Don't be absurdist

Not sure what I think about the current batch of Vocal challenges. Certainly they are challenging, which I guess is the point. But I am having a real hard time trying to make any sense of them.

The Absurdist Awakening challenge has just left me cold. A couple of times I have tried to make sense of it, tried to come up with some ideas, but am left with a complete blank. If I wanted to write a love poem, a sci-fi romp, a detective mystery, I would be on solid ground. If I needed some ideas I would go for a walk, go see some art, or just do some much-needed chores (Agatha Christie's best tip). It works every time. But a comedy based on an absurd upending of the laws of nature? Short of taking some mind altering drugs, I have no idea.

Okay, fallback, position: Research, research, research. Something to get the ball rolling, the spark ignited. In the olden days, I would do some searches in Google, before exploring some themes. These days it's a whole new ball game. We have generative AI do so that kinda leg work.

Okay Gemini (freely provided by Google, thanks chaps) give me some ideas for a Vocal Challenge... Wait...

Is it ethical, is it even legal, to use AI to generate ideas for a story?

Don't see why not. Nobody complains if I use a walk in the woods to generate ideas (Fear and the Forest), or a trip to an art museum (Pugilistic Portrait). For that matter, nobody bats an eyelid if I resort to outright theft of an idea from authors of the past: (Murder She Wrought) but then so does everyone else... steal Agatha Christie's ideas, that is.

What's more, I am putting all the ideas generated into the public domain, so that anyone can use them if they want to. Please go ahead. I am a firm believer in the maxim 'Ideas are no man's property' and so claim no rights to the following. All generated by Gemini. If you can use any element of any of the suggestions in this list as a starting point, please do. No need to credit me (for reasons stated above) or Gemini (in no jurisdiction that I am aware of has an AI been recognised as a person in its own right. AI can therefore not own property, which is a specifically human right).

Here's the list. Not sure if I will use any of these suggestions but at least I now have an idea what Vocal curators may be looking for. My contribution ends here, apart from formatting. You could of course do your own research, AI or otherwise.

If you still think it unethical to use AI to help get ideas for a story, you could just read some of the early entries and steal some ideas from there.

Thanks for reading

Ray

10 absurd ideas from Gemini

Generate a list of at least five ideas for stories that meet the following brief "Craft a surreal absurdist tale in which a routine event escalates into an outrageously comical adventure."

Absolutely! Here are five surreal absurdist story ideas that start with a routine event and escalate into outrageous comedy:

The Commute That Became a Culinary Quest

Routine Event: A man named Arthur boards his usual bus to work.

Escalation: The bus suddenly veers off course, transforming into a giant, sentient food truck. Passengers are forced to participate in a high-stakes cooking competition hosted by a flamboyant, talking spatula. The prize? The ability to return to reality, or become permanent ingredients in the "Grand Cosmic Gumbo."

Absurd Elements: Talking kitchen utensils, gravity-defying food battles, and the bus driver revealed to be a retired intergalactic chef.

The Laundry Day Apocalypse

Routine Event: Brenda decides to do her laundry.

Escalation: Her washing machine opens a portal to a dimension where lost socks reign supreme. These sock overlords declare war on the "surface world" for stealing their brethren. Brenda, armed with a bottle of fabric softener and a clothesline, becomes the unlikely savior of humanity.

Absurd Elements: Sentient, mismatched socks with complex political structures, a dryer that predicts the future through lint patterns, and a final battle fought with dryer sheets.

The Dentist's Appointment of Infinite Teeth

Routine Event: Harold goes for his regular dental check-up.

Escalation: The dentist's drill pierces a dimensional rift, causing Harold's teeth to multiply exponentially, filling the entire city with a sea of pearly whites. He must now navigate a world where teeth are currency, architecture, and the primary mode of transportation.

Absurd Elements: Cities constructed from giant molars, a black market for rare wisdom teeth, and a society where dental floss is a sacred weapon.

The Grocery Shopping Time Loop

Routine Event: Agnes goes to the supermarket for her weekly groceries.

Escalation: She gets stuck in a time loop, but each loop changes the supermarket in increasingly bizarre ways. The aisles rearrange themselves into impossible shapes, the products become sentient, and the checkout clerks are replaced by philosophical robots.

Absurd Elements: Talking vegetables debating existentialism, a cheese aisle that's a labyrinth, and a checkout scanner that demands you explain the meaning of life.

The Lost Remote and the Television Takeover

Routine Event: Gerald loses his TV remote.

Escalation: The remote falls into a crack in the couch, triggering a signal that causes every television in the world to merge into one giant, sentient screen. This screen demands constant entertainment, forcing humanity to perform ridiculous acts for its amusement.

Absurd Elements: Television characters escaping into reality, a global talent show judged by animated static, and a final showdown where Gerald must use his knowledge of infomercials to defeat the tyrannical screen.

Generate five more ideas on the same basis

Alright, let's dive deeper into the realm of surreal, absurdist comedy with these additional story ideas:

The Office Paper Jam That Rewrote Reality

Routine Event: Stanley, a mid-level accountant, attempts to clear a particularly stubborn paper jam.

Escalation: The paper jam doesn't just clear; it distorts the very fabric of the office, turning it into a literal paper world. Co-workers become origami creations, memos dictate the laws of physics, and the water cooler dispenses ink. Stanley must navigate this paper-based reality to find the "original document" and restore order.

Absurd Elements: Paperclip monsters, a hierarchy based on paper weight, and a boss who communicates solely through interoffice memos that change their meaning every time they are read.

The Garden Gnome Uprising

Routine Event: Agnes meticulously tends to her garden.

Escalation: Her collection of garden gnomes, long dormant, suddenly gains sentience and demands independence. They launch a miniature revolution, using garden tools as weapons and flowerpots as fortresses. Agnes finds herself negotiating treaties with tiny, ceramic dictators.

Absurd Elements: Gnome political debates, garden slugs as espionage agents, and a final standoff involving a rogue sprinkler system.

The Misplaced Umbrella and the Weather Anarchy

Routine Event: Bartholomew misplaces his favorite umbrella.

Escalation: That umbrella was no ordinary umbrella; it controlled the local weather patterns. Without it, the weather goes haywire: rain falls upwards, snow is hot, and the sun starts speaking in riddles. Bartholomew must retrieve his umbrella before the very concept of weather dissolves.

Absurd Elements: Sentient weather phenomena, cloud-based bureaucracies, and a meteorological black market.

The Lost Sock Drawer and the Interdimensional Laundry

Routine Event: Penelope decides to organize her sock drawer.

Escalation: The sock drawer turns out to be a portal to a dimension where all lost laundry goes. Penelope finds herself in a world of sentient socks, rebellious shirts, and tyrannical trousers. She must unite the disparate laundry factions to find her favorite pair of socks and close the portal.

Absurd Elements: Sock puppet governments, lint-based currency, and a final battle fought with fabric softener grenades.

The Silent Elevator and the Shifting Floors of Existence

Routine Event: Edgar enters an elevator.

Escalation: The elevator stops between floors, but those floors begin to change. Each floor becomes a different, increasingly bizarre reality: one floor is underwater, another is in a medieval castle, and another is a giant chessboard. Edgar must navigate these shifting realities to find the "exit" button, which may or may not exist.

Absurd Elements: Floors with their own distinct physics, elevator music that dictates the laws of reality, and a mysterious elevator operator who communicates only through interpretive dance.