A block of text that on first appearance seems to be a simple description of a pleasant outing reveals a grisly story of murder as words successively fade away. This work makes innovative use of simple combinatory techniques, reminiscent of Burroughs cut-ups, to reflect on a real-life tragedy.
To Begin ...
Mac: Download and unstuff girlsdayout.sitx and run the file it contains.
Windows: Download and run girlsdayout.exe.
Author description: This is a work in Flash format. It contains three separate but related sections: the title prose poem, "Girls' Day Out"; the author's note on the poem; and "Shards," a poem composed from phrases found in articles in the Houston Chronicle that covered the events that inspired the poem.
Instructions: The work opens with an image map that has three buttons, one for each of the sections. The two poems can be navigated by simply clicking on the text and waiting. Parts of "Girls' Day Out" will fade out and back up, revealing an embedded text, which ends with a dedication. When clicked, "Shards" will recombine into its next page (there are four total). Both poems, when they have cycled through, will automatically return you to the opening image map. The author's note has a scroll bar and clicking on the pictures on the right will take you back to the image map.
Previous publication: In May 2004 an earlier version was published in the author's M.F.A. thesis at Colorado State University and online.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
The Electronic Literature Lab could not preserve this Flash work in February 2022. We are looking for a solution and plan to preserve it at a later date.