Archive for June, 2009
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
The funniest part of the around the city lightening round is Jessie, responding to the question “subway or cab?” saying “Oh, this is so mean. I’d like to say subway, but I don’t know how to use it.” I assure you that there are very few people who live in Manhattan and who don’t know how to use the subway. In the Lifestyle lightening round , one of the questions is The Hamptons or The Cape. This is a really dumb question. The Cape is for proles from Boston. Wealthy people from Massachusett
Posted in Main Content | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Boy did I need this today. The annual Bulwer-Lytton prize for bad writing has been awarded. It's one of my favorite times of the year (I also love the bad sex writing award - another fave). People are invited to submit opening lines to imaginary bad books (in honor of Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton - a longtime favorite of Lucy Maud Montgomery, who once was famous and beloved, and now is mainly known for his purple prose and perhaps the most famous opening line in history: It was a dark
Posted in Main Content | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton This year’s Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest winner has a distinctly nautical flare: “Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin’ off Nantucket Sound from the nor’ east and the dogs are howlin’ for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the “Ellie May,” a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin’ and, Davey Jones be damned
Posted in Main Content | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
It’s Bulwer-Lytton time again. The winner of the best intentionally awful opening sentence of a novel this year is David McKenzie, who sets his scene off Nantucket Sound: Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin’ off Nantucket Sound from the nor’ east and the dogs are howlin’ for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the “Ellie May,” a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night
Posted in Main Content | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
SAN JOSE, Calif. – A shambling sentence about screaming seafarers on the sturdy whaler Ellie May stood shoulders above the rest in an annual bad writing contest. David McKenzie, 55, of Federal Way, Wash., won the grand prize in San Jose State University’s annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with this: “Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin’ off Nantucket Sound from the nor’ east and the dogs are howlin’ for no earthly reason, you can hea
Posted in Main Content | No Comments »