It was an overcast, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
Winston surveyed the broken horizon, a ruined skyline of decay and neglect. In the crook of a half demolished wall, a weed struggled to cling onto its home in a crack in the ruined brickwork. Winston was just about to turn away and once again retrieve his diary from its hidden location behind the telescreen, but was distracted by the sight that drifted into view outside his window.
There, hanging swollen in the gray air, floated a constellation of balloons and airship bladders, pinkly illuminated from within and attached to one another so as to form the undeniable shape and motion of a couple locked in a bestial act of sexual congress.
Winston stood slack-jawed as he watched, the machine pumping incessantly in the afternoon gloom. The volume on the telescreen increased, but it was all confused shouts and panicy hesitation, the authority and certainty all but lost from the ever familiar voices. As the Liebenzeppelin drifted across the ruined sky, a massive, glowing, filthy beacon of hope, a ray of sunshine broke the clouds, bathing a lone flower in a pool of afternoon sun.-- zen_tom, May 03 2006 Winston Smith http://gutenberg.ne...books01/0100021.txt [zen_tom, May 03 2006] 99 Luftballons http://www.80smusic...om/artists/nena.htmMaybe they could shag along? [skinflaps, May 03 2006] Do you need to speak German to understand this?-- MikeOliver, May 03 2006 Nope, I don't speak German either, and I understand it completely. The title should translate back to "The Copulating Love Zepplin" - but, as you can see, it just sounds better in German.-- zen_tom, May 03 2006 99 Luftballons.
Shouldn't that be "red balloons"?-- skinflaps, May 03 2006 Normally, you expect them to be red, only these are pink ones, and they're shagging.-- zen_tom, May 03 2006 Bun, fer yer anno.-- skinflaps, May 03 2006 "Nope, I don't speak German either, and I understand it completely." Well... you wrote it. So, if you don't speak German, was the title a lucky guess?-- MikeOliver, May 03 2006 Lucky? That title ("The Uniting Loveszeppelins", roughly) sounds better if one doesn't speak German. Nothing wrong with mutilating languages for fun, but grammatical it ain't.
Oh, how I hate that insipid Nena song.
I originally read that as if the authorities had changed their policy on sex just like they had changed their policy on who they were at war with, replacing the Hate meetings with love-ins. Comrades gone wild!-- jutta, May 03 2006 Not knowing much German I thought the title meant 'Killing Lesbian Balloons in a Garden", but I do like the little story.-- xandram, May 03 2006 Yes, comrade. I wasn't sure at first whether the balloon was going to be an extension of the pornography and booze doled out to the proles in order to help dissaffected outer party members forget their more existential worries (more out of astonishment than anything else) but then thought it might be better if it were a tangible invention of Emmanuel Goldstein's, something to provide the catalyst around which people can gather to raise up and throw off their shackles (and underwear).
The drippy prose, poor German and Nena references are, I'm afraid, whimsical diversions behind which the idea conceals itself.-- zen_tom, May 03 2006 [zen_tom]To quote Captain Jack Sparrow, "You need to get yourself a girlfriend, mate." (...or, possibly I do.)-- Dub, May 07 2006 [Dub] You're the second person on this website to make that recommendation (the other one was the 1st anno (now deleted by the annotator) on [Ethnotica]) Is it really that obvious!?
And surely Cap'n Jack would have suffixed that comment with an 'Arrgghh'! or such.-- zen_tom, May 08 2006 Arrrrgh har!! Zen' m'lad-- Dub, May 09 2006 Dirigible porn? Think we can live without it.-- DrCurry, May 09 2006 What happens if you pop them?-- EvilPickels, May 09 2006 They go pop.
And a boot continues to stamp on a human face--forever.
Either that, or various parts go flaccid.-- zen_tom, May 09 2006 random, halfbakery