| Exquisite Corpse (and other diversions) |
| It all started when Jason taught Meghan and me how to play a modification on a game many children and existentialists play: the paper folding game, otherwise known as exquisite corpse. In exquisite corpse, one player draws the head of some person or animal or creature of the imagination, folds the paper, leaving marks for the next person with which to draw the neck and torso. The next person draws the legs, feet, roots, whatever. The papers are circulated until all the people have drawn a set of body parts, each adding to the last person's hidden picture. The results are unexpected and often funny. This is my sister and my written variation, taken in part from a book: 1. One person writes a name and folds the paper so the next person doesn't see it. 2. The next person writes, "met [another name]" and folds the paper. 3. The third writes "in [a place or situation]." 4. The game continues in this manner, with all the players agreeing at each round to make the stories uniform (for instance, the next line might be: "he/she/it said [something]" or "he/she/it [did something]." The game depends upon a formula (in this case, he-met-her), but the results can be entertaining. When my sister and I played this game, we would become giggly and obnoxious. Inevitably our parents would have to shush us, as we often played the game in the car on long trips, and concentration on a country road for some hours (as I learned later when I started driving during long road trips) flails often and needs not obnoxious children. Click here for an example of the foldy-word game (the he-met-her variation), which needs a name as it is often confused with Jason's variation, which follows: 1. Each person writes one or two random sentences, perhaps bits of stories or simple statements. 2. They pass their sentences to the next person, who, in a bizarre turn of events, is allowed to see them. This person draws a picture to correspond to the written words. Only then are the papers folded, so that only the picture shows. 3. The papers are then passed along to the third person (while the other games, the children's and my sister and my variation thereon can be played with two people, this game must be played with at least three), who writes of the events depicted. 4. The game continues, with more drawing and more writing, ad infinitum, or until the players receive their own original papers. This game is like a written version of telephone, another popular children's game. For examples click here. Here's a new one I just learned about from a stranger: It's a Japanese game entitled Arenge (sp?). The first person writes a sentence; the second person is allowed to see the first sentence and builds upon it. The paper is folded so that the third person sees only the second sentence, and must build upon it. I've played games like this around a campfire, but they usually involve knowing a whole story and pinning a sentence onto it, not knowing only fragrments to begin with. Click here for examples of arenge. |