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Underground > Creation >

The Pawnshop of Ideas

  
 
Jack Fear
23:24 / 02.10.02
The approach of NaNoWriMo inspired this: soon everybody's going to need ideas, and lots of us probably have a few extra that we're not using...
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Spotted in Moby-Dick: in 1842, slaves plowing virgin soil on the Georgia plantation of a Mr. Creagh uncovered the skeleton of an ancient whale. Having never seen a whale, the simple laborers took the enormous bones to be the remains of a fallen angel.

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Title: The Wreck of the F. Scott Fitzgerald

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The disguises of violence: that is, how one may use the chaos of war or conflict to settle personal scores. e.g. imagine a bomb tossed in a Drumcree window during Marching Season: an obvious act of sectarian violence—except it isn't: it's one Catholic killing another Catholic for reasons not overtly political.

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The Gospel of Judas Iscariot: a mystical gospel, like John's, rather than synoptic: its prevalent imagery darkness and silence, as opposed to the Word and the Light. Parallels/parodies synoptic Gospels at key points, casting Peter as the real traitor, as he who fails to understand Christ's message of sacrifice: and Judas as "the beloved disciple," who understands that the Son must die that the world should live...

"Jesus said, Amen, I have told that whoever would save his life shall lose it: but I tell you now that whosoever would save the life of the Son of Man shall not enter into the Kingdom. For it is written that the Son of Man shall be put to the trial, so it must be. He loves not the Father who would seek to frustrate His design: and he who loves not the Father, loves not the Son. And yet, amen, I say to you that one of you shall betray me this night...

"Now there was among the twelve a man called Peter, a man both violent and cowardly. And Peter said, Surely it is not I, Lord?"

Breaks off before the Resurrection, for obvious reasons.

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title: The Main Street Electrical Charade

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Fatal car wreck: car strikes a prize deer. The driver is not killed by the impact itself, but is gored by the deer's antlers as it comes crashing through the windshield.

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The Murders in the Grand Guignol: a lost tale of Edgar Allen Poe.

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A chain of philosophy cafés—a place to enjoy world-famous desserts in an elevated intellectual atmosphere. The chain's name: Cogito Ergo Yum.

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Paul Bowles was the CIA's man in Tangier—keeping track of the expats and the freaks, of the political rumblings amongst the rough trade, and reporting it all in long, elegantly coded letters to his stateside handlers, prose as lucid and fraught as his fiction.

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A cocktail: the Mother's Ruin, Bombay gin with a shot of testosterone served smoking cold over ice.
 
 
Saveloy
09:55 / 03.10.02
1. Continuing the spider-silk bubble story (first mentioned in the Fantastic Lies thread):

Late 17th/Early 18th Century: giant spiders created by selective breeding to weave webs across volcanos. Hot air gradually fills them and blows them into bubble which is harnessed, loaded with cargo (hung in net beneath) and released, to be blown 100s of miles by the trade winds to a collection point just off the coast of X. Caught in similar style to Zeppelins. Advantage being that they would be carried well above the heads of pirates and out of range of pistol shot. Abandoned quickly, however, because of number of balloons brought down by weight of birds, often landing in rigging of ships etc.

2. Ancient (prehistoric?) computers which performed their calculations by building working 3d models out of wood and rope - combinations of basic geometric shapes, balls, tubes, swings and levers. Original 'mainframes' were the size of small factories, building structures the height of telegraph poles. Over time reduced in size to something that looked like an artist's paint box (the equivalent of a laptop) and fuelled by pencils, creating delicate, intricate models to calculate trajectories, orbits, geometrical thingies etc. Pocket-sized copies could be made of frequently used calculations and plugged in to each other. Surviving models in museums look like maquets for mid-20th century sculptures (Caro, Calder, Nevinson), or sprawling cityscapes. Some of the later ones feature gliding elements with paper thin wings.

3. 'Selective breathing'. Dunno what it would be exactly, but it sounds sinister.
 
