The Bright Octopus Smears the Balmy Outhouse.

Here in Houston, we just had another Saturday morning of free-writing and playing rounds of Exquisite Corpse. If you don't know what I'm talking about, see former postings on this blog with nonsensical titles. If you want to be in touch about future such Saturdays (we're doing them quarterly), I suppose the best way is to follow my Facebook author page. We haven't set a date yet, but we're hoping for early January for the next one.

Thanks, as always, for my lovely and talented assistant, Margo Stutts Toombs, who is really the one who makes these events happen. I just show up, emcee, and act a fool.

Without further ado: our exquisite corpses for October 22, 2016:


The self-absorbed desk floated the rotting net.

The juicy frog devours the high mirage.

The forgetful professor gripes a fine train. (Herein we have a good example of a non-transitive verb and I used it as a teaching moment. One does not gripe anything, one just gripes. It will take a preposition, "at" for example, but it needs that help to make the sentence work. We did suggest either grips or gropes as alternatives.)

The tiger-striped sofa wrapped the chilling jalopy.

The raucous toilet trips an open horn.

The salty cup shouts a rigid egg.

An accidental alien shakes the silver victim.

A rotting goat eats an opulent problem. (There was some rotting going on today, you see.)

A slinky acrobat stomps a pernicious baton.

A curious boat is inspired by a shimmering kiss. (The person who wrote "is inspired by" said she was trying to play with the form. I sternly put my foot down and informed her that we don't do that here. There are serious rules to this serious game. As if I could control anything.)

A meticulous goose kissed the creamy window. (Is it getting warm in here or is it just me?)

The elegant buttercream dreams the fecund fence. (Whatever else, this one has nice sounds.)

An orange sheep bites the divine gatekeeper. (When a black sheep dresses up for Halloween . . . )

The phosphorescent pumpkin twirls an unfamiliar crown.

The adventurous dancer sodomizes the creepy moon. (I'm just reporting here.)

A lavender sandwich munches the fair librarian.

The peculiar grasshopper shines an active vision.

A meaty stalker pounced a silly jumper.

The gritty rhino munches the bitchy spider.

An animalic zebra attacked the colorful zombie. (Yes, animalic is a word, I just looked it up. It seems a shame the noun offered was, in fact, an animal.)

The common writer spooned a perfect parasol.

A malicious skyscraper writes a creepy carcass. (We like creepy things, too.)

The whimpering blackboard counts an appalling question.

Its annoying pants siezes the ugly pizza. (Another attempt at innovation on the rules. Okay, so it works. Whatevs. Cats. I'm herding cats here.)

An angry scientist blocked the starry biergarten.

A cranky footstool killed a flimsy pineapple.

The mellifluous egg punches a deviled bee.

The artsy crane mashed the red chair.

The bigly boots pummels the heartless door. (Sigh. I get it, it's in the news and whatnot and it may even be a word, but it's, pay attention, an adverb. Okay? There are no adverbs here. So you've had your fun, ha ha! Now, when I say "adjective," that's what I mean. Thank you.)

An adversarial trunk stabs the messy grocery.

The moist crown gobbles the hearty Moscow. (Whoa. I'd just cooled down from that creamy window!)

A tricky wallboard sips a fluffy chariot.

The sloppy rug leapt a tethered mouse. (Intransitive alert!) (Maybe it works, I'm getting tired of typing, but it seems to me that one jumps a direct object, leap and it's forms require a prepositional phrase as a modifier---on, over, up . . . )

An obnoxious aardvark headbutts the fuzzy zoo.

The favorite bitch carried the violet lie. (This one had something else besides bitch first, but not even the person who wrote it could tell what it was. I can't even imagine what would happen if we had alcohol at these events.)

The fragile tablecloth drives the nasty janitor.