Ho-‐Hums and Shenanigans: An Exercise in Style By Adrian Louis Chandler Notation style: I was in Venice on Abbot Kinney at 2:31 am. I sat down at a coffee shop across from the bar called “The Other Room” where I was previously drinking Pinot Noir. I had 3 glasses. The coffee shop was called “The Hard Grind.” I ordered a dark French Roast. Two intoxicated men walked up to the shop. They were wearing Banana Republic suits, one grey and one beige. They ordered two double espressos. As soon as they received their drinks, after waiting four minutes and thirty-‐two seconds, they got into a black Mercedes Benz CLS63 AMG and drove quickly away with their headlights off. George Bush Style: Heh, So if… uhhh… uhhh…heh… I wanted to get a drink… I uhhhh…. AS I AM THE DECIDER heh… I DECIDED to go to a coffee shop after I had drank at the bar on Ibbot Kenny… didn’t want to get another DUI, ya see… heh. Alri’ alri’ wait wait… I don’t know why I said that… OH WAIT yeah I do… so these two good ole’ boys walk in wear’n fancy suits… heh I do like suits heh… *wink to random person*… heh… anyway I got coffee… none of that fancy stuff, ya know…heh… any-‐a-‐any-‐anyway They ordered some strange French drink… it WAS coffee… but French, ya know. They should have boughten American heh, am I right? Heh… well they left…. In som car… took off like a… ah ah … a… ah a bat out of some place it doesn’t want to be… heh… Did I say those words? Alliteration for the deranged: Catching coffee clear ‘cross concrete, continuing carousing casually. Captivatedly cradling cocoa colored caffeine. Coincidently, cordial cool clothed cats came creeping. Currently countered claws catch cups. Capital clad coats cutout cajoling complacently. Captivating clunker carries corporatists careening callously, confirming course. Caution! Corollary: Car crashes. Crowed cries. Condolences carried, calming characters’ comforts. Complete. Sibilance: Successive coffees certainly sounds succulent! So much so as to start my slurping seconds after sheepishly sucking down glasses of sweet wine. So I simply switched my sights onto the sordid coffee shop stretched before the street. Sliding doors slowly stammered open and two suits swaddling business swashbucklers swaggered in. This sight was safely subverted when they received their steaming double shots of hissterical substance. Then, sort of safely, they sent themselves off in a shiny sedan, wheels screeching as they rushed.
Irish Drinking Limerick: I was out at Abbot Kinney I’d obviously had too many with coffee in cup And oh what luck I wasn’t inside a Denny’s Tu ra lu ra lura. Oh! Tu ra lu ra li! While in this coffee shop I didn’t spill a drop Sipping the brew Thought what to do For this wasn’t my final stop Tu ra lu ra lura. Oh! Tu ra lu ra li! Two men came in like thunder Dressed for corporate plunder they bought some Joe And there they go My brain feels split asunder. Tu ra lu ra lura. Oh! Tu ra lu ra li! Hyperbole: I probably drank more glasses of wine than anyone else in the bar combined! I then had the most amazing idea I had ever gotten! I ran faster than a speeding bullet across the street, which probably was the size of Texas, to get the best cup of coffee ever made in the entire world! Including South America. While relaxing in the most comfortable chair, kings never had a chair this comfortable, I witnessed with my own eyes two men walk into this amazing coffee shop. They had suits on that must have cost at least 10 thousand dollars! They ordered these HUGE shots of espresso, probably 20 shots in one cup, and slurped ‘em down in one gulp! They then got into a Mercedes Benz CLS63 AMG that was probably also hooked up by Brabus, so the car was like 2 million dollars at least. These guys had to have been richer than the Sultan of Brunei! They then hit the gas, filling the entire street for 4 blocks with the sound, smell and sight of screeching tires and smoke. Man they must have gone 0 to 60 in .5 seconds flat!
