• At the bar

    The Orchid Room is a collaborative writing project. Anyone can participate. Just a leave a comment like talking to the bartender or one of the performers. If you would like a night on stage you can audition anywhere. This week the Orchid Room is proud to announce all new management. And we are serving food prepared by Wilbur Cox Jn. (Wil, to his mates.) The wine is supplied by the wonderful folk at The Grateful Palate.

  • RSS feel free to lodge all complaints and compliments here

    • must mention mosquitoes & the bombardment of beetles July 23, 2008
      According to page 194 of my wonderful new Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada (for review, see post one previous to this one), we are being bitten by 3 or possibly 4 different kinds of mosquitoes: black snow mosquito, common snow mosquito, and cool weather mosquito are the most likely culprits here at 7600′ [...]

  • RSS Polite young gentleman at a corner table

    • untitled poem in small-case letters. July 19, 2008
      click, click. with each click, one bird became nothing in the sky. my morning was a morning - it started with breakfast, a space seen through hotel blinds, in which there flew too many birds. so click. a word we underlined in pencil and wrote “onomatopoeia” in the margin. a cheap trick. i broke the stress relief thing over my keyboard - i spent some time vacumming up [...]

The Dressing Room.

The Orchid Room is not a vehicle for anyone to attract
attention to themselves, it is a joint writing project, working with
each other to create a single work that weaves a story using different
styles of writing.

(1) Try to segue out from the act before you but remember that newcomers will be reading you first and then scrolling backwards in time.

(2) All art is performance art. In The Orchid Room we like to focus on the performance part.

(3) Writers must entertain and adapt. The idea of the literati having no obligation to actively engage an audience has been killed by the internet.

(4) Try to set your pieces in or around the Orchid Room and to write for an audience with not much time.

(5) Absolutely no auditions will be considered from anyone who is not on the blogroll of someone who is already a contributor.

(6) Don’t even bother asking unless you have made an involved comment on at least three of the pieces already posted.

(7) Get involved first. Audition later.

31 Responses to “The Dressing Room.”

  1. You know who this is, on October 27th, 2007 at 12:43 am Said:

    *takes a bow at the praise*

    And you thought I would blush….
    Well…ok….I am. A little bit.
    Just so you know my dear ol Paul…
    the blush is for me trying to keep
    a level head!!

  2. gingatao!, on November 3rd, 2007 at 11:12 pm Said:

    Amber!!! You are thr rockin’est human on the planet. Remember Hipster’s Hug. It was there and then it wasn’t. And I said that hug will always be there like a wave reverberating through time. Remember flutterby and permanence, you are the rockin’est human on the planet and I have learned so much from you and with you,

  3. gingatao!, on December 30th, 2007 at 10:23 pm Said:

    Here in the dressingroom is a good place to talk about direction. What shall we do? Any ideas? It seems to go like wildfire and then stop. Shall we audition some new ones? Is everybody bored with it? Or just busy. Oh well, the bar is stocked, the piano is full of fish. I will just sit here on this wooden bench and stare into the dressingroom mirror and talk to myself. Hello, Paul, why does noone want to play with you anymore? Don’t worry, why don’t you go see what Amber is up to. Taxi!

  4. simonelli, on December 31st, 2007 at 11:29 pm Said:

    I’m all dressed up and ready to perform.

    How and where do I deliver my act?

  5. gingatao!, on January 1st, 2008 at 12:38 am Said:

    Well this is a complicated thing. My dictatorship is only the result of the absence of other voices. Let me see what can I do. You could either post it is as a comment and I could copy and paste it in but that would be silly. If someone who is here has your email they can add you to the administrators at -Users then scroll down to Add users from community, as long as you are registered with wordpress. That would be the best way. Hello, welcome, have fun, let anarchy and chaos rain down upon us like myriad jewels of freedom, hello,

  6. gingatao!, on January 1st, 2008 at 8:26 am Said:

    Simon, I have had your email address smuggled to me by secret invisible courier pigeon and have sent you an invite, fire at will, let the games begin,

  7. randall, on January 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 pm Said:

    oth my legs will not stay upon the ground at the same time. If I have one foot on the ground the other is raised high in the air. Normally I have a glass of wine in my hand and am suffering from chest pain and/or Vertigo. My neck twitches and I often have a difficult time holding down ordinary conversation with people. I immediately want to get to the deep stuff.

    “Why are we alive?” I ask with one or two feet raised in the air. “What is the purpose of living and why not spend our days in long periods of meditation?” The answers are always the same. “Hmm??” I have to drink more to feel grounded. The world often leaves me filled up with fear and a deep longitudinal feeling that there is no place for a stranger like me to go.

    http://absurdistry.wordpress.com

  8. gingatao!, on January 4th, 2008 at 10:15 pm Said:

    Is it always going to be my job to deal with these ones? Your writing is cool and as far as I’m concerned the more the merrier. Someone will need your email address to put you on the colloborators (how do you spell that?) list. Don’t post it in here though, you will need to smuggle it to someone secretly is how we are working, just for fun. That is all the help I can offer I am afraid. You may want to explore the blogroll and see if you can figure out an entry strategy.

  9. DG, on January 10th, 2008 at 5:25 am Said:

    Trying to figure out an entry strategy. Any pointers?

