So there’s this new iPad game, Prose with Bros.
The premise is simple: you and another player are each given the same set of refrigerator poetry word tiles and have to write the best mini-story possible. The tile set is deceptively well chosen– you never seem to have all the words you need, so you’re forced to make hard decisions and find imaginative ways to use your limited resources. It takes some thinking.
Between rounds, you read other pairs’ sentences and vote on which you like better, giving special (if strictly symbolic) kudos to your favorites. You can watch the votes as they come in; after 12 hours, a winning sentence is declared.
I like instant feedback; I am competitive; I like to show how clever I am. And so, I am obsessed with Prose with Bros.
But the thing about PWB (can I call it PWB? I feel quite intimate with it) is this- it’s a perfect democracy: everybody writes, everybody votes. It values clarity over Joycean abstrusion and innuendo over absurdism. Sadly, the same can’t be said about me– and it’s been a challenge to figure out how to broaden my appeal.
Consider this early attempt:
A solid effort, I think, and the 81% vote emboldened me to play further. My next round’s entry looked like this:
Can I tell you? I laughed out loud at the thought of the mimes and their surly jigs and growling. And grandpa’s rumination? Comic gold!
Except not so much: “Maude Lebowski” beat me by 78% with her tale of Grandpa’s balls (to be fair, she obviously thinks that coitus is a zesty enterprise.) Following suit, the next round I played to the groundlings: innuendo.
80%. Not bad for my noir-tinged entry. Clearly, the crowd liked its smut.
83%. And it’d have been more, I’ll bet, if I hadn’t had the lame tag at the end: sometimes a gangsta must edit. Feeling confident, I decided to complete the innuendo trifecta:
Poor Maude Lebowski– she never saw it coming.
And so, like any artist, I live a tortured existence. When I cater to the grunting mob, hoi polloi can’t wait to harvest my kumquats. But damn my kumquats; I have resolved to follow my muse and let the chips fall where they may. I will be the Van Gogh of Prose with Bros- and the future will thank me.
Len Schiff: In Verse Operations 