I really don’t know what to call this, when I’m just collecting errata and… saving it for myself? Sharing it with three readers?
I’m on Mastodon (daylight account; deleted my Smutlandia account) and I follow a few bots. One posts a picture of mapo tofu every day, and it’s always gorgeous, and it’s as close as I allow myself to get to whimsy.
Another posts links to books on Project Gutenberg. For those who (amazingly) don’t know, it’s an archive of literature that’s free from copyright, usually because it’s too old. Well, yesterday this bot turned up a link to the August 1931 issue of Astounding Stories, featuring “The Midget from the Island” by HG Winter. It’s about a pair of scientists who are developing a machine to shrink living creatures down to only a few inches tall and bring them back. Professional jealousy gets in the way, so the lead researcher finds himself reduced to action-figure height and struggling to survive against his rival.
Enjoy this novella for free on your phone, on your laptop, or however you access this kind of stuff.
And while you’re reading, check out Charles Bukowski’s “Six Inches” before it disappears from the internet entirely. Bukowski was a drunken misogynist and a poet in his way, and he produced a Size Erotica short story that “goes there.” No shit.
Diligent readers may have heard me suppose that Instagram marketers may have me all figured out and are targeting me with specific thematic campaigns. Or else they’ve simply sniffed Size Fantasy on the winds of popular culture and are betting on an untapped reservoir of discretionary funds. All I know is that I’ve seen two shrunken-man ads from Buzzfeed.
In this ad, a clothing designer is suffering creative block, and a tiny elf shows up to take her to a runway fashion show. Is that his biker jacket hanging on the chair back?
In another ad, a woman is struggling with her exercise regimen. The little elf (whom she knows very well and is not surprised by) blows magic dust on her and she becomes very powerful.
I actually don’t know what’s going on in these ads. I never listen to them, as keeping the volume up on Instagram is either annoying or embarrassing. The visual story is what I’m parsing, as I watch it over and over, trying to wait for an opportune screenshot. What Buzzfeed’s got to do with this is beyond me, and worse, if you go to Buzzfeed’s Instagram account, you won’t find these videos because they’re only ads, not promoted posts. Rotters!
Though I will tell you, I’ve been thinking. I went for a walk with my wife tonight, down to my favorite creek. In the warmer months I used to retreat here to clear my head and calm down the entirety of myself. Stare at the water, study the ducks, look for all the little nooks in which a tiny person might hide and thrive.
I missed taking those photos for size collages. I had a lot of fun making collages, perfecting my technique, sharing my work with the community, writing up how-to’s so absolutely anyone could make their own quality Size Fantasy imagery for free. I missed walking through any environment with a critical eye, seeking out a likely hiding spot or the worst place to be caught, then how I’d frame the shot of myself so the proportions weren’t terribly wrong… I missed the whole process.
Then it struck me. The fact of the Size community is what impelled me to create in so many ways. I’m talking about Size Twitter, not Giantess City, whose medium never really did it for me. It was the interaction on Size Twitter that felt more vital or real-world, and interacting there made me want to produce more. It prompted me to share my oldest stories as well as to dare to self-publish new work, explore that whole process. It made me break into collages, then Daz Studio. It got me to write, perform, and record a Size Fantasy song. It drove me to run a writing contest for four years.
I have a lot of bitterness around that community, and I won’t go into that. I’ve written it all out here twice, deleted it twice, and all I’m going to focus on is that having been part of the community spurred a lot of creative output from me. It made me competitive with other people and myself. It made me hungry to learn new things and develop myself that way. I wouldn’t have pursued these straits anywhere else, I don’t think, and definitely not if I had isolated myself. Whatever else, this is true.
To wrap this all up, I want to direct you back to literally forty years ago when Eddie Murphy, comic on the rise, produced a musical album. Now, for my money, “So Happy” (1989) was reminiscent of the Scand synthpop I was into, but his self-titled debut album (1982) featured a curious little song called “Boogie in Your Butt.” It’s about someone paying people to put things in their butts, and not just the boogie.
Say, put a tin can in your butt
Put a little tiny man in your butt
Say, put a light in your butt
Say, make it bright in your butt
Say, put a TV in your butt
Say, put me in your butt
Yes, “put a little tiny man in your butt” and “put me in your butt” are his casual suggestions. Why not?
Later, 1999, his buddy Arsenio Hall put out a couple commercials for 1-800 Collect, and… we don’t know whose idea it was, but a shrunken Arsenio caught the attention of pretty women (Phone Booth and Airport).
I’m just saying: Size Fantasy is more common than anyone’s willing to admit.
Aborigen 