    Of course, you have my email :)

  10. gingatao!, on January 10th, 2008 at 6:46 am Said:

    I do? Not me, maybe one the other miscreants. We really need a strategy for this I think. The best idea would be to write something for the Orchid Room which demonstrates an understanding of the principles outlined above and which segues out from an piece already there and post it as a comment on that piece. Then we can all have a look at it, comment on your piece and see what happens. But please, set your piece in or around the Orchid Room and try to capture its ambience. (Oh and reading and commenting on the personal blogs of the writers already here will probably get you in their good books when the vote comes down.) Fire away…

  11. damyantig, on January 10th, 2008 at 10:11 am Said:

    ummmm, when I posted my email on the blog while commenting I was required to give my mail….so, I thought you had it.
    No harm done. Thanks for the prompt reply and I will see what I can do in the Orchid Room :)

  12. simonelli, on January 15th, 2008 at 10:33 am Said:

    NOTICE: I will be posting a story spread out over the seven days of the week starting from next Monday. Hope you all like it!

  13. gingatao!, on January 15th, 2008 at 10:38 am Said:

    cool bananananas,

  14. enigma, on February 14th, 2008 at 8:45 am Said:

    I am sneaking a peak through the half open door of the dressing room, i have been here before, but not being a poet(or one of any talent) i will continue to sit with the audience, or perhaps one day Paul, perch on your piano in my red dress.

  15. gingatao!, on February 14th, 2008 at 9:58 am Said:

    woohoo, perch away, but if you sit there you must sing, (and watch out for F., not even a bullet can stop that guy.)

  16. enigma, on February 14th, 2008 at 11:42 am Said:

    I can stop f, I am a licenced weapons dealer, but i have a low husky singing voice..lauren bacal never sang also

  17. rick mobbs, on April 9th, 2008 at 4:33 am Said:

    where did they go? I could swear just a minute ago
    I went out for my smokes…the smoke is still in the air.
    The thing is still under the beer cooler, whatever it is,
    mouse, rat, somebody’s vibrator, something really sinister
    maybe, I don’t know… they were here just a minute ago

    it’s cold outside. too cold, shouldn’t be so cold
    this time of year. Check out the moon, the clouds
    are moving way too fast, everything is speeding up.
    This can’t last.

    where did that car come from? It shouldn’t be
    so blue, not is this light. The rust is nice
    though, deeper than… what? An echo?
    Echoes are long, fool, not deep.
    He’ll flatten his tire, parking it on the curb like that.

    remember the big voice? Walking alongside the hedge
    and plucking the leaf, and the big voice that said,
    OKAY, NOW YOU’VE DONE IT.
    The whole fucking world started to gibber and drool.
    Nobody scraped me off the ceiling that night,
    I just fell off sometime later. Weird. Scary.
    Sort of like tonight.
    Where the fuck is everybody?

  18. rick mobbs, on April 11th, 2008 at 5:03 am Said:

    Boy, it’s chilly. And dark, even with the weird moon. Nothing out here but triffids, and they’re creeping out of every shadow. No people. Where are the people? Might as well be tumbleweeds blowing down Church Street. Paper everwher. Everwher? Wha wha who? Maybe I’ve had a stroke. Maybe I’m dead. How would I know? Fucking triffids. Where’smy phone?

  19. Paul, on April 13th, 2008 at 7:22 am Said:

    That is cool, hello, who are you, i was here before but then there was some kind of kerfuffle, everybody scattered, they say there are ghosts buried under the floorboards,

  20. rick mobbs, on April 15th, 2008 at 3:40 am Said:

    Feels like ghosts under the floorboards. How old is this place? I got off the train to spend a night in a place I’ve never seen. Wandered down here. People seemed friendly. Turned around and they were gone though. They rent rooms upstairs? Where did that dog come from? I hear somebody.

  21. johemmant, on April 17th, 2008 at 7:13 pm Said:

    Oh that is one very good poem……perfect for here.

  22. Paul, on April 27th, 2008 at 12:30 am Said:

    Where is my piano?

  23. beeskiffle, on April 28th, 2008 at 7:16 pm Said:

    I think it’s under the dust sheets in the cellar. Would you like me to get a tuner in?

  24. Paul, on May 2nd, 2008 at 10:55 pm Said:

    Yes my darling ebby, a tuner and we should polish up the dance floor and go for a spin,

  25. cruxandflux, on May 3rd, 2008 at 1:13 pm Said:

    nervous nervous :)

  26. Paul, on May 3rd, 2008 at 10:38 pm Said:

    You are a great performer, Kassandra, invitation is on its way, fire at will on the main stage, don’t be nervous. have fun.

  27. Amber, on June 22nd, 2008 at 7:01 am Said:

    Heya Paul…..I think Ive got something brewing for you…I know it’s been forever and a day…..but there is a possible jaunt to the diner in about a half hour…and there lies my inspiration. At 330 in the morning none the less…

  28. Paul, on June 22nd, 2008 at 8:33 am Said:

    Yayayayayaya. We have missed you big time. Fire Away! AMBER!

  29. Amber, on June 24th, 2008 at 8:43 am Said:

    Check your messages darling…I left you something. I think you will like it.

  30. Paul, on June 24th, 2008 at 10:21 am Said:

    Where in my messages. I haven’t seen anything, ooo where is it,

  31. Amber, on June 25th, 2008 at 12:17 am Said:

    Your myspace messages silly….I do hope it got to you….Check your myspace every now and then ya silly man!

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