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dr_pretentiousYou know that Page 123 meme that's going around:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5.Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
Well, I'm not generally big on memes, but this one got me a result so funny, I can't resist.
From Vol. 1 of The John W. Campbell Letters (Chapdelaine, Chapdelaine, and Hay, eds.):
Stab him, and see if that bothers him.
This book is in my heap of Stuff To Read Real Soon, so all I currently know about the context of that sentence is that Campbell (an Illustrious Editor) seems to be speculating with one of his authors about what sentient space caterpillars might be able to withstand. Hooray for the state of science fiction, circa 1953.
In other news, I knocked another thousand words out of the big book, this time out of Haldur's political troubles with the Order when he flees the palace and sets up shop printing seditious manifestos.
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5.Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
Well, I'm not generally big on memes, but this one got me a result so funny, I can't resist.
From Vol. 1 of The John W. Campbell Letters (Chapdelaine, Chapdelaine, and Hay, eds.):
Stab him, and see if that bothers him.
This book is in my heap of Stuff To Read Real Soon, so all I currently know about the context of that sentence is that Campbell (an Illustrious Editor) seems to be speculating with one of his authors about what sentient space caterpillars might be able to withstand. Hooray for the state of science fiction, circa 1953.
In other news, I knocked another thousand words out of the big book, this time out of Haldur's political troubles with the Order when he flees the palace and sets up shop printing seditious manifestos.
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-11 10:48 am (UTC)I barely know how to react.
I think you'd get a kick out of BBC7's Atomic Tales!, a pseudo-1950s American sci-fi radio series in which the forces of inellectualism and non-Americanism are embodied by green aliens whose fate is to conquered by manly American space-heroes, and which includes fantastic sponsorship by organisations such as Armed Americans Against Assimilation and the Gaurdians of American Youth, and ads for the health-giving properties of cigarettes and the "electric douche".
In other news, I knocked another thousand words out of the big book, this time out of Haldur's political troubles with the Order when he flees the palace and sets up shop printing seditious manifestos
Oh, I love Haldur!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-11 02:29 pm (UTC)I love writing Haldur. I think the cuts I'm making will be especially helpful to his chapters, since he carried a disproportionate share of the first draft's expository burdens. The Haldur chapters in Part 2 are so lively, and his chapters in Part 4 were so slow. All the events stay, all the wisecracks and lies stay, all the bad attitude stays, and all the longing and goodheartedness, but the draggy bits are getting out of the way.
So many draggy bits to cut!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-11 03:14 pm (UTC)So far, none of the lovely ladies have been carted off by evil aliens, but luckily they've had manly men to tell them what to do and how to think, so that's a relief.
I think it's quite hilarious.
All the events stay, all the wisecracks and lies stay, all the bad attitude stays, and all the longing and goodheartedness
HURRAY!!