Jeremiah's School of Levitation
Upsy-Daisy!
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Gimme a Gimmick
I'm pondering new blog gimmicks. Famous, well-read blogs all have a gimmick. This is one of my favorites, as well as Married to the Sea, which I have a link to over on the left side of my blog there. So, the bar is raised. Unfortunately, my brainstorming has only created a disaster area of ideas, but I should share them, huh? Maybe the gimmick will be how skewed and poisoned my thinking really is. Some of my latest ideas:
What Happened to My Foxgloves? Each day, I blog about the fact that I planted about 20 foxgloves and none of them, thus far, have emerged. I will describe the area of my garden that should be sprouting those proud cottage garden flowers, but which, instead, has become a nice place for dandelions to vacation and take photos with other dandelions and the occasional morning glory tourist. Then, I will chronicle my brutal assault upon both of those intruders which will go down in weeding history as being the darkest of times for weed propogation.
That Girl on the Bus There's this girl on the bus who always wears something so wonderfully earthy and who manages to not wear makeup as well as any girl who actually does wear makeup. She does nothing but seek out a seat and stare out of the window for the whole ride downtown, but, at some point, she makes a face at something she's thinking or crinkles her face at a song on her iPod and she rips it out of her pocket and changes the song like she was a bolt of lightning. It's like she was listening to the Dead Kennedys and, suddenly, Air Supply came on. Priceless! To no one but me!
What My Sons Did Every day, my sons do something outrageous. Yesterday, one of my sons came in the house and said this: "Dad. I was just doing something with my shoe and now it's on the roof." HaWooo!
What the Girl at the Coffee Stand Said I have to get coffee from the girl who works in a stand near my building because she always says something. Yesterday, she said she would never go to South Florida because it was "two billion degrees there yesterday."
Oh, High School I could talk about how something I did, said, saw, or heard today reminded me of my golden high school years. I could wax nauseatingly nostalgic as, for example, I recall how the smell of the restroom at the park today reminded me of the time in high school when my friend M_ made a water balloon out of pee and, one Saturday night, threw it out of his car window at a group of jocks who, to this day, are probably still vowing to "shred" whoever did that!
Words that Are Funny In the wonderful movie The Sunshine Boys, with Walter Matthau and George Burns, Matthau made the statement that "Words with the letter 'K' in them are funny. 'Apple.' Not funny. 'Pickle.' Funny." In subsequent home testing, I've drinkingly found that such words as "chicken" and "muckle" are indeed funny, but you've also got words like "pants" and "elbow" and "buzzard" that have no 'k' but are still funny. I would explore such funny words on a daily basis, and even attempt to come up with odd phrases that are also funny, like "chicken pants" or "butt fever."
Yeah, I know. Back to the lab again.
(chicken butt)
What Happened to My Foxgloves? Each day, I blog about the fact that I planted about 20 foxgloves and none of them, thus far, have emerged. I will describe the area of my garden that should be sprouting those proud cottage garden flowers, but which, instead, has become a nice place for dandelions to vacation and take photos with other dandelions and the occasional morning glory tourist. Then, I will chronicle my brutal assault upon both of those intruders which will go down in weeding history as being the darkest of times for weed propogation.
That Girl on the Bus There's this girl on the bus who always wears something so wonderfully earthy and who manages to not wear makeup as well as any girl who actually does wear makeup. She does nothing but seek out a seat and stare out of the window for the whole ride downtown, but, at some point, she makes a face at something she's thinking or crinkles her face at a song on her iPod and she rips it out of her pocket and changes the song like she was a bolt of lightning. It's like she was listening to the Dead Kennedys and, suddenly, Air Supply came on. Priceless! To no one but me!
What My Sons Did Every day, my sons do something outrageous. Yesterday, one of my sons came in the house and said this: "Dad. I was just doing something with my shoe and now it's on the roof." HaWooo!
What the Girl at the Coffee Stand Said I have to get coffee from the girl who works in a stand near my building because she always says something. Yesterday, she said she would never go to South Florida because it was "two billion degrees there yesterday."
Oh, High School I could talk about how something I did, said, saw, or heard today reminded me of my golden high school years. I could wax nauseatingly nostalgic as, for example, I recall how the smell of the restroom at the park today reminded me of the time in high school when my friend M_ made a water balloon out of pee and, one Saturday night, threw it out of his car window at a group of jocks who, to this day, are probably still vowing to "shred" whoever did that!
Words that Are Funny In the wonderful movie The Sunshine Boys, with Walter Matthau and George Burns, Matthau made the statement that "Words with the letter 'K' in them are funny. 'Apple.' Not funny. 'Pickle.' Funny." In subsequent home testing, I've drinkingly found that such words as "chicken" and "muckle" are indeed funny, but you've also got words like "pants" and "elbow" and "buzzard" that have no 'k' but are still funny. I would explore such funny words on a daily basis, and even attempt to come up with odd phrases that are also funny, like "chicken pants" or "butt fever."
Yeah, I know. Back to the lab again.
(chicken butt)
Elliot, 12:00 AM
5 Back at me:
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Maybe your gimmick could be blog gimmick ideas. I was pretty amused by these! For whatever reason, the girl at the coffee stand triggered Mike Doughty's "Sunken-eyed girl in the sandwich shop, ladled my soup from the kettle pot..."
I think you're on to something with the Coffee Shop Girl. She sounds... insightful!
Maybe I need a gimmick too... could explain why my page is neither Famous, nor Well-read.
Maybe I need a gimmick too... could explain why my page is neither Famous, nor Well-read.
Lucia: I've now heard Mike Doughty's name mentioned in blogs and in the workplace at least a half dozen times this week. So, OK, I need to find out who he is because he's obviously trying to get a message to me. Which could be another gimmick--"What Mike Doughty's Trying to Tell Me."
TG: Yeah, the coffee shop girl is a hoot. This morning, she said "Hello" to me, but she held on to the "-oooo" part for about ten seconds, while she just stared at me. I thought for a second that she was broken! She was just going for a laugh, though. It worked!
TG: Yeah, the coffee shop girl is a hoot. This morning, she said "Hello" to me, but she held on to the "-oooo" part for about ten seconds, while she just stared at me. I thought for a second that she was broken! She was just going for a laugh, though. It worked!
Oh yeah, 'Blog Gimmicks" is my vote.
I nearly peed my pants at the Dead Kennedys/Air Supply line...weehaw!
Get some Mike Doughty. GET HIM. "Haughty Melodic" is really good, but "Skittish/RockityRoll" has been playing endlessly on my mp3 player...www.mikedoughty.com, man....
I nearly peed my pants at the Dead Kennedys/Air Supply line...weehaw!
Get some Mike Doughty. GET HIM. "Haughty Melodic" is really good, but "Skittish/RockityRoll" has been playing endlessly on my mp3 player...www.mikedoughty.com, man....
