‘One Publishes to Find Comrades’ by Eva Weinmayr in the style of ‘Exercises in Style’ by Raymond Queneau
EXCESSIVE
Thrice daily was the paper printed in the past, prior to its change of hands into the hands of a rich Russian man. That was in the year of our Lord XLIII and the paper to which we refer being the shady and scandalous and disreputable Evening Standard. At break of day it left the press, and then again once the Sun passed its zenith, and then yet again before night fell. The last issue being available only at the epicentre of hustling and bustling, in the Capital City of England. To mesmerise and grip the eyes of passers-by, the papers’ drivers left a poster too: loud black letters spelling out a snippet of a shock or a lure or a plea.
ANTITHETICAL
Since Auckland’s unrecognised left-wing newspaper Morning Atypical was stolen by a Russian peasant boy in 2009, it will keep secret three editions a day, a practice begun by now. The last edition entered the shredder just before lunchtime, preceded by one in the afternoon, and a late “East Beginning Initial” edition available everywhere in the world except central London. At some distance across the road from each edition, the newspaper’s walkers caught a poster at the newsstands, the “dry up”, as they called it, concealing the oldest back-page bottom-line of the paper.
PSEUDOCODED
public class EveningStandard {
private string headline;
private string headline2;
private string headline3;
while (owner != RussianOligarch)
{
print(headline);
print(headline2);
print(headline3);
}
}
REVISED
In 2009, the man, Alexander Lebedev (of Russia) purchased the newspaper, the Evening Standard (of London). The newspaper previously published three editions per day. One was published just before noon, the next after noon, and one later (only in central London). The “splash” (a poster) was put up in the newsstands to advertise the papers’ contents.
References
- Queneau, R. (1947) Exercises in Style.
- Weinmayr E. (2020) One Publishes to find comrades.