Wednesday 10 October 2007

The Pharyngula Mutating Genre Meme

A blogging and scientific experiment.

There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is ...".

Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

*You can leave them exactly as is.

*You can delete any one question.

*You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change "The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is..." to "The best time travel novel in Westerns is...", or "The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is...:, or "The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is...".

*You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is...”.

*You must have at least one question in your set, or you’ve gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you’re not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the "parent" blog you got them from, e.g.
The Flying Trilobite to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.
---------

My grandparent is
Pharyngula.
My parent is
Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.

The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is:
Hyperion by Dan Simmons.

The best romantic movie in scientific dystopias is:
Gattaca (1997).

The best sexy song in rock is:
#1 Crush by Garbage from William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet Soundtrack.

The best cult novel in Canadian fiction is:
JPod by Douglas Coupland, 2006.

I call upon the following to continue this scientific experiment:

Fresh Brainz

A Blog Around the Clock

Life Before Death

Leslie Hawes (after you finish your excellent series, of course.)

Pro-Science

Fish Feet

Anyone else who wants to play out this science experiment, please do, and let me know!

11 comments:

Bora Zivkovic said...

I'll try, I'll try! Weekend, most likely! Superbusy at work this week, then teaching on Saturday.

Anonymous said...

I had no idea my mind was so rusty...and cranky. Geeez.
I've already written two versions, and I will post them both so you will understand. Truly, thanks. I'm an old, tricky dog after all...

Anonymous said...

And then the darned Wordpress 'refreshed' my post in progress as my cursor was over the 'publish' button, that I pressed, before I was half done...
Hope you like The Cramps :)

Kristjan Wager said...

I'll do some mutating in the weekend....

Glendon Mellow said...

That's great, everyone!

Coturnix, thanks for the response. Are you superbusy though, or metabusy? :-)

Leslie, the posts look great. I did not know Peter O'Toole could fly. Thanks for continuing the meme!

Kristjan, make sure to wear safety-glasses while mutating. Dangerous business. Thanks for the response!

Bora Zivkovic said...

Para-busy! Perhaps a little peribusy. Certainly macrobusy.

Kristjan Wager said...

Ok, done my minor mutating - here

Have a nasty cold, so I didn't feel too creative.

Glendon Mellow said...

Looks great, Kristjan!

Russell Blackford said...

Yay, good to see my seed being passed on.

Glendon Mellow said...

Russell, you are now the patriarch of a mighty clan. I believe there are great-great grandblogs now.

Anonymous said...

GASP! You are in fact my great-great-great-great-great-grandparent!

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