Hello and welcome to the worlds most mis-spelled home-nose!
The Ed Book
The positive power of surreal questions.
The following is inspired by a guy called Ed. We have never met but he is the originator of a very interesting book. The book is a series of questions which in all probability have never been asked before and are designed to encourage hilarity in those who are in no fit state to talk, and conversation in those who are.
By asking a question your brain is forced to engage with it. We’ve been trained our whole life to think about and answer sensible questions. This has produced sensible brains capable of working in call centres and supermarkets.
But what if you were asked really really silly questions? How would your brain, trained from birth to produce sensible responses, react? If you want to find out just have a flick though these questions and give them some serious thought, discuss them with your friends with the same intensity as a child at play. Perhaps you can re-train your brain and make it capable of Play-doh and milkshake.
Of course my imitations are pale in comparison to Ed’s purist off-beat insanity, if you like what you have read here I suggest you seek out this Ark of the Aberrant for it holds wonders beyond imagining. I leave that as a quest to the reader.
To submit a question, the entry must conform to these criteria:
Warning:
- It must be funny.
- It should inherently festoon with balderdash. (be surrealistic).
- It shouldn’t be “dark”; surrealism has a tendency to depress.
- It must express an original idea. (I mustn’t be able to find it on yahoo answers).
- It must be in formal linguistic inclination, as though written by an academic.
- It must be addressed to a crowd.
- It mustn’t be very controversial.
- It mustn’t be pretentious.
- At least one of the above rules must be broken.
- Swearing is allowed where necessary (normally to emphasise a comedic point)
Do not answer or attempt to answer these questions if you are:
Without further ado - Let us begin:
As we all know, Mr Onomatopoeia was an Ancient Greek philosopher of some renown. Sadly he works have been lost to us and all we know about his life is that he had an obsessive compulsive disorder which required him to say noises he heard out loud.*
However the question is: What if every time you clapped your hands; instead of hearing the clapping sound, your own disembodied voice said “clap”?
Ie: If I knocked a chair across the floor and it fell down some stairs onto a cat; a voice would say “Bump, Screech! Thump thump thump. Meeow”
Consider the implications for: music, fighting, farting, regional accents and old Adam West Batman episodes.
* Mr Onomatopoeia died at the Battle of Marathon from exhaustion having bellowed the word “CHING!” an estimated 1496 times in an hour. This remains the world record.
Consider these statements carefully:
- 1) The three dimensional universe is merely a “projection” onto a fourth dimensional wall*.
- 2) The fifth dimension has collapsed to a size of an atom and this collapse powered the Big Bang.
- 3) When an object moves “Higgs Boson” cause it to have mass*. Control over Higgs boson would make the rules of physics disappear. Time travel, infinite energy, intergalactic space journeys, frictionless plumbing etc would all be possible.
- 4) Marmite is not very nice.
You will however engage with Statement 4 the most. Why is this?
These are some answers that I couldn’t find a question to. Can you think of some questions they will go with?
Correct! Following your logic fury hot water bottles must be able to talk, but it follows that I am also the pope-moon. Worshipped by all other moons. Come hither Io you sexy beast.
The concept of the chicken egg must have come before the proto-ansestral-chicken-o-saur.
Mathematically speaking there simply must have been two snowflakes that are structurally identical; however no two Human poos are ever identical. Therefore excrement is the ultimate form of beauty, if you couch your definition of beauty in the terms of rarity.
My hands are not the same size – stop trying to freak me out, no wait, they are the same size but only when I hold them like this. And don’t wink.
Thiesdfla;s sflgaalkfga;ioplsfkngioprjirtlfgj is what a monkey would type. (It would type exactly that on the first attempt despite the astronomically large probability against it (56x10^6million, about 1000 times the number of atoms in the observable universe)) Baboons however would write: "Now we sit through Monkey Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations." Baboons are shit-hot critics.
Take this pill:
☠ What do you see?
If no pill present please move on to section J15: Tax returns: Do’s and Don’ts
What if all shade suddenly became a colour and all colours became patterns? Discuss the implications this would have on the carpet and the shadow under the chair.
A Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet weighs over 160 tonnes. How the fuck can that fly? (Don’t think about it too hard, there might be one overhead.)
Ganesh is by far the coolest of all the Hindu Gods as he gets to have a trunk, four or more arms, big ears and ride a giant mouse. Give the guy some motherfucking sunglasses.
If you had to invent a Room-God to look after the interests of everyone in the room what would he look like and what would his powers be? She could even be a room-Goddess if you want - I’m an equal opportunities questioner.
Would he have any weaknesses, does he have any family connections?
Perhaps she is in competition with other Room-Gods and Room-Goddesses who occupy the same house?
If someone leaves the room does the Room-God’s powers and appearance change or is a new Room-God born? If everyone leaves does he/she die? If the Room-God is immortal an unchangeably perfect does that mean you are imprisoned? Is this why we can’t leave Earth and had to fake the moon landings?
Bees are the most intelligent animals on the planet if judged on brain size alone. Some scientists have even stipulated that they are capable of trans-dimensional thought*. If bees could be scaled up to the size of a gerbil we could power the internet with just 1500 bee brains. (By my calculations we would need only one whale-sized bee’s brain - but gerbil is an inherently funny word so I went there instead. (In retrospect I could have said “sperm whale”. Oh well.))
However if such a laser beam existed which could enlarge objects whilst increasing their intelligence proportionately what would you aim it at?
(Minus 10 IQ points to which ever bloke says “My bell end” first. Plus two humour points for each person who laughs. (There is no competition.))
How big would a piece of dirt have to be before it could have a conversation with you? Consider implications to the Gaia Hypothesis.
*This is actually true. I’m talking about the 12th dimension where a figure “8” looks like a 3d hexagon. This explains how a simple figure of eight bee dance can give directions to your back yard and why honey combs are the shape they are.
Imagine if light travelled slower than water. Imagine if you could dip your fingers into it like a stream and disrupt the flow. What would it feel like when it runs through your fingers? If you carried it into a dark room and splashed it on your face what would that look like? Could you paint with liquid light? Could you trap bubbles of light in champagne?
In 2002 British poet and artist Valerie Laws invented quantum sheep poetry by painting words onto the sides of a flock of sheep and writing down the phrases they created when they walked in lines.
Here is an example of their work:
"Warm drift, graze gentle White below the sky, soft sheep Mirrors, snow clouds."
As you can see sheep are filled with ennui, who else but the congenitally depressed would leave a haiku incomplete by just one syllable?
There are plenty of other animals who would write much happier poetry, but they need our words to do it. What words would you shave into a flange of Baboons? What other animals should we graffiti?
An octopus has only six legs. If it had eight legs what would it be called? A cat has nine tails if it had only one tail what would it be called? Can you think of a name for the eight legged horse featured in the question above?
Scissors were invented by Leonardo da Vinci, officially making him most brainy person ever. Eat dust Einstein.
But can you think of a use for scissors which doesn’t either create or destroy?
Does this prove that it is the middle child of the “rock paper scissors” debate? Should the definitive name for the game be “paper scissors rock”? If Leonardo were never born what game would we use to decide who has to answer the phone? Is it a coincidence that the hand-signal for scissors is also the sign for “fuck off” and “peace”?
Fake wood effect. Discuss.
Mouths, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, are “holes in your face what can talk”. This is special because most holes can’t talk. If every hole could talk what would they say and how would you shut them up? What would ventriloquists do with all their free time?
42 is the answer to the life universe and everything. It is also a phonetic word-jumble of “Tea for two”. Is this a coincidence? Can you think of a problem which can’t be at least aided by the judicious application of tea?
Nowadays, carpets are rugs created from man-made fibres that are fitted to the room. Very few people know that the word “carpet” originated in India when the Maharajah of Madras ordered a floor for his brand new automobile. Due to a translation error a trained Bengali tiger was put in his car instead. The Maharajah was so amused by this he kept the tiger as a “car-pet”*
However, what exotic pet would you have especially for your car and why?
*A few years later when the Maharajah inadvertently stepped on the tiger and "old stripy" had to be put-down. He was then made into a rug. Hence subcontinent’s expression “you can’t tame a tiger” and also “I bet that carpet cost an arm and a leg”
Imagine vomiting. Not funny. Imagine a small child. Not funny. Imagine vomiting on a small child.
Why is this so funny? Is this the essence of comedy?
Chameleons change colour according to mood, whereas mood-stones change colour according to what temperature it is. But what would happen if we changed colour according to our emotions? Would parts of out body become multicoloured when we try to express ambivalence? Could a sophisticated language erupt from our skin colour changes? Could make-up be used to lie even more effectively? Are freckles memories?
If a toy could make something to play with them what would it look like? Does a toy have a greater imagination than that of a child? What does imagination do when it isn’t being used?
Watching war films backwards is something of a hobby of mine. The way all the little soldiers spring back to life always cheers me up. And so it is demonstrably true that watching a sad film backwards makes one happy, as you would expect.
However watching Monty Python* backwards is even funnier than normal. Why is this? Is it the case that moving images are always better in reverse?
(*The fish dance sketch is my favourite one to watch backwards and a good starting place for the amateur. Once that has been fully appreciated, advanced “rewinders” normally move onto the Spanish inquisition sketch. The killing joke or silly walk sketches must only be attempted under strict supervision.)
In the future, spirit levels will have “will not work in zero gravity” on them to prevent space-cottages from becoming all wonky. But what would space-cottage cheese be like if gravity affected our sense of taste? Is this why aeroplane food tastes better on the ground?
Sometimes curtains are made of iron. Winston Churchill got his iron curtain by flying through a small armoured window during one of his daring wartime raids on a whisky distillery. (This blatant theft was what eventually led him to the dark side.)
However what if fabric had all the same properties as metal and vice versa? Would we need computer knitters, would my grandma code in Back Purl Cross or Bobble-Over Basic? Would a Samurai sword make a serviceable scarf?
A long time ago someone invented the bike. Later on someone invented the unicycle. If necessity is the mother of invention then how was this idea born? Does this prove that insanity is the father of invention?
What if there’s someone behind you right now but every time you look around they disappear? Try to catch them out by holding your breath so you can hear them breathe.
Salmak was invented in a different way to many musical genres. Andrew Salmak decided that he would observe a unique style of dancing and try to form a musical sound around that, by doing so he hoped to turn the musical world on its head. Unfortunately for Andrew the person he took as a muse wasn’t dancing but was experiencing a form of allergic reaction to horseradish. This is why few people have heard salmak music.
“origh’ ‘eres the question hahah” what if I set up an obvious question with quite an elaborate story and then just gave you a self referential question on the nature of the question being asked? Would you answer the question anyway or would you dance around making horseradish noises? Why are you answering these questions? Are you that well trained?
Nettles are so universally disliked that even though nettles came over with the Romans we still call a brew of nettle leaves “nettle tea” when in all justice we should really call a cup of tea a “nettle” of tea leaves. We had to sail half way around the world just to find a hot drink that didn’t sting us. What personalities does this imply about tea and nettles respectively? Is it better to give without any care for personal protection?
Duct tape was invented by a duck and an ape over a cup of tea. Before you say that this is mere linguistic trickery consider that nylon was invented by two cities over an ocean. I mean what could London or New York do with stockings?
“Don’t mow a neighbours lawn in one go”; “a breast only has nipples on one side” and “to polish ones nails defeats only the inept” are all rare sayings. Very rare as they have thus far never been said out-loud by anyone. You can be the very first person to utter these sayings and therefore become the progenitor of the ‘saying’ should you wish.
Go on; just open up your gob and let one rip.
Make up your own sayings. Next time someone offers you a cup of tea just say the first thing that comes to mind. If you come up with a really good ones write them here. Six years later you might have to persuade the Oxford English Dictionary that you came up with the phrase “shin my noggin” and this will be the evidence!
If this is a book of questions why didn’t that last one have any in it? I’ll add some now: Which of the three sayings given as examples do you think sounds the rarest? Which is least usable, think of the most unusual way of using it. Who would never understand what you meant if you said them?
?siht gniod deppots srorrim fi tahW
Dogs have such good sense of smell they can smell their own noses (in much the same way that we can see our own eyes) but what if smells were reflected? Could you use a mirror to magnify the taste of food? Would sweets have little flecks of silver in them? Could you capture smell in a camera? Do dogs dream smells?
The renaissance painters painted some of the most realistic paintings we have ever seen – according to legend two painters once had a competition to see who could paint the best, one painted a bowl of fruit and claimed victory when a bird tried to eat it. The other only claimed victory when the bird tried to fly out of the open window only to head-butt his painting instead.
However what if whenever you drew something it changed to resemble your painting rather than the other way around?
Would Picassobe hunted like some renegade plastic surgeon? Would you send a play school group around to de-value the houses of your enemies? Would political cartoonists be incarcerated and deprived of paper? Or would we all imagine a better world where all of our wildest dreams could come true with just the slightest co-operation? Why don’t you try to draw a better room now? See what happens when you pass the paper around.
What if every animal were born albino? What if snow were multi coloured?
"Fly like a mouse, run like a cushion, be the small bookcase." Means a lot to people who were insomniacs between the years of 2002 and 2004. However which state of existence is better and is it possible to be all three?
Is telling a lie an essential human right? If your nose grew longer each time you told a lie wouldn’t you be no more than a puppet? Is the modern world making us wooden? Can the truth ever be a good thing?
Today I had a dream that I could create anything. I changed the whole world so that it was beautiful for someone I was in love with. Then half way through our evening together I realised that these gestures merely distanced ourselves from each other. I made the Eiffel tower and its reflection in the water I had placed it in disappear. The yacht we floated on transformed back into a cargo ship when we kissed. But why was the woman in the dream the girlfriend of a famous psychopath?
Sometimes I feel like a snake fighting an octopus.
Henceforth I shall dispense with E2’s usual pipelinking guidelines. I will instead pipelink to nodes that are so awesomely well written that they make my arms tingle and make me feel proud just to have found them.
In short things that can only be found on E2.
So you see even though I like Sponge Bob Squarepants, if the node doesn’t make me want to run around the room screaming: “Oh my God that was so good I think I will shove a firework up my arse just to calm down”… it won’t get in.
Taking a page from bookreader, I made this super-hard riddle:
What's as useful as a chocolate fire-guard, but only when there’s a fire.
My old home node: A summary in less than 2% of the words:
Gold plated haddocks are great. My head isn’t as big as I thought. Politics could do with more silliness and less caution. (but I can’t go into that because summaries aren’t funny) and I’ll quit E2 when I stop feeling great when I’m on it.
My website: (I’m a web designer BTW) paintapage.com Deviantart account username: Apollyoneum
I get the coolest private msgs:
Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I Pondered weak and weary,
over many a quaint and curious node of forgotten lore,
While I noded, nearly idle,
suddenly, there came a title,
as of some syllogism vital, over which I must now pore,
"'tis some concoction", muttered I,
covering a topic poor,
idle prose and nothing more.
But this prosaic link was tricking
my wayward cursor into clicking,
by the unexpected subject of the text my browser bore.
"Though thy text is pedagogic,
thou," said I, "care not for logic,"
"at least not trite and banal logic parroted by some pedantic bore, "
Quoth the noder, "this is what e2 is for!"
Gorgonzola on All ravens are black