Exquisite Corpse #1

April 3rd, 2006

This is an Exquisite Corpse, a collaborative work from 2002 or 2003. Each line represents a new author.

Benny sat down on the park bench, observing the pigeons taking shits in front of him.
And then he died.
He came back alive!
He ran around the room screaming, “Yipee!”
And tripped over the footstool and broke his leg.
Since the break was a compund fracture, the man made a makeshift splint out of popsicle sticks and dust bunnies.
With the splint in place, he made his way through the forest, and drove 23 miles to the aid station.
The drill sergeant asked, “What happened?”

Pigeonholed under bizarre, blog, humor, personal, poetry | Comments (7)

7 Responses to “Exquisite Corpse #1”

  1. Heidi on April 9, 2006 11:43 am

    We did one of those in my art history class, but mostly people just wrote one word each and we weren’t allowed to see what had already been written. I think it’s more interesting that way, and more true to the nature of an exquisite corpse. I wish I had a copy of how it turned out to show you, but I don’t. Maybe I’ll ask the professor to email me a copy.

  2. Heidi on April 10, 2006 8:32 pm

    OK. There were actually two different ones, one for each half of the lecture hall, but this is the one I participated in:

    The cute black cat a most curious twist of fate
    Jewelry gangsta headache
    J’adore tu love beans sour candy
    Go brew crew bored Lee Harvey Oswald
    Hi how’s it goin? Rubbish casa Rurale
    Kicken him in the like a fish slip

    I contributed the word “jewelry” and I think the phrase “jewelry gangsta headache” is my favorite part.

  3. Roman Edirisinghe on April 11, 2006 9:58 am

    Interesting.

    Doing it word by word almost makes it more unpredictable.

    I think I prefer the sentence version better, although both have their place in good amusement.

    There is also a visual (artwork) version of the game.

    I can just imagine all those old surrealists sitting around a parlor smoking and playing this game.

  4. Heidi on April 12, 2006 3:40 pm

    I think the sentence version is fine. Really I think you can do either or both at once, but in your example it seems like the authors were aware of what had already been written before they contributed.

  5. Roman Edirisinghe on April 12, 2006 6:45 pm

    In the sentence version that I’m used to playing, the writer sees only previously written sentence at a time.

  6. Heidi on April 13, 2006 4:42 pm

    I think that ruins it, but that’s just me. I like it completely absurd.

  7. Roman Edirisinghe on March 8, 2007 4:12 pm

    They end up being completely absurd simply by virtue of their random creation. I love the Exquisite corpse.

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    Roman Edirisinghe is an artist and musician based out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. Born in Russia, raised in Germany, Sri Lanka, and the United States, Roman's various cultural experiences inform his creative expression.

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