 
Saveloy
12:07 / 03.10.02
4. An animal which reproduces by being eaten by other species. Version 1: Two or more adults must be consumed simultaneously by a single predator for it to succeed. The digestion process stimulates the release of both sets of gametes which fuse there and then in the host's gut. The fertilised embryos are subsequently 'laid' in little fecal eggs (ie turds), which provide nutrients (part of which will be the bits of their parents that the host couldn't digest) and are less attractive to scavengers and carnivores than normal eggs. This also ensures the geographical spread of the species. Young that are laid by predators which bury their faeces (eg domestic cats) stand a greater chance of survival than those that are not. Successful adults are those that look the tastiest.

5. A way of communicating secret messages / subliminal orders using the after-images that you see after glancing at bright lights. Sunny car parks, full of chrome encrusted vehicles are perfect for this. The person who is to receive the message must be told (or encouraged, by eye-catching means) to look at specific points in a specific order and at exactly the right speed. If they get it right, when they close their eyes they'll see the message emblazoned on the back of their eyelids, torch-writing style. Simple shapes and symbols are easiest and most commonly used; super skilled ops can reproduce handwritten text in a signature style. Blindness and stumbling are occupational hazards.
 
 
Jack Fear
12:23 / 03.10.02
In a related vein: paper made of sugarcane fibers, fibers of varying levels of sweetness intricately woven into coded patterns, such that a sheet, though apparently blank, conveys a secret message in a sort of Braille to read by the tongue.
 
 
Hieronymus
17:06 / 03.10.02
That's right, folks. At Craaaaaaazy D-Mass's Midnight sale, EVERYTHING MUST GO! Bad credit? No problem! Need financing? No problem! We'll have you out of here with a new idea before you can say "Bargain Basement!"

I collect ideas like they're rare coins. All of these are old ideas I either came up on my own or wanted to tweak from other ones I'd seen done poorly. But unfortunately, most of them have been collecting dust and I'd rather you lot gave them a nice home. They tends towards more the allegorical or magical realism bent so sorry for the poor selection.


-The mortal woman, pure and beautiful, who Lucifer fell in love with and who mothered the sorcerer Merlin and the priest, Blaise, who took care of them.

-A story of a holy gun-toting angel partnered with a Taoist zombie in a New York City beset by immigrants from Hell.

-Story of a fairy changeling girl in a human family.

-Story of the Gingerbread Man if he existed in the modern day

-The Tachyon Five: Five scientists/ time travellers whose molecules move at a faster than light speed.

-Story of a disfigured hobo mage and the woman he falls in love with and her jealous husband.

-Christ's Return through the body of a little girl.

-Man discovers his future wife in the trunk of a newly bought ex-Mafia car.

-Roulette: A prostitute/assassin who kills by making love.

-Man who seeks information about his past life. Finds a major conspiracy behind his past death.

-Story of the ongoing life in the Native American Church

-Story of what happened to the Grecian Gods before, during and after the birth of Christ. (Old legends say Pan screamed at the birth)

-A man who finds a library card to the lost Library of Alexandria.

-Story of the Oglethorpe, GA time capsule called The Crypt of Civilization (actual fact)

-Story of a man who, in despair, refuses to live anymore and hires a hitman to put him out of his misery. Then meets a beautiful woman and changes his mind, but the contract's already begun.

-Story of an apartment building where the landlord stays locked in his room but who dispenses sagely advice to his tenants with only a camera and speakers outside his door.

-Story of a young man whose father belongs to an anarchist Neo-Luddite group and of the legacy of mailbombing that his father passes to him.

-A psychiatrist uses poetry and rhyme to break an autistic girl out of her shell

-A dumb American sports fan wins a traditional Irish pub in a contest by Guinness beer. The pub's loved by its residents but the town members resent this dumb Yank taking over their favorite watering hole. Hilarity ensues.

-A ghost that kills (eats?) other ghosts in the land of the dead. Spectral cannibalism.

-Story of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse going to the horse races.

-Story of the Roman Empire had it survived to this day

-Story of a planet where kisses and sex are like eating to its inhabitants. If they don't indulge in either, they will wither away and die.

-A special military unit tries to bust into the Garden of Eden and retrieve the Fruit of the Tree of Immortality (Genesis 3:22-23)

-A garage band made up of a Siren, a banshee, a nymph, a Maenad and a mermaid and their misadventures.

-God dies and the only one with the qualifications to replace him is his old right hand, Lucifer.

-The Museum of Lost Things

-Story of a little boy who rediscovers memories of his past life as a star for a solar system long since destroyed.

-Story of a little girl who can swap minds with someone in a blink and ends up trading bodies with God for a day.

-A theif and a con artist attempts to steal a chunk of Heaven to establish a resort here on Earth.

-A man's subconscious archetypes come to life.

-Retelling of the classic Frosty the Snowman story, showing a being facing his mortality. Parody of Frankenstein

-The Man in the Mirror: Whatever happens in your life that day, if you bump into him, it happens to him.

-Anarchy Day: A day when the law is null and void and chaos and anarchy rules the people.

-Story of a God-like intelligence agency that has every single room and square inch space in America on hidden cameras.
Alternative storyline: God and the Devil are just heads of different agencies like above.

-Detective story that revolves around the murder of a 30 ft tall giant in a 1940's/ Sam Spade setting.

-Story of the Ghost Dance tragedy in Native American history. Or how the Ghost Shirts actually worked.

-Story of a baker who bakes pies and cakes filled with miracles.
 
 
Jack Fear
17:41 / 03.10.02
A man who finds a library card to the lost Library of Alexandria.

Neil Gaiman gave that idea to a character in his SANDMAN story "Calliope." As I recall, he couldn't do anything with it, either...
 
 
Ethan Hawke
17:47 / 03.10.02
I know! I know! The Library turns out to be strictly porno.

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Ideas inspired by stuff I read recently -

1.) The Vatican keeps a lot of defunct parishes in its rolls, often assigning troublesome priests to churches in towns that no longer exist or are simply ruins.

2.) Another Catholic idea - I recently read a headline of "Mother Theresa on the Fastrack to Sainthood." Now, The Fasttrack to Sainthood is obviously a great title for something; probably a Christian Emo Record but mayeb something else. Knight Rider as a promise keeper?
 
 
Ethan Hawke
18:05 / 03.10.02
Oh, oh! In the U.S. there's a trucking company called G.O.D.- guaranteed overnight delivery. On their trucks, they have the G.O.D. logo and, get this-the masonic eye in the pyramid logo. This is really true - See here for a picture of a semi. (though sadly lacking a view of the masonic eye).

Possible premise - trucking company created to mess with the brains of conspiracy theorists, either as a joke or disinformation.
 
 
Hieronymus
19:02 / 03.10.02
Yeah. I think that's where I nicked it, Jack. But it's so good it bears repeating till someone makes something great out of it. I think the silence sestina idea that character spoke of too had me knee-deep in sestinas for weeks. One man's junk, etc etc.

Is anybody getting any use out of these things? I'm already stewing on Dover's trucking idea and Jack's idea of angel bones. But then again I should quit collecting and actually enter them. *sighs*
 
 
grant
19:13 / 03.10.02
This, in true pawnshop fashion, would count as a "hot" idea, stolen from a friend:

The Second Coming of Christ was intercepted by the federal government. The reincarnation of Jesus is now kept in a sealed vault deep within a military installation. They call him "The Hippie."

(Bit Black Science, isn't it, on reflection...).

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A genius researcher runs into trouble studying border collie herding behavior. Why *do* they herd things, even without being trained? Discovery leads to adventures with genetic memory and maybe some "Altered States"-type atavism.
 
 
Jack Fear
19:52 / 03.10.02
(in the conspiracy vein... this one takes bit from a Robertson Davies' wonderful novel What's Bred In The Bone...)

Elvis Presley's twin brother Jesse was not stillborn, as is generally believed: he was so sickly at birth that he was not expected to live more than a few hours, and the doctor who delivered him and signed the death certificate allowed Gladys and Vern to take him home. But Jesse did not die: miraculously, he rallied. But he was crippled and severely retarded, and the Presleys, guilt-stricken over not allowing such a pitiful creature to die, kept Jesse's survival a secret from young Elvis. They kept Jesse penned like an animal in a hidden shack.

Elvis learned about Jesse after Gladys' death, and had his twin brought to a hidden, secret room deep in the bowels of Graceland. There he would spend hours in fascinated contemplation of Jesse, his dark mirror, identical to Elvis but beyond human interaction.

Elvis, as we know, longed to serve a higher purpose: his overtures to Nixon about working for the DEA were a groping towards that. But his fame was too great, the expectations surrounding him too stifling, for him to shift directions like that. Elvis Presley was a man who needed an escape from his own life.

When it became clear that Jesse's health, always fragile, was in irreversible decline, Elvis saw his escape route. Elvis contacted his friends at the DEA; on Jesse's death his body was passed off as Elvis', and Elvis disappeared into a netherworld of secret government agencies: now known as "Agent King," he is a dark, fearsome figure, a shadowy power-broker on a par with The X-Files' Cancer Man.
 
 
NewPickettywitch
05:06 / 04.10.02
By itself, I like the disfigured hobo idea, but perhaps a variation: Diary of a Disfigured Hobo. This assuming he knew how to write! Could also be a wonderful name for a band... Disfigured Hobo...
 
 
NewPickettywitch
05:07 / 04.10.02
By itself, I like the disfigured hobo idea, but perhaps a variation: Diary of a Disfigured Hobo. This assuming he knew how to write! Could also be a wonderful name for a band... Disfigured Hobo...
 
 
Sid Zero
07:50 / 04.10.02
"-Anarchy Day: A day when the law is null and void and chaos and anarchy rules the people. "
This sounds nice. One should write a story about a fat cop watching football and drinking beer cause he's finally got his "day off" not leaving the house at all, because it's "so dangerous, honey", not even looking out of his window to see what might be happening.

Reading an Oracle out of letter noodle soup.

Robbing a bank disguised as a burnt car accident victim with a bandaged head.
 
 
Sax
11:58 / 04.10.02
Anyone thinks they're getting any of my ideas they can guess again. How the hell do I know when I might need 'em?

Okay, you can have this. But I'm going to work on it in the near future:

HP Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Charles Fort meet in a bar in 1931. And then it gets really interesting.
 
 
gridley
16:25 / 04.10.02
This occured to me this morning, but it's not really my sort of thing.

What if parents (or employers) could take their us to court and sue for the right to alter our personalities? Change rock music from a like to a dislike. Reduce the importance of alcohol 94%. Replace distrust for the government with a devout passion for the church. Raise work ethic to maximum value, decrease daydreaming to minimum value. Increase urgency to reproduce 59%.

What would it be like to know what had been done to you? We would read our diaries, struggling to find some glimpse of who we used be, only to despise the person we found.
 
 
nutella23
16:45 / 04.10.02
--Used-car lot of the damned: every car has an odd history, something awful or unusual about each one, all for sale at bargain prices. The owner is a daemonic entity in disguise.

--A typical elderly couple gain superhuman abilities. What do they use them for?

--A TV set that begins showing its owner what he/she needs to see.

--A coffeehouse that absorbs its patrons' ideas.

--A veterinarian who bestows eternal life upon his patients.

--The widow of an esteemed and eccentric archaeologist decides to have a tag sale to rid her home of her husband's "junk". Unbeknownst to her, its all "out-of-place artifacts" (OOPARTs in Fortean speak) that he unearthed over the years. The tag sale attracts quite an interesting and diverse crowd...
 
 
NewPickettywitch
17:53 / 04.10.02
Now there's another one I like by itself: "Change rock music from a like to a dislike". It begins with young people, but the ripple moves on up the ranks. The members of several well-known bands are killed, and it creates a new trend which NME turns into a weekly contest. Soon, rock becomes a thing of the past, as labels and venues close their doors, and surviving rock stars must hide... sort of a turn-of-the-tables on trends, as such.
 
  
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