Reverse Socratic Method

The “reverse Socratic method”: Force everyone to ask you questions about increasingly specialized topics until they get to the question you want. It's an idea of my own invention.

Last Saturday, my family was on a camping trip for the weekend. We were hiking past a trail with a sign saying it led to "Grandma's Cove." Just then, three white-haired ladies hiked up it. 

I thought to myself that this was ironic, but then realized it was the opposite. Anti-irony. And a very good example of it: It makes so much sense that you don't expect it to. We've all adapted to an imperfect world in which the title "Grandma's Cove" is naturally assumed to have little or no correlation with the type of people who peruse it. When it turns out to have said correlation, we are surprised. It's irony and the opposite of irony at the same time. Someone should invent a word for this.

Seven fingers

"What if we had seven fingers on each of our hands? [...] We could name our fingers after the days of the week, and if we didn't like something, we could flip that person a "Wednesday." If you were clumsy, you could say, "Sorry, I'm all weekends."  -Roger von Oech

I want a story about reincarnation in which people can be reincarnated at any point in time. The storyline could revolve around a handful of people who retain their memories, and, by strategically killing themselves, can come back as other characters. Famous characters from history. I'm thinking one guy comes back as Nicola Tesla to save the day at the end.

Carnegie

I wonder if I could write a story in which Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist from the 1800s, was trying to hide a deep dark secret by keeping it out of the libraries, which were the only source of anything close to obscure information at the time. It would make sense, because he donated money for more than 2,500 libraries, including some belonging to public and university library systems. Maybe it was all so that he could keep out the information he wanted no one to know.


But I could get in trouble for defamation. So maybe I won't do it.

Undunking

I've invented a new prank to pull on swimmers; undunking. You find someone swimming underwater and then pull their head up out of the water. It's for when you aren't allowed to dunk people.

Mental suggestion

I just had a thought for a story while thinking about the phrase "mental suggestion". Since a story about a man who hypnotizes someone into murdering the person that the hypnotist wants dead would be predictable and cliched, a story about a fellow who hypnotized a fellow hypnotist into thinking that he had hypnotized the first fellow into murdering someone, allowing the first fellow to murder someone and than be cleared once the hypnotized man admitted to hypnotizing the first one would be a fun and entertaining story.

Unless I'm not making sense because it's late.

Bucket List

Here are a few things that I genuinely want to, and feel as if I stand a good chance of getting to, accomplish in my life. It's most definitely not exhaustive, and I'll probably add more.


1. Get a small tattoo of the word "GULLIBLE" somewhere discrete, such as a shoulder.

2. Get a pet tarantula.

Merry Christmas

I'm thinking of completing those tags that I have as a Christmas present for you all.... What do you think? Too soon? Maybe I should wait until Easter.

Good Idea No. 1

Good Idea number one:

Robin Hood meets Dracula.

I mean, come on, they're both pretty cool. And it would work based off of the canon: Dracula is old enough to be around at whatever time Robin Hood existed. Maybe Prince John is loosely related to him, since they're both royalty. Or maybe the Sheriff of Nottingham sends for him to assassinate Robin Hood as a special mission.

And maybe Robin could end up shooting him in the heart with an arrow shaft in order to kill him.

(ok, loosely based off the canon. Dracula never left Transylvania until the late 20th century, I know. But sticking to the canon isn't nearly as cool, now is it?)