Enter the Rhinegeist
a happy functional modern family adventure11 total reviews
Comment from R R McIntyre
This piece is strange, and confusing, and probably the most unusual work I've seen on this site. And I absolutely love it. With delightfully satisfying black humour and irony, mixed with a healthy dose of sheer literary deconstructionism, you've undermined conventions and rules and restraints without any care for the consequences, like the great post modern writers who refused to adhere to expectation. The shifting of genre and medium and tone in so few words is a wild and unsettling ride, but this fragmentation is so masterfully handled that I can't help but respect it. Purely as a piece of writing, it's not the most exciting thing to read, admittedly; but in its purpose and execution, it's brilliant.
reply by the author on 27-Dec-2021
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This piece is strange, and confusing, and probably the most unusual work I've seen on this site. And I absolutely love it. With delightfully satisfying black humour and irony, mixed with a healthy dose of sheer literary deconstructionism, you've undermined conventions and rules and restraints without any care for the consequences, like the great post modern writers who refused to adhere to expectation. The shifting of genre and medium and tone in so few words is a wild and unsettling ride, but this fragmentation is so masterfully handled that I can't help but respect it. Purely as a piece of writing, it's not the most exciting thing to read, admittedly; but in its purpose and execution, it's brilliant.
Comment Written 21-Dec-2021
reply by the author on 27-Dec-2021
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Thank you so much for this glowing feedback in your wonderfully unexpected review. The closest thing I have seen to it is this even bolder piece by DragonSkulls written for the same contest (a couple weeks removed). Needless to say, we both got blocked by the person who releases these recurring contests, and received formal and official looking messages. Yeah as a pure piece of writing this was a hack job, written with a checklist. I am still working on the code to get Ride of the Valkyries to play automatically when the page loads.
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You?re most welcome. I remember that Lolita, American Psycho, A Clockwork Orange and many more classic, influential works were banned in their time for being too challenging and controversial. Sometimes it means we?re doing something right, and pushing the envelope farther than the ?powers that be? (so to speak) can handle.
While I suppose there?s nothing inherently wrong with conservatism, and fundamentalist religion, and the writing that accompanies it, it doesn?t often to serve to challenge or inspire readers, or really evolve the craft. So it?s always a pleasure to read the words of someone who not only agrees that we should be struggling as much as possible against the status quo, but one who also has the writing talent to do it with style.
Comment from prettybluebirds
I love this writing. It is absolutely hilarious and had me chuckling all the way through it. The words on the artwork are funny too. I hope you write more stuff in the same vein as it is very good. Hope to read more of the same soon.
reply by the author on 01-Dec-2021
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I love this writing. It is absolutely hilarious and had me chuckling all the way through it. The words on the artwork are funny too. I hope you write more stuff in the same vein as it is very good. Hope to read more of the same soon.
Comment Written 23-Nov-2021
reply by the author on 01-Dec-2021
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Thank you very much! We shall see. The closest thing to this I have written so far is the 8-word-contest entry "Squid Game". But most people seem not to have seen the show, so the joke backfired and half the readers think I am stoopid. I can work with stoopid though.
Comment from Jeff Watkins
I give you an A for effort, but the product does not appeal to me. The attempts at humor seem like attempts. As for contests, if you don't like the rules, don't enter the contests. I quit entering contests because I do not believe fanstory should be encouraging the members to compare writings. We should be evaluating writing based on our criteria, not on which ones we think are better than others. We should be expressing our appreciation and suggestions, period.
There's more than enough competition in the rest of the world. Jeff
reply by the author on 30-Nov-2021
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I give you an A for effort, but the product does not appeal to me. The attempts at humor seem like attempts. As for contests, if you don't like the rules, don't enter the contests. I quit entering contests because I do not believe fanstory should be encouraging the members to compare writings. We should be evaluating writing based on our criteria, not on which ones we think are better than others. We should be expressing our appreciation and suggestions, period.
There's more than enough competition in the rest of the world. Jeff
Comment Written 23-Nov-2021
reply by the author on 30-Nov-2021
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My grandmother preferred her wine with a spoon of sugar, as long as she didn't know. My humor here is like toilet water poured into the sugar bowl, unlike the natural unforced humor in your work. Yeah, I agree with what you wrote. This piece is a bit like the scatology phase two-year-olds and sixteen year olds often pass through (no pun intended). Hey mommy look what I made! Obviously written with a rule-breaking checklist, not serving a greater purpose.
I felt the committee was undermining the best interests of the contests and their sponsors, imposing their own opinions rather than enforcing the actual rules, particularly in regards to formatting and literalism. This is where I sometimes come to vent after a week working on a cement floor hauling around boxes of cat litter and cleaning up cans of exploded cat food, and navigating nonsensical safety bureaucracies. But I wrote enough subversive stuff last week, and ought to get back to the music. Thanks for the wake-up call.
