Shaving Tales Competition

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Draco Noir said:
Jeez, @alfredus, the word "slack" springs to mind. Here we are, surrounded by guys who can produce column metres of BS at the drop of a hat (and do so regularly), yet we haven't managed a single short story yet. And we need to be clear - it isn't a poetry or haiku competition : it's a short story competition.

If we don't see some endeavour soon, maybe we should just sell off the prize and buy ourselves a bunch of soaps or aftershave with the proceeds. What do you think?

Come on Paste and Cutters - there must be some fantastic ideas out there begging to be put into words....
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Don't be to harsh on them - I am sure there some working hard on a great tale ;)

Mark1966 said:
Mine was a story.

It was short.

The judges have spoken - others are scared ...

Maybe I will give it another shot. In chapter form?

A Shaving Tale

Chapter One

Once upon a time ... no

It was the best of shaves, it was the worst of shaves ... no

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ... no

Three shavers walked into a bar ... no

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good razor ... no

Of all the things that drive men to sea ... no

Oh, this is hard, really hard. Be back later ...
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I must admit, I have a smile on my face, so I guess we could count it in!
 
Draco Noir said:
And we need to be clear - it isn't a poetry or haiku competition : it's a short story competition.
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I demand some clarification from the judges.

Can't a story be told in poetry form?
The rules state "any literary genre".

From the dreaded Wikipedia:

A literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or even (as in the case of fiction) length. The distinctions between genres and categories are flexible and loosely defined, often with subgroups.

The most general genres in literature are (in loose chronological order) epic, tragedy,[1] comedy, and creative nonfiction. They can all be in the form of prose or poetry. Additionally, a genre such as satire, allegory or pastoral might appear in any of the above, not only as a subgenre (see below), but as a mixture of genres. Finally, they are defined by the general cultural movement of the historical period in which they were composed.
 
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possumbelly said:
I demand some clarification from the judges.

Can't a story be told in poetry form?
The rules state "any literary genre".

From the dreaded Wikipedia:

A literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or even (as in the case of fiction) length. The distinctions between genres and categories are flexible and loosely defined, often with subgroups.

The most general genres in literature are (in loose chronological order) epic, tragedy,[1] comedy, and creative nonfiction. They can all be in the form of prose or poetry. Additionally, a genre such as satire, allegory or pastoral might appear in any of the above, not only as a subgenre (see below), but as a mixture of genres. Finally, they are defined by the general cultural movement of the historical period in which they were composed.
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And a jolly good morning to you @possumbelly!

Tiny hint : DEMANDING things from judges has yet to be proven a strategy with a high (or in fact any) chance of success.

Your embryonic reasearch skills, although they venture no further than Wikipedia, are indeed to be commended. Unfortunately the section you quoted contains 10 words which are terminally damaging to your case : "They can be in the form of prose or poetry". This implicitly but clearly distinguishes between prose and poetry - it neither explicitly nor implicitly allows the possibility that a piece of writing can be both prose and poetry at the same time.

It was (and still is) the intention of the judges that this competition be prose-based, hence the frequent references to a "short story competition". It was not envisaged at the time of the competition's inception that men with the extraordinary intellectual acumen to be wet shavers would struggle differentiating between prose and poetry. The requirement for entries to be created in prose was deemed to be sufficiently self evident that it was not necessary to state it explicitly. This can be rectified if required.

It is, therefore with no regret at all that your "DEMAND" is consigned to its rightful place in the wastepaper basket of interweb flotsam and jetsam.

And as a cautionary note to all worthy P&C blokes : from here on @alfredus will have his raptor-like eyes peeled for any evidence of iambic pentameters, anapestic trimeters and dactylic hexameters, as well as excessive use of consonance, assonance and alliteration.
 
Draco Noir said:
And a jolly good morning to you @possumbelly!
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Good morning @Draco Noir!

Perhaps demand was a little strong. I did consider the use of some other word - request - desire - would appreciate, perhaps would have served better. In any case, the damage is seemingly done.

May I point out that I'm not interested in the prize. I already have more things than I need. We are talking about what constitutes a literary genre. My "literary piece" was a tragedy, a tale of hopeless obsession. A love story perhaps. Is it a poem? Is it a story? Who can say? It is all of these things and more.

