Month: August 2023

Barry painted light-hearted, popular abstract art. The more light-hearted his compositions were the more popular they became and the more popular they became the more computer scientists thought they could simulate them to prove that machines were just as light-hearted as people.

Although their computer generated art looked like Barry’s, the collecting public were able to pick out an authentic Barry original with little difficulty. It had that je ne sais quoi that only Barry could bring to the canvas.

In a quote published by the gallery representing him, Barry acknowledged the predicament his imitators were in saying, “Should computers ever talk to their programmers, and programmers opened their ears to listen, they would tell them that no one in his right mind would waste time putting anything on a canvas.”

Waste of time or not Barry’s spirit didn’t mind filling canvas after canvas each of which put his soul in such a good mood that his body bubbled over with love and laughter.

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Denise offers the prompt word “abstract” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 (KJV)
And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In a few seconds Timothy scribbled a poem in his notebook while standing on the beach waiting for the sunrise. When he got home he read it and wondered where that came from as if he had found an exotic seashell or spotted a seal in the water.

Accepting the gift he cleaned it up and posted it on his favorite sites. Although no one “liked” it nor left a comment he kept reading it over and over wondering: Where did that come from?

At the end of the day Timothy was grateful for everything: birds, clouds, beach, water and just being there. In a week he’d forget the poem because there would be another one and the days of rejoicing and wonder would start all over again.

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Denise offers the word “seal” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

I am on vacation this week without access to the internet. Hopefully I will be back by Saturday in time to post this to the Six Sentence Story group before the deadline, but if not, I have scheduled it in advance for Wednesday evening.

He can’t fool me with those magic tricks, George thought wondering why he was wasting his time watching a guy pull rabbits out of an empty hat. He yelled at the magician, “Hey, you with that rabbit in your hand, pitch the hat and pop another bunny out of thin air!” The magician didn’t know how to convince George to shut up, but neither could George convince God to toast the magician like Zeus would have done with a lightning bolt.

Admittedly, George didn’t believe in God (nor Zeus, for that matter) so he wasn’t seriously asking for assistance. Since the magician couldn’t make George vanish with a wave of his wand—try as he might—he finally phoned the security team to escort George out.

Decades later, when the magician was too old to bewitch even toddlers, George winced as he recalled his own truth-without-love rudeness and begged God to pull some kindness out of his now empty heart which the merciful Lord was only too happy to do.

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Denise offers the prompt word “toast” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Acts 8:9-11
⁹ But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one:
¹⁰ To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God.
¹¹ And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries.