Sunday, January 17, 2010

Literature Stuff

Every once in a while, I get an e-mail forward that I really like. This was one.


> "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up
> where I intended to be." - Douglas Adams

> The Bulwer-Lytton Contest ….
>
>
> This year's 10 winners of the Bulwer-Lytton contest, aka "Dark
> and Stormy Night Contest" (run by the English Dept. of San
> Jose State University), wherein one writes only the first line
> of a bad novel:
>
>
> 10) "As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to
> break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of
> it."
>
>
> 9) "Just beyond the Narrows , the river widens."
>
>
> 8) "With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a
> tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown
> hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes,
> perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight
> nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description."
>
>
> 7) "Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as
> he crept along the East wall: 'Andre creep... Andre creep...
> Andre creep.'"
>
>
> 6) "Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of
> narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back
> alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved."
>
>
> 5) "Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not
> keep her from eeking out a living at a local pet store."
>
>
> 4) " Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but
> then penguins often do."
>
>
> 3) "Like an over-ripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage
> cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the
> hotel floor."
>
>
> 2) "Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know
> the meaning of the word 'fear'; a man who could laugh in the
> face of danger and spit in the eye of death -- in short, a
> moron with suicidal tendencies."
>
>
> AND THE WINNER IS...
>
>
> 1) "The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness,
> crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed
> through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess,
> hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at
> the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the
> magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly, 'You
> lied!"
>
>
> ***************************************************************************
>
> GREAT LITERARY TAUNTS
>
>
> "I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you
> here." -- Stephen Bishop "
>
>
> "A modest little person, with much to be modest about." ---
> Winston Churchill (about Clement Atlee)
>
>
> "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing
> trivial." --- Irvin S. Cobb "
>
>
> I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries
> with great pleasure." --- Clarence Darrow "
>
>
> He has never been known to use a word that might send a
> reader to the dictionary." --William Faulkner (about Ernest
> Hemingway)
>
>
> "He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in
> others." --- Samuel Johnson "
>
>
> He had delusions of adequacy."--- Walter Kerr
>
>
> "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
> --- Groucho Marx
>
>
> "They never open their mouths without subtracting from the
> sum of human knowledge." --- Thomas Brackett Reed
>
>
> "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." --- Forrest
> Tucker "
>
>
> "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying
> I approved of it." --- Mark Twain
>
>
> "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
> --- Mae West
>
>
> "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they
> go." --- Oscar Wilde
>
>
> "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his
> friends." --- Oscar Wilde
>
>
> "He has Van Gogh's ear for music." --- Billy Wilder
>

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm quite curious about the usage of "eeking" out a living in #5. It's either homonym abuse, or a pun too low even for the likes of me.

Glad you haven't abandoned this place.

Anonymous said...

Very shorts, simple and easy to understand, bet some more comments from your side would be great

Wodehousian Fun