Draco Noir said:
And as a cautionary note to all worthy P&C blokes : from here on @alfredus will have his raptor-like eyes peeled for any evidence of iambic pentameters, anapestic trimeters and dactylic hexameters, as well as excessive use of consonance, assonance and alliteration.
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Not sure what they all are but they sound awesome.
 
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possumbelly said:
A class action suit? Yeah why not!
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Ohh sorry. I though you said a classy action suit.
 
Draco Noir said:
@alfredus will have his raptor-like eyes peeled for any evidence of iambic pentameters, anapestic trimeters and dactylic hexameters, as well as excessive use of consonance, assonance and alliteration.
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@alfredus - Can you keep an eye out for one of these in my birth quarter?
 
Mark1966 said:
I'm not sure if any of you have noticed or not but my signature for a while indicated 'WTT or WTB - NOS 1966 L1 Aristocrat'. This has been updated as it is no longer relevant but let me tell you a story regarding why I was after this razor.

You can probably guess from my user name that I was born in 1966, March in fact so I'm a L1. A little after I started with DE and became converted I was reading a thread here about teaching our kids to shave properly given that many of us were NOT taught by our fathers. I have a son also born in March but a little more recently - 2001 to be exact. I vowed to myself that I would make sure that I taught him properly.

I'm also a little into creating family history and traditions. On the day my son was born my father (his grandfather) and I went out an purchased an expensive but very high quality hammer. Every bloke needs a hammer I reckon and when my son turns 21 and get the memory box we created for him included within will be a hammer that his father and grandfather brought him on the day he was born.

So obviously with DE shaving becoming a hobby and my prediliction for creating history I was always going to get him a special razor for his 18th (becoming an adult) birthday (yes, we tend to do both here in OZ, 18th and 21st birthdays are celebrated as special events). The obvious choice of course for a special DE shaving gift.....



That is right - a L1 Gillette Aristocrat (with a Simpson Berkeley thrown in as well).

Both are cased with their cardboard in pretty nice condition....





While the blades are not sealed they are L1 dated and come with the instructions (I don't expect the blades to actually be used)



As you can see this baby glistens!







Whether this becomes his daily shaver (he will of course be already taught how to shave properly before his 18th!) or something that he stores away this will (like the hammer) be forever HIS Gillette.

Hope you liked the pics!

The fact that I've organised this 8 years BEFORE his 18th also probably exposes my OCD nature even more! :embarrest:
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Nice fable :)
 
If we are rehashing stories:
eggbert said:
Shave of the day is brought to you today with a large dose of embarrassment.
Soap: jabonmans Lima incienso
Aftershave: floid vigoroso ++
Brush: Trying to like the Berkeley but it just feels like a soft pillow
1/2 shave: ERR/ vintage Gillette blade
1/2 shave: EJ 89 barley chrome/ voskhod
"Why the 1/2 shaves?" I hear you ask, well that is because I lost my razor mid shave.
"How on earth can you do that?"
Well I was in the shower doing my usual cold water shower / shave routine and had just finished the first pass with the ERR combo and lathered up for the second when I heard a loud bang, and a blood curdling scream followed by yelling in Cantonese.
I dropped everything and ran ( not such a good idea on tiles I may add), slipped and did the splits, naked right in front of the mother in law.
Every one except me then burst out laughing.
The loud bang was Aussie day fireworks, muffled by the shower, and the blood curling scream and yelling was caused by a poo explosion by the little one.
I have told wifebert how unimpressed I am that such a silly thing had such an effect. I seriously thought she had dropped him on his head or something similar.

I'm still searching for wherever I dumped the ERR on my way to see what happened.
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Awesome!!! Finally, some stories to chuckle over. Really good work indeed. Now for a fee of you lurkers to step up to the plate.....
 
The competition is over. The judges have discussed the state of the entries received, and have decided NOT to award any prize based on the very poor submissions.

A very community-minded gesture from @Draco Noir to put up what is a fairly substantial prize indeed out of his own pocket, and I thank him publicly for his efforts to make P&C a better place. However, what should have been taken with some seriousness ended up becoming a thread of members questioning rule semantics and some very basic rehash efforts involved. Not at all what we were after and to be honest, extremely disappointing to see the lack of respect shown to the competition.

I will be thinking very hard about approving any such competitions again in the future.
 
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