writing and stuff
Jan. 3rd, 2005 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
karenorstuff friends sent me:
#1:
"I find postmodernism absurd, rather despicable in its delight in debunking all serious beliefs, decadent and corrupt in its indifference to questions of truth; I do not believe in it for a moment. But as a game, a set of jeux d'esprit, a way of having fun with words, I find it diverting and entertaining: I enjoy the absurd and the surreal, and postmodernism supplies this in ample measure. Postmodernist theory is much like postmodernist knitting. You begin to make a sock, but having turned the heel you continue with a neckband; then you add two (or three) arms of unequal length, and finish not by casting off but simply by removing the needles, so that the whole garment slowly unravels. Provided you don't want to wear a postmodern garment, nothing could be more entertaining. But when the knitter tells us that garments don't really exist anyway, we should probably suspend our belief in postmodernist theory, and get back to our socks."
-John Barton, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study, 2nd ed. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1996), 235. Quoted in What Did The Biblical Writers Know & When Did They Know It?, William G. Dever, (Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, U.K.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001), p. 254.
#2:
For you lovers of good writing, these are the 10 winners of this year's
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!"
#1:
"I find postmodernism absurd, rather despicable in its delight in debunking all serious beliefs, decadent and corrupt in its indifference to questions of truth; I do not believe in it for a moment. But as a game, a set of jeux d'esprit, a way of having fun with words, I find it diverting and entertaining: I enjoy the absurd and the surreal, and postmodernism supplies this in ample measure. Postmodernist theory is much like postmodernist knitting. You begin to make a sock, but having turned the heel you continue with a neckband; then you add two (or three) arms of unequal length, and finish not by casting off but simply by removing the needles, so that the whole garment slowly unravels. Provided you don't want to wear a postmodern garment, nothing could be more entertaining. But when the knitter tells us that garments don't really exist anyway, we should probably suspend our belief in postmodernist theory, and get back to our socks."
-John Barton, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study, 2nd ed. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1996), 235. Quoted in What Did The Biblical Writers Know & When Did They Know It?, William G. Dever, (Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, U.K.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001), p. 254.
#2:
For you lovers of good writing, these are the 10 winners of this year's
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!"
