Free Idea Factory

Describing how a fish tastes is notoriously difficult. Having dinner at a nice place last weekend, and listening to the server do a pretty standard (thus highly ineffective) job of describing the fish we’d never heard of, I thought that it would be a smart thing for an upscale restaurant to do to cook off a couple of pieces of the exotic fish special for that evening and offer a scant forkful to anyone interested in giving it a taste before they ordered. The dish wouldn’t have to be hot, it could just be explained that the chef cooked a bit of the fish earlier this afternoon, and what you’ll be tasting is cooked the same, but, is a tiny tasty chilled version of it. Texture, taste, and even preparation are now all accounted for in one little smidgen. Sales of these fishes would go nowhere but up.

people with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) are advised to find ways to be in the light. as someone who gets blue when having to put up with constant sunshine and blue sky, i would love it if there were a place, a room or something that simulates storms, rain, clouds etc. i’d also love winter rooms. summer might be a bit more bearable for those of us who suffer from this rainy version of SAD. i don’t know if there is anyone else that loathes the sun & bluesky as much as i do. perhaps not. i’m also much more creative in rainy, stormy weather or in winter than i am in summer where my brain turns to mush in the horrible heat.

Forgive me if this is an existing mode of writing that I am unfamiliar with.

A Progressive/ Collaborative Literary Work would be developed by a group of writers. A subject would be agreed upon (or it could be looser depending on the intended outcome) and then the participants established. The first person would begin the work. Perhaps each person could write a chapter of a book for example.

After the worked was deemed complete (the last person added their part), the first person would make edits, then sequentially each contributor would make edits. The process could be repeated or changed as desired until the group agreed that the work was ready to be considered for publishing.

I think some key factors to the project’s success would be:

-Choose the group carefully (make sure you can work well with the group members and admire the quality of their work)
-Establish and stick to deadlines
-It will be what it will, you can’t control the outcome, it may take a while to get a rhythm going between the group members

Now that flexible LCD screens are available, I would love to cover my car with LCD material.  A camera somewhere on board would film the passing scenery and then display an interpretation moving across the surface of the car as it moved along.

It could even display the background when parked, like super camoflage.   mmmmm……., maybe not, other drivers would just crash into it!

There are a lot of potholes in our roads here. Seems like an awful lot of untapped poetential.

A couple of ideas:

• Create some sort of jack-in-the-box springed device, with a word attached to the top. Place it in the pothole. Attach a cover. When driven over, the cover should lift and the word should pop up.
• Line the pothole with tyvek that has a poem written on it.
• Cover the pothole with tyvek that has a drawing or a word on it. For best effect, find a road with multiple potholes so you can compose an entire work - be it a poem or a series of drawings that fit together in some way.
• Or, just get a bunch of those googly eyes and glue them to the inside of the pothole. Hundreds of them. Creepyfun.

Turn your friend’s trash into domestic treasure. Over the course of a year as you visit your friend’s homes, pick up any ephemera out of their trash (bathroom, kitchen, stuff on floor). Keep this private. Tuck it in your pocket and don’t say a word. When you bring it home, add it to your collection. Wallpaper a small room in your house with it all. At the end of the year, invite your pals over for a party. Serve drinks from your newly papered room.

You might lose a few friends, or make them closer.

Paper a small room in your house with ephemera found out on the streets of your neighborhood.

That’s all. No deep meaning, other than you’ll feel closer to your neighbors. Maybe.

Some Creative prompts from which to work in any creative endeavor that interests you:

-Is free really free?
-do the opposite of what you want to do
-make something that would appeal to a conservative older woman
-examine your thoughts about formally presenting artwork
-the letter “Q”
-6 variations of a human hand
-’I-centrism’ present in Western Culture

I think it would be great to see a blog dedicated to the origins of nicknames, specifiically detailing the process behind how someone gets a certain nickname.

For example my friend Jim’s nickname evolved as follows:

1. ‘Jimbo’

2. ‘Jimboat’

3. ‘boat’

I’m sure there are a plethora of other more interesting nickname stories and name process stories out there. For several years during my adolescence, this guy named Zeek called me ‘Chachi’. He came up with that nickname b/c I had longer hair and wore a bandana when playing basketball to keep it out of my face and he liked Chachi from happy days.

Would anyone care to share their nickname stories? Also, how did the name, nickname come into existence?

for every role and every gender and every culture and every age to celebrate

not father’s day, not mother’s day, not senior’s day, not secretary’s day, not cat lover’s day…just…humans…as in, we all are.