Word Constraint: Forced to use maroon, seven, equipment, Mexican, and pineapple: My so-‐called pirate friends marooned me on Abbot Kinney in Venice. They left me at a bar, so before I was going to find a way home I decided to pick up a cup of coffee… or seven… to sober up. Lazily I stared while they created my lovely wake-‐up juice with such shiny equipment that would make a sober person’s eyes smile. Currently, two stuffy men in fine suits walked in. They both ordered espressos, which I think is made in Mexico… but I’m not Mexican, I wouldn’t know. They gathered up their drinks and before speeding away in a pretty black car, I could have sworn I saw one of them put a pineapple in their drink…I must be drunk. How am I going to get home…? Hallucination: The road out in front of the bar was filled with all sorts of wild-‐eyed demons and ghouls prancing around as if they had drank too much Dayquil. Nasty stuff, Dayquil, always sticks to the back of the throat and tonsils. I felt bad for them, really. It’s not a comfortable situation to be in. Pushing aside one of the little bastards I decided to follow my instincts to acquest a cup of Joe across a blue lagoon, which had been a road only moments before. Strange. By the time my balance kicked back in and my shoes stopped melting to the lagoon floor, I had arrived in front of the most inconsequential and blatantly plain coffee house. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what it was; it wouldn’t stop blinking at me. Timing my jump just in between blinks, I made it through the front door, but landed face first on the shag carpeting. I don’t recommend shag for a coffee house floor, stains will never come out and you don’t know what kind of hooligan will spill his coffee just for that same reason. I don’t think shag carpets appreciate coffee as much as humans do, but I decided I would feed it some all the same as soon as my mission had ended. While relaxing in a brown leather chair that seemed to keep pushing me out of itself as if to calmly say, “hey, I’m not a chair,” two Nazi SS soldiers Goose stepped through the door. I’m still not sure how they ended up in Venice in 2009, but I am positive it must have been a difficult and long journey. I decided not to confront them about how choosing political parties is not to be taken lightly. After some German sounding barking that must have been a polite “thank you” they walked out with their cups of coffee, neglecting to feed the shag carpet. The blood pressure in my skull seemed to go down when I finally saw them leave in some futuristic hover car. Mondays are always the hardest to take when you forget to bring along an extra hit of blotter acid. Without “the, a or an.”: I went to this coffee shop after drinks on Abbot Kinney in Venice. It was called “Hard Grind.” While dark French Roast coffee was in my hand two men in suits walked in, one suit was grey and one was beige. Stumbling as if they were drunk, they slurred out two orders of double espresso. After receiving these drinks they strolled out to their car. I hate people who drive Benz’s and this one was particularly over extravagant. Their wheels burned tore at pavement as they sped off. Onomatopeia: Ding! Slurp, slurp. Slam! Click, click, click, click. Ding! Ding! Slurp, slurp. Slurp, slurp. Click, click, click, click. Slam! Screech! Zoom!
Minimalism: Coffee shop, two men got espressos, left. Zoological: At the time of night when owls forget about mice and look to slumbering, I, a wild-‐eyed leopard, went to the watering hole of late night jungle cats. While slurping doggedly, two penguins waddled up for a famished drink. Chattering like squirrels they had their fill and wandered back into the rodent infested jungle. Pompous: I had been drinking a rather stale Pinot Noir at a very dingy lower class bar, if it could even be called a bar; it was more like a hooligan pub of sweaty ne’re-‐do-‐wells. I became bored with the idle chattering of such naives, and decided to have a nightcap; though I doubted that this dingy area I was currently wading through had any place of significance that I might indulge my thirst properly. I gave into my baser need for a good cup of coffee and prayed that the café across the road might have at least one cup that was not caked with grime. Entering the coffee enterprise’s residence made my intestines twist, as the smell pervading resembled burnt day-‐old beans that one might find in a shanty. What a waste of my time, thoroughly outrageous, but I needed something to wash away the bitter poor choice of wine the former establishment was providing. While I begrudgingly forced the brown liquid, I could not even call it coffee at this point, down my throat, two well-‐dressed men walked in through the obviously unwashed double doors. At first I thought they might be of some use by providing stimulating conversation, but presently I saw they were intoxicated up to their gills with what was presumably cheap beer by the odor wafting from their general direction. I attempted to avert my eyes in order as to not engage them in any way that might be misconstrued as an invitation to repartee. When they finally left through the unclean portal in which they so boldly entered, I perceived them leave in a modest Mercedes Benz which was no doubt on loan to them from someone with a little better taste in automobiles, but obviously not in acquaintances. They recklessly navigated away, and as I was glad to see them go, I still felt bad for the vehicle that was forced to carry such vile miscreants. Children’s Story: In the land of Venice, on a street called Abbot Kinney, a boy, not so different from you, sat down at a coffee shop. Little did he know that what was to transpire was something that would change his life forever. You see, this boy was very lazy and did not listen to his parents when they told him, “work hard, and then you can play with much nicer toys then you have now.” Even though he would like to have such nice toys, he still did not work hard. In fact, he was up way past his bedtime and drinking grown up coffee. The taste was too bitter for him and he squeezed his eyes as he drank, but he was determined to drink the whole cup. He sipped and he sipped and when he opened his eyes to take a break, two full-‐ grown men wearing fancy suits walked in. He was half hiding in a corner so they took no notice of him, but he could not take his eyes off the suits. They were shiny and new. Without breaking his gaze he felt the course cotton of his old shirt. “Much nicer toys…” he repeated to himself his parents’ words. As suddenly as they came, the two men in shiny suits walked out. He stood up for a better view of them leaving and through the window he saw their shiny new car, all that they owned seemed to glisten in the
