Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.

I was disappointed to see that Google’s web fonts directory has done away with the quick brown fox… as the default example sentence. Instead, we get “Grumpy wizards make toxic brew for the evil Queen and Jack,” which somehow doesn’t measure up to the elegance of the fox. On the other hand, this did lead me to the wonderful world of pangrams, that is, sentences that contain every letter of the alphabet. Being possessed of some oulipo inclinations, it pleases me to come up with ways to make sense of cryptic pangrams.

Five wine experts jokingly quizzed sample Chablis. (“Haha, it doesn’t even know the capital of Germany or the boiling point of water!” The five laughed. “Wine samples are not sentient,” said the sixth. He was always the humorless one.) Six big devils from Japan quickly forgot how to waltz. (Their last dancing lesson was before the deal with Faust, but soon after hearing modern hiphop they were grinding it up in the club with the best of ‘em.) Six crazy kings vowed to abolish my quite pitiful jousts. (The lance, they insist, is not a metaphor.) Jack amazed a few girls by dropping the antique onyx vase! (So that’s what the kids are calling it these days.) A quick movement of the enemy will jeopardize six gunboats. (This one… actually makes sense as it stands.) Playing jazz vibe chords quickly excites my wife. (Same.) My ex pub quiz crowd gave joyful thanks. (I suspect they were sarcastic, so soon after their becoming my ex pub quiz crowd.)

A quick chop jolted my big sexy frozen wives. (It was either they discover my mistress or freeze them in time. What? Don’t look at me like that. You’d do the same, if you’d seen them.) Five or six big jet planes zoomed quickly by the tower. (That last one might have been a bird. Or Superman.) Verily the dark ex-Jew quit Zionism, preferring the cabala. (…)

Always something interesting from dailymeh. Ever since I received Christian Bok’s Eunoia as a gift when I was 17, I’ve loved constraint-based language games. I learned about Oulipo from my friend (and recently-moved-out-former-roommate) Rob, who wrote his MA thesis about Boris Vian and is now working on his PhD dissertation about contemporary ludic French literature. I’m gonna miss having that guy in the house.