Mad Libs = Summer (And Sister) Fun

Last week, Leonard Stern, the creator of the amazing fill-in-the word game, Mad Libs, passed away. This saddened me just in general, because it’s always sad when someone creatively (and literarily) bent passes from this realm into the next, but also because Mad Libs have a special place in my heart, especially because my sisters and I have enjoyed them so much.

We love Mad Libs, you see. They provided hours of entertainment for us growing up, of course, but we also have a lot of fun with them as adults.

Because when you’re a grown-up? You can make your OWN Mad Libs.

I’m not sure exactly when it started with us, or why, but one day we just set about finding passages from our favorite books, and turned them into our own Mad Libs. No text was sacred. We even once took passages from the Bible and made them into Mad Libs to entertain our friends at a themed birthday party.

The process is simple. You copy out a passage from a book –any book!– and in places where there’s a noun, you just write [noun] and a blank. Where there’s an adjective, you write [adjective], and a blank. Numbers, verbs + ing, names of people [person in the room], etc. Then you let your friends fill in the blanks, a la the original Mad Libs concept, and you’ve got a real party on your hands.

Here’s an example I did from  THE SUMMER OF FIRSTS AND LASTS, near the beginning, from one of Violet’s sections. (Without the blanks, because I think you get that part.) I hope you have fun with it, and then use it as inspiration to make plenty of your own!

One person I do see though is [name of person in room]. Again. Every time I saw him yesterday I sort of couldn’t believe it . . . Not that I didn’t [verb] him–even though his [part of body] is shorter and he’s kind of [adjective] in a more [adjective] way. It’s just that I couldn’t believe he was here. Here and a [noun]. Here and so [adjective] and [adjective] and [adjective], instead of like he was [number] summers ago: just this [noun] in my concentration, a [noun] you weren’t upset about being stuck in a [noun] with.

Songs In My Head Upon Waking in the Last Week:

“Half of My Heart,” by John Mayer; “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves,” Eurythmics*; “Heat of the Moment,” by Asia; “Down to the River,” by Bruce Springsteen; “Visions of You,” by Jah Wobble; “Here Comes Your Man,” by the Pixies; “Washing of the Water,” by Peter Gabriel

* Not strange that this song cropped up, considering my last post. Also, this seemed to be a week of repeated songs (Pixies, Asia) which is interesting to me.