A Moveable Feast

March 25, 2011 3:23 PM

"I called Sam and asked him if he wanted to come to dinner but he said he had softball practice and I said that was a damned shame and hung up. When I got to Sun City Bea and Rob were at were at the bar, behind tattooed women and men with guitars. They were sitting in the shade and their beers were half empty. We drank beer and ate pho but Rob was restless and did not talk very much..." Ernest Hemingway, Yelper. Fill free to riff up and add your best Imitation Hemingway below. Here is a guide and a sample
posted by growabrain (8 comments total)

I award you one automatic favorite for not spelling it Hemmingway.
posted by shakespeherian at 3:33 PM on March 25, 2011

Oh, this post isn't about Ernest Hemmingway, noted Jazz Age couturier?
posted by kmz at 3:44 PM on March 25, 2011

I often think that if Fight Club were written today the narrator would have spent many of his pre-fight days writing 'clever' reviews on yelp. On his iPad 2.
posted by danny the boy at 3:50 PM on March 25, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't post very much on the Blue or anywhere else for that matter but after I had read the first one or two pieces at that McSweeneys blog a strong desire to write this came over me. I like it when someone posts something that surprises me and I like this for the same reason.
posted by The_Auditor at 4:04 PM on March 25, 2011

Very funny. The McSweeney's bit is a much better imitation than the contest winner you linked under "sample."
posted by muckster at 4:46 PM on March 25, 2011

For Whom The Bell Trolls

He woke up early. He had been drinking the night before and Haughey had banned him, as he had many times before. He had been popular on MetaFilter, with many favorites. He was a poet. He was profound. He would drink and encourage his MeFites to revel in their one chance among the living. He would tell them to jump in the howdah of the peeing elephant of life. But he drank too much. He posted links to his search-engine-optimization site and he called Jessamyn a bitch. And now he was banned and drunk and alone in his mother's basement.

He thought about getting a blog of his own but decided not to. Too much work. He filled out the new user form and sent sent Haughey the five dollars. He chose a username and logged in. He looked at the links. The posts were crap. YouTube and portobello mushrooms and tsunamis and crap. Life was meaningless, but now it was crap. He took a drink and poked at the keyboard. "Life is crap," he posted on AskMetaFilter. "What's the goddamned point, if all we do is die?" Haughey suddenly responded. "Success! Your Ask MetaFilter question is live."

He took another drink. The irony surprised him. He could start over, he thought. He looked at the new front-page posts. He watched the video of the giant wave flooding a street. He too was starting over. He was like the sea washing through the village. It was still early, and the tsunami video had no comments. He took another drink and poked the keyboard. "FIRST!"
posted by George Clooney at 7:14 PM on March 25, 2011 [4 favorites]

I like mcsweeneys.com.
posted by Ad hominem at 7:34 PM on March 25, 2011

Didn't Seinfeld do this with the Mr. Peterman character?
posted by gjc at 4:53 PM on March 26, 2011