Thursday, May 04, 2006


Indeterminacy News

No, that's not me in the photo, but the imagery describes how I feel, having reached my milestone of 360 stories. I've spent the last few days without any story pressures, and that feels great.

News 1: Ediciones Efimeras, a Spanish language E-zine of surrealistic flash fiction and visuals, will include three Indeterminacy stories in Spanish translation, appearing in the upcoming editions #88, #89, and #90 (May-June). Their edition Ephemerals (2006) shows a few stories in English. I hope the Spanish translation of the Indeterminacy stories will not ignite controversy in the right wing blogosphere.

News 2: Cyber Poirot has apparently launched an investigation into the latest indeterminate developments. I'm usually the last person one should ask to find out what's going on, so if any of you have a statement to make, please stop by Cyber Poirot and do so. I can't wait to find out whodunit!

News 3: I came up with a fable table! OK, the Indeterminacy stories are not fables, and there are usually no animals in them, and it beats me what the morals of my stories might be. But they're short like fables, and with a total of 360, I have almost all the fable writers beat! Don't be alarmed if you haven't heard some of these names before - I found them in the Wikipedia.

NumberAuthorGenre
ca. 64Ignacy KrasickiFables
74James ThurberFables
ca. 125George AdeFables in Slang
136Berechiah ha-NakdanFables
154ShakespeareSonnets
186John CageAudio Indeterminacy
ca. 200Ivan Andreyevich KrylovFables
243Jean de La FontaineFables
ca. 300Gaius Julius HyginusFables
360Me!!Visual Indeterminacy
ca. 600AesopFables

So, only Aesop is better than me. What this really means is I have to keep going. Either that or go into Wikipedia and edit down Aesop's fable count.

News 4: I'm going to keep going - but at a pace of one story a week, posting a photo each Saturday and inviting everyone to contribute their stories. Starting May 14th. I still would like some time off. Don't forget to visit Michael at Blogin Idiot for Friday stories!

28 comments:

Kyahgirl said...

Hi Indie-cruisin' by from Doug's place. came to see how many syllables you really have in your words here!

Congratulations on 360, Aesop is trembling in his boots :-)

The Mushroom said...

The guy in the photo is happy to have reached Pompeii. Mere seconds later, he was fleeing -- hands still in the air -- and pride came before the fall. :)

Good to hear you'll keep it goin'.

admin said...

"Either that or go into Wikipedia and edit down Aesop's fable count."

Yes! Yes! Yes! :))

Anonymous said...

Well................. we'll have a meeting sometime this week and determine how much time off you get.

If that doesn't work for you......take as much time off as you need. ;)

Jamie Dawn said...

Congrats to you!!! I'm glad you reached your goal.
I look forward to contributing to the weekend stories, and I nearly always visit Michael's place as well.

Indeterminacy said...

Kyahgirl: Argggghhh! Congratulations has five syllables, too! Actually I like the word Doug chose - even if I've never heard it before. Especially the Bierce definition fits well with the Stephen Cobert affair.

Mushroom: This is better than being on the Titanic or the Hindenburg. Just stand where you are and be covered with lava.

Viruswitch: I knew you'd enjoy that. The subtle ways to change reality...

Cooper (Alice): All my life I've passively consumed books, movies and TV and then I started these stories, which are probably somehow built on everything I know of. Now I can start passively consuming again, and maybe replenish the stew, add some new ingredients, etc.

Jamie: Thank you, and I'm really happy to have you (and everyone else) as faithful readers/contributors. I need to spend more time at Michael's and all the other blogs I link to.

The Mushroom said...

If I recall my history correctly, what happened in Pompeii and Herclaneum was that the mountain erupted but it wasn't lavaflow that did the work. There was a cloud of sulfuric or otherwise poisonous gas that descended upon the town that night, snuffing people. The only terror you see is in those who were awake... most of the bodies look peaceful because they were asleep. Volcanic ash came down, further smothering the life and blanketing everything -- and the preservative qualities of the dust had the same effect on flesh that a log in water gets from the silica of the sand around it: petrified people. There was one survivor of the volcanic eruption, a prisoner whose cell was situated underground with indirect ventilation.

