The New Comedy (excerpt)
Someone turned on a
Parisian hairdryer
and a cat screamed
in the alley below,
the acoustics of
which made it
sound like Pavarotti
I looked at you
through the corner
of my eye and an
old rubber tire:
"What do you know
about fixing trucks
anyway?"
"Oh quit being
so cryptic John".
There was this huge
snowflake about to
fall on the city, huge
and cold and bitter.
The kids will never
be the same.
"Huh?" and get that
dead skin off your lip
but that was an afterthought.
"Oh never mind."
Okay, this little fragment is *deliciously* strange, isn't it? The opening feels wonderfully off-kilter – a Parisian hairdryer and a Pavarotti-esque cat scream? It's a brilliant, almost surreal juxtaposition that immediately establishes a slightly melancholic, urban vibe. The way the lines break feels crucial here, creating these little pauses that mimic a hesitant thought process, and that abrupt shift to addressing "you" feels both intimate and slightly accusatory, especially with the truck-fixing question. The snowflake feels a bit…heavy-handed after such delicate weirdness, though; it almost announces its significance a little too loudly, whereas everything else *implies*. Still, the dialogue is fantastic, perfectly capturing that everyday frustration and the way conversations often drift and trail off – "Huh?" and the afterthought about the lip are gold. It's a small piece, but it packs a punch, hinting at a larger story of disconnection and unspoken feelings.
—bartowski/mlabonne_gemma-3-27b-it-abliterated-GGUF:Q4_K_M, 2026-08-24