Malkish Party games

Direct from my sister, E-chan, who is just the neepiest! Woohoo!

-parr <Parrhesia@aol.com>

and you wonder how I got this way. It runs in the family.

================================================   


     Before I left Ithaca, my housemates and I sat around one evening
and played Surrealist Party Games--basically, word games which can turn out
quite funny if no one is trying too hard to be deep.  The two basic forms
that worked best were as follows:
        1. Each person writes a question at the top of the page and hands
their paper one to the right in the circle.  The next person folds the
paper such that the question is not visible anymore, and on the top of the
still-visible portion writes an answer to the question.  Then s/he passes
the paper to the right again, and the person who gets it writes a question
that suits the visible answer, folds the paper so that only that answer is
visible, and passes it on again, etc, etc.  Example (recreated from
memory):
        -Why is the sky blue?
        -I don't know.
        -What do you look like when your face, including the eyes, is
covered in marzipan?
        -I look like a conquistador, only pastier.
        -Why did Madonna choose you to star in her next video?....
etc., etc.

        2. Each person writes a three-line poem, folds the paper so that
only the last line is visible, and passes it on.  The next person writes
another three-line poem, the first line of which is identical to the last
line of the previous stanza.  The following example I actually saved and
took with me to London because it struck me as so funny--although a lot of
the humor is, of course, due to the spontenaity factor.  Another thing that
is funny is when vaguely serious and vaguely humorous/whacko verses
alternate--all randomness just produces numbness; it needs something to
play off of.
        Note that one of the participants used more than three lines, but
it doesn't matter.

purple moon in harvest sky
stars blink in my head
the wind blows into my soul

The wind blows into my soul
And blows out the hole,
in the back of my head.

In the back of my head
Lives a gekko named Fred--
I'd like an iguana instead.

I'd like an iguana instead
Said the teddy bear stuck on my bed--
'cause if I had a pal
Who is slimy and foul--
Then your Barbie will wish she were dead.

Then your Barbie will wish she were dead
After what I'll do.
I'll teach you to insult pooky-bear.

        Note that rhyming and three-beat poetic "feet" are funny, whereas
free verse tends to get deadly if not taken with a grain of salt.  I'm
actually omitting the last stanza, since it was not funny.  The first
stanza isn't funny either, but it's necessary for the later stanzas to work
off of.  Perhaps participants could be instructed to make alternate serious
and funny stanzas.  Guess which of the above is my verse!

(Parr's Note: Anyway, I thought that this proceedure could relatively easily be
adapted to the Net.  What do you think?)