Writer Meg Gardiner has a short of list things a writer doesn’t want to do. (via Books, Inq.)
Tags: How to, bad ideas, bad writing, writing technique
In praise of folly
In honor of April Fools’ Day, I offer the following excerpt from P. G. Wodehouse (who did fools better than anyone). It’s from the story “Jeeves Exerts the Old Cerebellum” in the collection, The Inimitable Jeeves, and was chosen purely at random out of the rich treasure trove that is Wodehouse:
I don’t know if you know that sort of feeling you get on these days round about the end of April and the beginning of May, when the sky’s a light blue, with cotton-wool clouds, and there’s a bit of a breeze blowing from the west? Kind of uplifted feeling. Romantic, if you know what I mean…. So that it was a bit of an anti-climax when I merely ran into young Bingo Little, looking perfectly foul in a crimson satin tie decorated with horseshoes.
‘Hallo, Bertie,’ said Bingo.
‘My God, man!’ I gargled. ‘The cravat! The gent’s neckwear! Why? For what reason?’
“Oh, the tie?’ He blushed. ‘I—er—I was given it.’
He seemed embarrassed, so I dropped the subject. We toddled along a bit, and sat down on a couple of chairs by the Serpentine.
‘Jeeves tells me you want to talk to me about something,’ I said.
‘Eh?’ said Bingo, with a start. ‘Oh yes, yes. Yes.’
I waited for him to unleash the topic of the day, but he didn’t seem to want to get going. Conversation languished. He stared straight ahead of him in a glassy sort of manner.
‘I say, Bertie,’ he said, after a pause of about an hour and a quarter.
‘Hallo!’
‘Do you like the name Mabel?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t think there’s a kind of music in the word, like the wind rustling gently through the tree-tops?’
‘No.’
He seemed disappointed for a moment; then cheered up.
‘Of course, you wouldn’t. You always were a fat-headed worm without any soul, weren’t you?’
‘Just as you say. Who is she? Tell me all.’
Tags: P.G. Wodehouse, humor, Bertie Wooster, April Fools Day, literary, Jeeves
Nice Cover
I thought Susan Wise Bauer was working on an ancient history series, but somehow she squeezed in a modern history book called, The Art of the Public Grovel. Her publisher sent her an image of the cover. Eye-catching. Who is man? I know I’ve seen him somewhere recently.
How Can You Read That?
Harrison Scott Key writes about relationships with people who read books you can’t stand. He says, “In a pluralist culture, I suppose your Amazon Wish List is as much a cultural signifier as anything else. I somehow managed to marry a woman who not only reads books that I loathe, but who reads books that I find hard categorizing as ‘books.'”
I’m fairly easy-going about this, but then I haven’t been tested on this much. I don’t really read books anyway. I just read about them. . . .
‘Genuinely Democratic Discourse’
Some are worried that the blogosphere will simply promote the lower common denominator to the exclusion of serious journalism or commentary. Alisa Harris quotes Eric Alterman saying, “And so we are about to enter a fractured, chaotic world of news, characterized by superior community conversation but a decidedly diminished level of first-rate journalism.”
Commenter Bob Buckles notes, “When a cow is milked, the cream rises to the top. So to, the best of internet ‘journalism’ will be the stuff that is aid attention to, unlike the professional ‘journalism’ of Dan Rather.” Naturally.
Is it from the Bible or Shakespeare?
Here’s the second round of our quiz. I may be able to keep this up all week. Which of the following statements or quotations are from the Bible (King James Version) and which are from Shakespeare’s plays?
1. “The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks; they are all fire and every one doth shine.”
2. “The light of the body is the eye”
3. “Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.”
4. “There is no new thing under the sun.”
5. Life “is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
6. “My life I never held but as a pawn to wage against thine enemies; nor fear to lose it”
7. “And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.’”
8. “Fears and scruples shake us; in the great hand of God I stand.”
9. “We would not seek a battle as we are; nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it.”
10. “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division.”
Bonus: Does the saying, “the game’s afoot,” originate in the Bible, Shakespeare, or elsewhere?
Continue reading Is it from the Bible or Shakespeare?
Probably Global Warming’s Fault
Space radiation could be too high a fence to vault on our way to Mars. Charles Q. Choi writes, “The magnetic field of Earth protects humanity from radiation in space that can damage or kill cells. Once beyond this shield, people become far more vulnerable.”
They’ll probably figure it out in a several years.
Mommy, Are They Going to Stop Singing Now?
Terry Teachout is talking about opera.
Rarely, though, has a slogan puzzled me more than the one I saw on a Baltimore billboard a couple of weeks ago. It’s the motto of the Baltimore Opera Company: Opera. It’s better than you think. It has to be. I’m not averse on principle to self-deprecation, but why on earth does the BOC think that running down opera will induce people to change their minds about it?
Closed
A 169-year-old bookstore in Halifax, Canada’s oldest, has closed.
Changes at Relief
Bertrand points out changes at Relief Journal. He writes, “By the way, if you don’t subscribe to Relief Journal, you should. It’s an ambitious magazine that’s already managed to publish some amazing work, and it gets better and better. Follow the link and find out for yourself. And if you’re planning to attend the Calvin Festival next month, be sure to stop by the Relief booth and say hello!”
I am uncultured swine, because I have allowed my subscription to lapse. I’ll rectify that soon. I wanted to go to the Calvin Fest too, until I learned how much it would cost me to attend. I’m just a poor graphic designer, relatively speaking–too poor to stay in Grand Rapids for a few days.