This message brought to you by a kid who was getting out of Sunday school on May 18, 1980 when the ashfall started coming down 150 miles southeast of Mt. St. Helens.

GPV said...

Ata way, cool and easy and no pressure.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations for your 360 stories, the rotation of 360 degrees angle.
It is really great.

Indeterminacy said...

Thank you Mayuko! I'm glad you had a chance to stop by. Now I have to work on a second 360, to beat Aesop and his 600 fables!

Mutha said...

You Rock Indie! So glad to hear you will keep going AND that you reached the artistic milestone you dreamed of.

I will look forward to it all.

And, yeah -- kick Aesop's ass.

-G.D. said...

Congratulations...

These are so worth the read. You've done real good. I'm gonna check out the Spanish trans. Always fun to see it all transformed with new meaning with that roll of the tongue.

Indeterminacy said...

Mutha: I hope I can somehow continue without all the self-imposed pressure, and glad I made the milestone before becoming completely consumed by all this. Now I'm going to go on without goals - maybe that will help.

One: I'm glad you enjoyed reading the stories - I'm still wondering how it will work out with weekly posting. I think in late may the issues will be out - I'll let you know. Everyone should now go to climbtozero.blogspot.com to see your Kansas City video collage.

rev. billy bob gisher ©2008 said...

I was just looking at your table, and realized you probably have read most of that work. what's worse, you could've written most of it.

Indeterminacy said...

Be careful what you say. These guys might rise up out of the grave and delete my blog!!

Actually I just put that list together from the Wikipedia entry on fables, and then did some googling to see how many fables they each wrote. Never heard of most of these names. I've read James Thurber, and heard the 90 stories that Cage recorded, but that's it, and the odd fable by Aesop. You're too kind.

Young at Heart in San Diego said...

Way to go Indie, I'm so glad you will keep writing! Once a week is a great way to continue your legacy. I'm sure in no time you will leave Aesop in the dust! Of course I prefer the Fractured Fairy Tales myself.

Lolly said...

Indie, it's been too long since I have visited. Good to see you're still going strong.
I'll be back!

Doug The Una said...

¡Felicitaciones! ¡Viva Indie!

GPV said...

All men who repeat one line of Shakespeare are William Shakespeare.

That must be a Canterbury joke Indie.

admin said...

Hi! I sent you an email a few days ago with some piece of code. Did you get that?

Indeterminacy said...

Thank you so much, Viruswitch! You fixed my fable table (as you can see, I've reposted it).

Anyone wondering why I had posted a screenshot of the table instead of an actual html table - I couldn't get the html to work! It kept inserting half a blank page in front of where the table began. So I posted it temporarily, made a screen shot, edited it down to the table, then posted that. This is know as a kludge.

Lila said...

Congratulations on 360! I'm glad you're not going to stop. I don't blame you for aiming at once a week.... it does get to be a bit much to do several posts a week sometimes. I've cut back too. Heck, I even had to kill of the Little Bar of Soap to keep my sanity!

LiVEwiRe said...

Congrats on reaching that milestone! That is fantastic. I've wondered how you could keep that pace but eventually chalked it up to literary genius. ;) I'll be sure to keep checking back.

Indeterminacy said...

Aral: I still don't know how I did all this - I was too busy to think about it. About Little Bar of Soap. I don't wish to alarm you, but she came back! She left some comments at Doug's.

Livewire: I'm not a literary genius. I can't understand half of what they write at the literary science blogs. That's the one thing that hurts about stopping, losing contact with all of you who stopped by here.

Russell CJ Duffy said...

jumpin' joseph!
you've even beaten the bard!

as for losing contact with us, why will you? there are e-mails.

bitterfungus said...

yeah, the sweet 360. congratulations on reaching that magic number. keep on writing.

Cori said...

AHHK! Where have I been! My favorite blog celebrates a milestone and I'm off in lala land!!!

CONGRATS 360! WOOOHOOOO!!!

This place is clearly more than just a blog- it has practically started a WRITING MOVEMENT!

Slather with complements?? Yes I do!!!

Indeterminacy said...

Cori: You're too sweet. And I love it when you slather me. Don't feel obligated to stop by every day. You had a lot of things to take care of - and I owe you an e-mail, too. Terrible me.