This is not a tag. It is also not an origami pelican.

In fact, I am not going to name twenty-five (25!) writers whose work has influenced mine. First because I don't consider that I have enough 'work' to claim influence; second, I mean seriously - 25 fucking writers?! No way.

In any case, how to detect influence? I'm a weather vane like that and if I talk to you long enough I'll begin to sound like you and in that case everything I've ever read influences me.

Finally, what about what one sees or hears? What if the biggest influence in my writing was the films of, say, Bresson (note to self: watch again A Man Escaped) or Buñuel?

Besides, I don't think I could tag 25 people and have them remain friends.

Sorry Aditi. (But y'all should totally read Aditi's blog).

*

Talking about what this post is not, I was chatting with Black Mamba yesterday and the subject of submissions and rejection slips came up. From there we moved by easy stages to origami pelicans*. I admitted to being puzzled. BM reminded me of this essay by Naeem Murr in Poetry that I have blogged about. Apparently it had not only starlings and monobrows and cancer of the left ventricle (fiction has to be specific, Murr says), it also has origami pelicans.

I love origami pelicans and other paper wildlife.

And I miss the orgami pelicaniness in the blogs I read.

So here's the deal:

This is not a tag.

But it is a prompt to write the most outrageously funny, silly, weird, fun, unwistful, unangular, unagsty, chortly post ever.

Anyone, everyone who reads this blog and is weighed down by the burden of life and would like nothing more than it lay it down, here are your bootstraps:

Story, play, conversation, graphic/comic, poem, audio clip.

Write, link, I'll link back.

What? What else do you need? You have eight or nine words above. For other inspiration there's the Poet and her Amuse.

Make those paper pelicans fly, folks.

*

Black Mamba is writing love letters or something.

And Menaka Raman, who is drawing for a rainy day.

Falsie, in the meanwhile, is taking tentative bites. (btw, where did I say this had to be only visual? Not that I'm complaining, but I'm wondering what happened to Chotu-Motu's Mandarin classes.)

Here's Surabhi dreaming that she's painting John Abraham's face with yellow butterflies (it becomes more surreal when you realise that's it's the Amma Ariyen/ Odessa John Abraham).

If this is not a tag, what I get is not an origami camel. According to Dipali.

*You'll find it's a swan, BM.