moonlight. “Much nicer toys…” he said again as they drove off. He had never actually put an image to what that meant and in that moment he promised himself he would work hard to be worthy of such things. And from that day forth he did just that. Valley Girl: So I was, like, at this coffee shop on Abbot Kinney? And it was, like, waaaaay, late. And I totally wanted a French roast blended, but they were all like, “we don’t carry that,” so I was like, “WHATeverrr justgivemeafrigg’nfrenchroastthen, GOD!” like his job is that hard, right? Anyway, these two totally, like, ffffresh looking guys walked in. they had a whole Edward Cullen thing going on, you know, like pasty white? But mysterious, not all fleshy and gross. OH! And they totally had on, like, supper nice suits. THEY got the coffee they wanted… uhg! But whatever I wasn’t thinking about coffee anymore, ya know!?! My blood was, like, already TOTALLY pumping. They left in a supper sexy car, and, like, drove really fast. Kind of dangerous, but still, like, soooo sexy. Memento style: Then they drove off fast, obnoxiously screeching their tires. After the two men got their coffees, they left the shop and got into their unnecessarily fancy car. They didn’t wait long. They ordered double espressos each, I decided they needed to stay awake for something important. Just then, two men in suits walked into the coffee house. Finally, I took a long (and very needed) sip of my French roast. So I ordered it. I wanted a normal coffee, but the closest thing they had was a French roast something or other. Besides, he was just mad at his job and lot in life, not me. It was the kind of tone of voice that is used to let you know you are being bothersome, but I ignored it. I approached the counter and a teenage kid, whose face was still rebelling at his social life, asked me, “what do you want?” Deciding to enter was not a hard decision. I walked over and read the sign out loud, “The Hard Grind.” While on the curb I saw a coffee house across the street. My feet seemed to pull me down to the ground where I found myself, rather roughly, placed on a curb. I exited the bar. I was drunk. Confused: Um at a bar? Yes, I, I think so. I must have been on Abbot Kinney, or maybe Main. I might have been drunk… on either wine, or maybe just beer. But then again I do recall… I’m not sure. It was a Coffee Bean for sure! No wait. It was LIKE a Coffee Bean, I think. There was a French roast involved somewhere and I might have been drinking it. Sitting down? Maybe. But I do think about two or so men in suits came in. What? Well if it WAS a coffee house then I guess they ordered coffee? I think they left quickly, or slowly, or maybe they stayed. Hawaiian Slang/ pigeon English: Shoots brah. I was cruizin at da coffee house. I was drinking da drip dat broke da mout, but den da suits walked in. I looked at dem and said, "what, bodda you???". Freakin lolo's jus when walk by. I had da stink eye on dem da whole time dey was dere. Brah, da fools when come in, grab what dey like and leave aftah. No make sense brah. Shoots, I catch you laters!
Apheresis & Apocope: -‐Original: One night I left a bar, which was on Abbot Kinney, to go to a coffee shop. Luckily there was one across the street that seemed nice enough. It was called “The Hard Grind.” I went in and got a French roast. While I drank I noticed two well dressed men walk in. They were wearing Banana Republic suits. The two men calmly ordered double shots of espresso and left. I could see them speed away outside in a nice Mercedes Benz. -‐Apheresis: Ne ight eft ar, hich as n bbot inney, o o o offee hop. Uckily here as ne cross he treet tha eemed ice nough. T as alled “he ard rind.” Ent n nd ot rench oast. Hile rank oticed wo ell ressed en alk n. Hey ere earing anana epublic uits. He wo en almly rdered ouble hots f spresso nd eft. Ould ee hem peed way utside n ice ercedes enz. -‐Apocope: On ni I lef a ba, whi wa on Ab Kin, t g t a cof sho. Lucki th was on acro the stree that seeme ni enou. It wa cal “The Har Gri.” I wen in an go a Fren roas. Whil I dran I noti tw well dresse me wal in. They were wear Bana Repub sui. The tw me calm order doub shot of espre and lef. I coul see them spe awa outsi in a ni Merce Ben. Polyptotes: I was up late and drinking on an insomniac’s journey through the restless insomnia filled street of Abbot Kinney. Here in Venice it seems many insomniacs roam freely. I went across the street to the fueling ground for insomniacs, an all-‐night coffee house, where insomnia rages at its best. I grabbed an insomniac’s best friend, the French roast, and began my sleepless insomnia filled night. Two well-‐ dressed men, who did not have the appearance of debilitating insomnia, strolled into this insomnia filled den of caffeine fiends. They spoke well and the insomniacs about stared wide-‐eyed at the insomnialess speech pattern. Whether or not these two lacked the insomnia that the rest of us insomniacs shared, they were undisturbed by the droopy stares. The two left the rest of the owl eyed insomniacs inside and drove of quickly inside a jet-‐black car. Insomniacs are very territorial. Snowball: I Do Sip Cups Cocoa Coffee. Cordial Dressed Withdrew Comradely Afterwards.