Thursday, 3 April 2014

Some half-dozen gems

from (the typically-beautiful) McSweeney's Thirty-One - Vikings, Monks, Philosophers, Whores: old forms, unearthed:
parchment is replaced by pen and paper, which is replaced by predictive text on Finnish cell phones.
- Darren Franich and Graham Weatherly, 'Introduction'

MARCI: I think everyone likes the penis. Lesbians just don't like how men are attached to the penis.
- Mary Miller, 'A Dialogue Between Two Maids in the Twenty-First Century, One of Whom is Skeezy: a new whore dialogue'

SOCRATES: ... It is not always the keenest eye that is the first to see something.
- Plato, The Republic

HEMINGWAY: I've been to every place I used. I'd seen the mountains in the early morning. I'd tasted the wine.
- David Thomson, 'After Citizen Kane: a new Socratic dialogue'

the goal of Socrates is not to answer a question, but rather to reveal that the preexisting answers are incorrect or deficient.
- Eds. marginal note

the letters are minute and bristle with serifs like little hooks (inducing a half-conscious discomfort in the throat-clearing reader).
- Shelley Jackson, 'Consuetudinary of the Word Church, or The Church of The Dead Letter: a new consuetudinary'

we hope you'll enjoy this issue, and that those of you who have recently graduated, or been laid off will consider McSweeney's for your internship needs. You will be valued, if not adequately paid.
- McSweeney's (per se)

Grocery-shopping factoid

In order to teach my phone 'courgettes' I had to switch the dictionary into French.

(And yet it knows 'aubergine'... Qu'est-ce que le deuce?!)

Wednesday, 2 April 2014

Warning to would-be novelists (in particular)

I just started a new book. The detective is met at Sydney airport by a man wearing blue jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, with an unusually broad nose and curly dark hair. I was supposed to think Aboriginal. I thought, Magnum?!
- Amy Harris (on Jo Nesbø's The Bat)

Incomplete Knowledge






















[courtesy The Pikey Laureate]

Tuesday, 1 April 2014

An April Fool(!)

Mae Dappersonne introduces Penguin Now!, a new range of classic novels grammatically updated for 2014.
Should Penguin Now! prove a success, the team are looking into replacing the traditional ? with a more contemporary :/
[With thanks to Alexandra Coghlan]

Not an April Fool(?)

Harvard librarians make a point of not going looking for rare volumes bound with human skin.

Thursday, 27 March 2014

Feminine endings

Because most/all women writers prefer 'em, apparently.

NB The comments section does include a couple of witnesses for the defence...

Since I'm sure you've always wondered...


















[with thanks to Sandy Holmes]

Horse nonsense

Investigating the facts and stats of the HarvardX Ancient Greek Hero course, I note there is a 'Rules of Online Conduct' point explicitly banning the use of 'trojan horses'.

Tuesday, 25 March 2014

Wednesday, 19 March 2014

Equinimity (and other Kafka jokes)

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks, “Why the long face?” 
“I was born into servitude, and when I die, my feet will be turned into glue,” replied the horse. 
The bartender realized he would not be getting a tip.
John McNamee'Kafka's Joke Book'

Bibliosophistry

Bibliophiles are not uncommon in Leiden, but bibliophiles made wise by reading are as rare there as anywhere.
- David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet