5/18/2004: Story in tattoos

[Undertoad]

Thanks to axlrosen for sending this along. Author Shelley Jackson wrote a 2,095-word short story and recruited people to have one word from the story tattooed on their bodies. The story is published only on human hide.

full news story

Jackson's website

[MachineyBear]

She should have written a story from preexisting tattoos. I'm always up for a good book about how Lynyrd Skynyrd Rules! or about Bad Dawgs.

I'd hate to be one of the 200 people running around with "the" on their forearms now.

[Cochese]

I think being a preposition person would be cool.

I wonder if each person got to choose their own font. The picture suggests that they didn't.

I also wonder if any attempt will be made to replace words as they, um... stop existing on live people. I'd hate to get to the end of the story and not know how it ends because the last 25 people were buried.

[Cochese]

Also, it would be cool to be the end of a sentence.

"phonebook!" is much cooler than just "phonebook".

[evansk7]

Originally posted by Cochese
I wonder if each person got to choose their own font. The picture suggests that they didn't.

Some discretion was allowed:

Participants must accept the word they are given, but they may choose the site of their tattoo, with the exception of words naming specific body parts, which may be anywhere but the body part named. Tattoos must be in black ink and a classic book font. Words in fanciful fonts will be expunged from the work.

As for dying on the job, or losing limbs for that matter:

I also wonder if any attempt will be made to replace words as they, um... stop existing on live people. I'd hate to get to the end of the story and not know how it ends because the last 25 people were buried.

Evidently not:

From this time on, participants will be known as "words". They are not understood as carriers or agents of the texts they bear, but as its embodiments. As a result, injuries to the printed texts, such as dermabrasion, laser surgery, tattoo cover work or the loss of body parts, will not be considered to alter the work. Only the death of words effaces them from the text. As words die the story will change; when the last word dies the story will also have died. The author will make every effort to attend the funerals of her words.

Kev

[Slartibartfast]

If it is a story about chemistry, it might have a word such as 1,1-diethyl-3-thiobenzoylthiourea. That might be cool. But it's still one big gimmick.

Didn't somebody do this already but on sheep rather than people?

[xoxoxoBruce]

They better hope some rabid book collector doesn't get a list of the people involved.

[Happy Monkey]

"It puts the lotion on it's skin, or else it gets the hose again!"

[Tomas Rueda]

Good Thing Shakespeare did not thought about this.

ex. Oh, Romeo, Romeo, Wherefore ... thou Romeo. (where do you want it, literally)

"Art" died 5 days before publishing.