Appreciating creative minds throughout the world...
From the Washington Post Invitational contest, which asked readers to combine the works of two authors and provide a suitable blurb:
Second Runner-up: "Machiavelli's The Little Prince" - Antoine de Saint-Exupery's classic children's tale as presented by Machiavelli. The whimsy of human nature is embodied in many delightful and intriguing
characters, all of whom are executed.
First Runner-up: "Green Eggs and Hamlet" - Would you kill him in his bed? Thrust a dagger through his head? I would not, could not, kill the King. I could not do that evil thing. I would not wed this girl, you see. Now get her to a nunnery.
And the Winner: "Fahrenheit 451 of the Vanities" - An '80s yuppie is denied books. He does not object, or even notice.
Honorable Mentions:
"Where's Walden?"- Alas, the challenge of locating Henry David Thoreau in each richly detailed drawing loses its appeal when it quickly becomes clear that he is always in the woods.
"Catch-22 in the Rye" - Holden learns that if you're insane, you'll probably flunk out of prep school, but if you're flunking out of prep school, you're probably not insane.
"2001: A Space Iliad"- The Hal 9000 computer wages an insane 10-year war against the Greeks after falling victim to the Y2K bug.
"Rikki-Kon-Tiki-Tavi"- Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove Rudyard Kipling's theory that the mongoose first came to India on a raft from Polynesia.
"The Maltese Faulkner" - Is the black bird a tortured symbol of Sam's struggles with race and family? Does it signify his decay of soul along with the soul of the Old South? Is it merely a crow, mocking his
attempts to understand? Or is it worth a cool mill?
"Jane Eyre Jordan" - Plucky English orphan girl survives hardships to lead the Chicago Bulls to the NBA championship.
"Looking for Mr. Godot"- A young woman waits for Mr. Right to enter her life. She has a looonng wait.
"Paradise Lost in Space"- Satan, Moloch, and Belial are sentenced to spend eternity in a flying saucer with a goofy robot, an evil scientist, and 2 annoying children.
"The Exorstentialist" - Camus' psychological thriller about a priest who casts out a demon by convincing it that there's really no purpose to what it's doing.
From the Washington Post's "Style Invitational," which asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of obtaining sex.
Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high. . .
Tatyr: A lecherous Mr. Potato Head.
Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the recipient who doesn't get it.
Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.
Burglesque: A poorly planned break-in. (See: Watergate)
Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like a serious bummer.
Glibido: All talk and no action.
Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a refund from the IRS, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
How to Write Good:
1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually)unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Don't use no double negatives.
17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be ignored.
21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words
however should be enclosed in commas.
22. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
23. Kill all exclamation points!!!
24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth
shaking ideas.
26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not
needed.
27. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate
quotations. Tell me what you know."
28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist
hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
31. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
32. Who needs rhetorical questions?
33. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
How to Write a College Paper
1. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a well lighted place with Microsoft Word opened up on your desktop.
2. Read over the assignment carefully, to make certain you understand it.
3. Walk to the kitchen or vending machine (if youre at the library) and get some coffee to help you concentrate.
4. IM your friend from class to see how he¡¯s doing on his paper. If your friend hasn't started the paper yet either, you can both take a break & walk to the late night cafe and buy a pizza to help you concentrate. If your friend shows you his paper, typed, double-spaced, and bound in one of those irritating see-thru plastic folders, drop him.
5. When you get back to your room, sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lighted place with Microsoft Word opened up on your desktop.
6. Read over the assignment again to make absolutely certain you understand it.
7. You know, you haven't written to your good friend from back home in awhile. You'd better write that letter now and get it out of the way so you can concentrate.
8. Go look at your teeth in the bathroom mirror.
9. Listen to your favorite CD and that's it, I mean it, as soon as it's over you are going to start that paper.
10. Play just the first track again.
11. Rearrange all of your CDs into alphabetical order.
12. Phone your other friend from class and ask if she's started writing yet. Exchange derogatory remarks about your teacher, the course, the university, the world at large.
13. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lighted place with Microsoft Word opened on your desktop.
14. Read over the assignment again; roll the words across your tongue; savor its special flavor.
15. Start checking people¡¯s profiles on AIM, and complain to anyone who will listen about how you hate writing papers.
16. Check everyone¡¯s xanga.
17. Check your email.
18. Go to the living room and check to see what¡¯s on TV¡ªyou catch a rerun of your favorite movie.
19. IM your friend to see if he was watching. Discuss the finer points of the plot.
20. Go look at your tongue in the bathroom mirror.
21. Wander aimlessly into your housemate¡¯s room. Look through your housemate's book of pictures from home. Ask who everyone is.
22. Sit down and do some serious thinking about your plans for the future after you graduate.
23. Check your AIM away message; answer back the 5 people who have asked you how your paper is going.
24. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lighted place with Microsoft Word opened up on your desktop.
25. Read over the assignment one more time, just for the heck of it.
26. Scoot your chair across the room to the window and watch the sunrise.
27. Lie face down on the floor and moan.
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Remember the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus?" Well, here's a prime example offered by an English professor at an American University.
"Today we will experiment with a new form of composition called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to reread what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking and anything you wish to say must be written on the paper. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."
The following was actually turned in by two of my English students: Rebecca -last name deleted, and Gary - last name deleted.
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STORY:
(first paragraph by Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The camomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked camomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So camomile was out of the question.
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(second paragraph by Gary)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off, a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.
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(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.
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(Gary)
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret Mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of the sky!"
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(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.
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(Gary)
Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh shall I have camomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F***ING TEA??? Oh no, I'm an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels."
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(Rebecca)
Asshole.
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(Gary)
Bitch.
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(Rebecca)
Wanker.
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(Gary)
Slut.
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(Rebecca)
Get f****d.
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(Gary)
Eat s**t.
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(Rebecca)
F*** YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!!
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(Gary)
Go drink some tea - whore.
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(Teacher)
A+ - I really liked this one.