Challenge 428

Scarcity

Jon Forceton’s “Matuu and the Sail” might be classified among stories of “the big fish that got away.”
1. Might it be true? Or might the story of a super-penguin be a tall tale designed to while away the time on a long, monotonous ocean voyage?
2. Is “Matuu...” a memoir, a fictional memoir, or a short story in the form of a chronicle?
in Ron Van Sweringen’s “Getting a Life in New Jersey”:
1. Why might the title contain inadvertent humor? Can you think of a different title for the story?
2. Why might the story be said to overstep the Bewildering Stories’ guideline that frowns upon sentimentality?
In Catfish Russ’s “Dirty Tricks”:
1. The story begins with a character named Bobble who finds himself in strange circumstances and involved in an implied intrigue. After the section break, the text changes to an imagined-future essay that is essentially “backstory,” i.e. stage-setting, and that’s where it ends.
  
  What might Bobble achieve that would, at the same time, illustrate the imaginary future? How might the story be written as a comic essay? As a serious essay?
2. The text says to forget the oil peak. But isn’t a transition from a society of energy abundance to energy scarcity precisely the point?
3. Can you think of another, perhaps more descriptive title?