The contests probably create revenue and incentivize more reviews on the site. I find the writing prompts themselves stimulating, though I agree with what you wrote about voting on them.
Comment from royowen
I guess I can understand why it would be disqualified. A very much over the top, parody of "Sound of music". I must admit I'm not why you would write it, but creativity is very much a personal thing, well done, blessings Roy
Typo a (plummers) wrench. Plumber?
reply by the author on 22-Nov-2021
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I guess I can understand why it would be disqualified. A very much over the top, parody of "Sound of music". I must admit I'm not why you would write it, but creativity is very much a personal thing, well done, blessings Roy
Typo a (plummers) wrench. Plumber?
Comment Written 22-Nov-2021
reply by the author on 22-Nov-2021
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Oh, it was just a sophomoric act of rebellion to see how many different ways I could break the contest rules. That is the entire impetus of the piece and I wrote it from start to finish with a checklist. I was getting annoyed with the emails I was getting back from the CEC, full of typos, informing me that they were disqualifying me from yet another contest. But, I didn?t just make fun of conservatives in it. For example, I threw in some Easter eggs to trigger grammar Nazis (and I am one of them). Hence, they deliberate spelling swaps of trap and trapp, as well as plumber and plummer - mistakes that I myself have made, including in the writing of this very piece : )
Thanks Roy for your kind (and tolerant) review!
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A pleasure
Comment from CL Huth
*lol* This was so much fun to read, like a really bad trip that you remember when you come down. Way to stick it to the man, er, man. I enjoyed this so much that all the technical issues aren't worth pointing out. Thank you for sharing.
reply by the author on 30-Nov-2021
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*lol* This was so much fun to read, like a really bad trip that you remember when you come down. Way to stick it to the man, er, man. I enjoyed this so much that all the technical issues aren't worth pointing out. Thank you for sharing.
Comment Written 22-Nov-2021
reply by the author on 30-Nov-2021
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Thank you! Hopefully all the technical issues you saw were the deliberate typos, and not the mistakes that I forgot to make.
Comment from jwsteele
I've got to admit I wasn't sure about what was going on here. I liked the confused Nazi symbolism. It's a trip but I didn't understand where it came from or where it's going. I guess it's over my head. This story is abstract but it's also abstruse At least for me. I may be a peasant but I could not find anything coherent to cling to. I won't waste time on prose that I can't connect follow even a little. I'm not sure what the point of this story is?
This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.
reply by the author on 22-Nov-2021
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I've got to admit I wasn't sure about what was going on here. I liked the confused Nazi symbolism. It's a trip but I didn't understand where it came from or where it's going. I guess it's over my head. This story is abstract but it's also abstruse At least for me. I may be a peasant but I could not find anything coherent to cling to. I won't waste time on prose that I can't connect follow even a little. I'm not sure what the point of this story is?
This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.
Comment Written 22-Nov-2021
reply by the author on 22-Nov-2021
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Oh the point was simply to break as many rules of the contest as possible. I kept writing things that were getting disqualified from contests over minutiae, while nice flowery writing tends to win in even the ridiculous contests. So I figured I would write something that that was worth disqualifying, to draw attention to how this system is operating. It is very much in the spirit of South Park. But I tried to make fun of as many things as possible, not just conservatives. Thanks for your review.
Comment from Spitfire
I love it. A nice spoof on contest rules. They do get out of hand. Love the references to Sound of Music. Chris Plummer hated it and called in Sound of Mucus. LOL
This is anything but a modern family. Tell me, what is your favorite movie or series on Netflix or Prime.
reply by the author on 23-Nov-2021
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I love it. A nice spoof on contest rules. They do get out of hand. Love the references to Sound of Music. Chris Plummer hated it and called in Sound of Mucus. LOL
This is anything but a modern family. Tell me, what is your favorite movie or series on Netflix or Prime.
Comment Written 22-Nov-2021
reply by the author on 23-Nov-2021
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Thanks so much Spitfire for your generous six-star review. I bet Plummer might have thought it was cheesy, sentimental and old-fashioned (...yup, Google confirms it).
Have you seen Love Death Robots on Netflix?
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On your recommendation I watched a couple of episodes on Robot. I loved the first one where machines too over (That's been happening a long time and it's scary).
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As you probably noticed, the episodes are all completely different from one another, with disconnected storylines, different directors, creative style, and production technology used. A couple of my favorites are Snow in the Desert (volume 2) and Ice Age (volume 1).
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I did notice that. The creative styles are amazing. I loved the block style of the first episode. Later, I'll go back and explore. I used to watch Black Mirror a lot. I'm guessing you watched Squid Game. First rate acting and scripting in my opinion. Another interesting movie is Identity with John Cusack and Ray Liotta. I think it is on Prime. I love psychological thrillers.
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I did see Squid Game (you might have seen my so-titled family friendly entry into the 8 word contest). Yes, I thought it was fantastic and I liked the way they used music - very much how I would if I ever directed a film - I have only done shorts. Perhaps over Thanksgiving I will view one of your recommendations out with my 4 brothers! Or, on the long drive back to New Hampshire tonight.
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I'm not sure my reply came through. Anyway, drive carefully. Gas is so high! Do you direct documentaries or plays you have written?
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Neither yet. I have just done some short comedy routines for work, family stuff and commercial marketing videos. Mainly I write music and the video work gives it an outlet. Short example I did in about a day:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RKV2tWDx-P2TcRUPlEiv44BGQ5uU4pSu/view?usp=drivesdk
Hopefully this is the right version
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Is there an easier connection to your video as in a name? Is is on YouTube? My son-in-law lives in North Hollywood, CA, and does voiceovers for commercials. Guess there is good money in that.
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Hey, I found it --Father's Day with the guys picking their noses at the end. Gentle soothing music. I like...
Comment from barbara.wilkey
I started correcting the errors and finally decided you did them on purpose and deleted my notes. I am rather surprised this entry was deleted from the contest. I've seen others, not this contest, that hadn't followed the rules and wasn't deleted or maybe the author never said anything. Thank you for sharing.
reply by the author on 22-Nov-2021
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I started correcting the errors and finally decided you did them on purpose and deleted my notes. I am rather surprised this entry was deleted from the contest. I've seen others, not this contest, that hadn't followed the rules and wasn't deleted or maybe the author never said anything. Thank you for sharing.
Comment Written 22-Nov-2021
reply by the author on 22-Nov-2021
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Haha, you are right. This was very much a South Park "Band in China" style write-up to bait across as wide a swath of the political spectrum as possible, and break all the contest rules, since many of my more thoughtful entries are disqualified or required to make adjustments over minutiae. At least this time they sent me a nicely formatted, error-free email listing all the reasons for disqualification - but they missed a couple spots : )
Thanks for your kind review!
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I enjoyed your sense of humor.
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Haha, you are right. This was very much a South Park "Band in China" style write-up to bait across as wide a swath of the political spectrum as possible, and break all the contest rules, since many of my more thoughtful entries are disqualified or required to make adjustments over minutiae. At least this time they sent me a nicely formatted, error-free email listing all the reasons for disqualification - but they missed a couple spots : )
Thanks for your kind review!
Comment from Susan Newell
Be very, very careful. Rumor has it that Hunter has resorted to plagiarism to increase HIS family fortune. Should he choose to illustrate this story and turn it into a children's book, it will stay #1 on the NYT best-seller list for three years. (I expect millions of copies to be bought by a single smart investor.)
I loved it all, but I swooned over Trappist beer. I know that I can't tell who's on first . . . Because THERE IS NO FIRST BASE. And you thought I couldn't figure this out. [smirk]
reply by the author on 21-Nov-2021
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Be very, very careful. Rumor has it that Hunter has resorted to plagiarism to increase HIS family fortune. Should he choose to illustrate this story and turn it into a children's book, it will stay #1 on the NYT best-seller list for three years. (I expect millions of copies to be bought by a single smart investor.)
I loved it all, but I swooned over Trappist beer. I know that I can't tell who's on first . . . Because THERE IS NO FIRST BASE. And you thought I couldn't figure this out. [smirk]
Comment Written 21-Nov-2021
reply by the author on 21-Nov-2021
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You got me. I was thinking after though that they might have avoided consummating the marriage with Christopher Plummer in order to keep their options open for annulment. Wait wait is there a Hunter Von Trapp? The only Hunter I know of has the last name of Biden. Tell me more!
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LOL
Comment from Brett Matthew West
See you have liberally broken almost all the rules of this contest with this clever entry. Humor included is obvious, particularly about the Van Trapps. Also touches on topics in a different manner than normally seen on FanStory. Go for it!
reply by the author on 21-Nov-2021
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See you have liberally broken almost all the rules of this contest with this clever entry. Humor included is obvious, particularly about the Van Trapps. Also touches on topics in a different manner than normally seen on FanStory. Go for it!
Comment Written 21-Nov-2021
reply by the author on 21-Nov-2021
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Thank you for the vote of confidence! About a quarter of the contests I enter, I get disqualified over some thing, and I am tired of arguing with the CEC over it, so I thought I would write something worthy of a disqualification. Looks like I misspelled Von Trapp too, so I just fixed that by correcting everything other than their last name to trapp. Hopefully my sister-in-law never sees this, as she is a huge Sound of Music fan, even taking us to the estate a couple years back.
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Watch this be one the CEC approves. Be just like them.