.

 

The Rules

Blob Together

Gelatinous and Loving It!

A solitaire puzzle for 1 or cooperative game for the whole family. Based on Micropul a game by Jean-Francois Lassonde and inspired by the short story collection The Life Story of a Chilean Sea Blob and Other Matters of Importance by Theodore Carter.

Contents

48 unique tiles

Goal

The Chilean Sea Blobs have been splattered into pieces and you have to help them get put back together.  Try to form the largest blobs possible in a single color – even if it has two faces!

Each tile has at least one sea blob section on it.  Connect the sea blob pieces to other sea blob pieces on tiles already in play.  There are two rules.

  1. Any new tile that you lay must attach to the rest of the tiles already in play.  Tiles may only be placed by matching blob colors together.
  2. The sea blobs like each other, but they don’t want to mix up their colors.  So the purple and green sea blobs may never touch.

Starting The Game

Find the start tile.  Half of the tile is covered by a purple sea blob, and the other half in green sea blob.

Shuffle all the tiles and lay them face down on the table.  Each player receives 6 tiles.

Each player takes a turn laying a tile. For every tile you lay you may draw one tile.

The game ends when all the tiles are played.

Scoring

To score each blob must have at least one face and be close, meaning that no part of the blob is open to the table or, in other words, it must be surrounded by white tile.

Count the corners of each tile within each completed sea blob (Face Tiles are worth 5 points).  That’s your score.

Note that it is possible to make two, two-faced blobs and include each blob section in the blobs.  If you can manage that… take a picture!

The Tiles: Sea Blob Game Kids and the Tile Backs Blob Together Tile Backs

 

 

 

Summer Reading List–Scott Phillips, Scott Phillips

June 29th, 2011 by

I have to say I haven’t felt this excited about a new reading list in a long while. Scott Phillips has two new books….  And they’re ebooks!  That’s perfect for me because it’s hard as hell to get new books in English in China.  I’m as giddy as a crack junkie.  Hook me up.

But I did pause long enough to write this post so you could get hooked up.  I’m a bro like that.

So here’s the fix.

Phillips books are Rum, Sodomy, and False Eyelashes, (that’s got a nice ring to it, don’t it?) and Rut.

And here’s his blog if you haven’t been reading it…. Pocketful of Ginch.

From the looks of it there are a number of good reads on that website to add to your summer reading list as well.

Scott Phillips’ Last Collector Standing

July 29th, 2010 by

Just when you think you know a guy, a super cool article/interview comes out about him and twists your image.  Okay, I know Scott’s into retro cool stuff, it’s all over his blog.  But writing to Yo La Tengo on Vinyl?  No wonder his writing is so fucked it’s wonderful.  I can just see him typing away to “Love Life of an Octopus.”  I might have to break out the typewriter and clack along.

Check out Scott Phillips’ May 6th Last Collector Standing interview.

Flarf in the WSJ

May 27th, 2010 by

So what’s black and white and flarfy all over?  The Wall Street Journal.

Check out this article.

Poetry’s Latest Battleground: WSJ.com

Search for a New Poetics Yields This: ‘Kitty Goes Postal/Wants Pizza’

Google-Inspired Verse Gains Respect; Shakespeare Meets the Anagram Generator

 

From the look on Gary Sullivan’s face, he’s happy with the development of his movement.

Publishing Update

March 23rd, 2010 by

A while back, not that long actually,  I submitted a shortened version of a flash fiction piece I wrote called Fashioning Time to Bryce Beattie over at Story Hack.  The magazine has just come out and it look real good.  I’m impressed with the quality.  

Check out the magazine.

There’s a very nice preview function.  My story is page 15 and features a photograph with a pile of newspaper.  

I’ve read about half the magazine so far.  It’s pretty good.  There’s zombies, and cowboys, horror, and humor, and one strange absurdist (that’s me.)

Nicely Done, Bryce!

What’s the Logo About?

March 21st, 2010 by

Some of you have noticed, I’m actually sure all of you have noticed, I’ve been farting around with my logo.  The Absurd Circle is a new literary turn for me.  I’ve been writing, and thinking, in more absurd terms than I normally do.  Those of you who know me very fairly well have right to be concerned.  But I assure you, I’ve got this all thought through… absurd as it may be.

There is a growing community of absurdist writers.  I’ll be introducing some of them in this blog by way of reviewing there works–the first step I’m planning to take as a member of this literary community.  I’ve been writing absurd works for a while.  I just didn’t realize that there was a movement going on and that I was part of it.  Some of my closest writing friends have been doing it as well, though we never considered how to label our work… we just knew it defied categorization into any of the established genres.

So now that I’m more aware of what’s happening, I’m planning on getting more involved by reading more absurdists and reviewing their works. I’ll be reaching out to the more established community members leaving thoughtful comments on their blogs as well as my blog url.

In this way I hope to establish myself as a participant in the absurd conversation.  So when my new friends come to my site to see their works reviewed or whenever a new reader comes they’ll see my new absurd logo.

So what’s up with that?  What the hell is it? (more…)

Contributing to the Experiment

February 11th, 2010 by

I’m still working out the details of my experiment in the brave new world of alt-publishing.  Part of this experiment has meant defining my writing.  It’s kind of been all over the place.  My first novel, Torque, which gained me representation in the traditional publishing world in NYC, was neo-Noir.  It’s a fun genre and through that I went to NoirCon in Philadelphia and met some of the best people I know.

But since then, I haven’t written neo-Noir.  My writing, and even Torque, to some extent has been laden with questions of identity.  In many of my fictions characters wear masks, or in the case of the new book, My Alien Sex Fiend, there’s a character who literary shape-shifts.  The book has an alien in it, and it has clones, and it’s not entirely serious.  So what category of fiction is it?  Sci-Fi fans wouldn’t called it Sci-Fi.  I don’t think it fits comedy either, and is that even a real literary genre? (more…)

Shrunken Manuscript – Green Variation

February 8th, 2010 by

I started playing with the concept of Shrunken Manuscripts as a revision technique as laid out by Darcy Pattison but had to mod the process.  You know me, I love modding.  It’s my creative way of taking ownership of a process, making it work for me.  And maybe, just maybe, giving something back to the community which shared the idea in the first place.

That’s the spirit of this post. (more…)

Maurice Finds an Audience

February 5th, 2010 by

So I tell my mom about my post, Me, My Dad, and Maurice.  Because it’s cute, and there are pictures of her grandson, and I know she’ll get a kick out of it.  Well she did more than that.  See my mom is an elementary school teacher, and her specialty is reading to kids.  So naturally, she takes the blog post and reads it to her students.  Then she has them write a journal about the story.  Here’s the email she sent me regarding the experience.  Their comments are great!  (Emily’s comment is my favorite).

(more…)

Feedback Continued…

January 31st, 2010 by

In my post Feedback, I published an email a friend sent regarding the direction the blog is taking.  I’m finding this conversation to be extremely useful, so I’m posting the continued conversation. I know this particular friend doesn’t usually comment on blogs, so it’s extra cool of him to take the time to give such insight.

(more…)