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I have noticed that many of my acquaintances misuse the phrases a dry sense of humor and a quiet sense of humor. Some people can tell a joke with a straight face, but, as a rule, they do it intentionally; their performance is studied and has little to do with “dryness.” A quiet sense of humor is an even murkier concept. What is it: an ability to chuckle to oneself? Smiling complacently when everybody else is roaring with laughter? Being funny but inoffensive? Sometimes readers detect humor where it probably does not exist.
For example, in the Scandinavian myth of the final catastrophe, the great medieval scholar Snorri Sturluson noted that the lower jaw of the wolf, the creature destined to swallow the whole world, touched the ground, while the upper jaw reached to the sky. If the wolf, he added, could open its mouth wider, it would have done so. For at least two hundred years scholars have been admiring Snorri’s dry sense of humor, though there is no certainly that Snorri had any sense of humor at all. What we read in his text is an accurate statement of fact, a description of a monster with a mouth open to its full extent.
Fenrisulfr tied up, a river flows from his mouth. From the 17th century Icelandic manuscript AM 738 4to, now in the care of the Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
In Europe, if we disregard the situation known form Ancient Greece and Rome, the modern sense of humor, which, first and foremost, presupposes laughter at verbal rather than at practical jokes, hardly existed before the Renaissance. (Practical jokes seldom thrill us.) The likes of Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde would not have had an appreciative audience in the Middle Ages. A look at the words pertaining to laughter may not be out of place here. The verb laugh has nothing to do with amusement. Its most ancient form sounded as khlakhkhyan (kh, which, as the above transcription shows, was long, stands for ch in Scots loch and in the family name MacLauchlan). If this word had currency before the formation of the system of Germanic consonants, its root was klak, which belongs with cluck, clack, click, clock, and other similar sound-imitative formations. The most primitive word for “laugh” seems to have designated a “guttural gesture,” akin to coughing or clearing one’s throat. Chuckle, a frequentative form of chuck, is a cousin of cackle. Giggle, another onomatopoeic verb, is a next-door neighbor of chuckle. The origin of Latin ridere (“to laugh”: compare ridiculous, deride, and risible) is unknown.
Nowadays, few words turn up in our speech more often than fun. Fun is the greatest attraction of everything. On campus, after the most timid souls get out of the math anxiety course, they are assured that math will be fun. A popular instructor is called a fun professor; students wish one another a fun class. Fun is the backbone of our education, and yet the word fun surfaced in texts only in the seventeenth century, and, like many nouns and verbs belonging to this semantic sphere, was probably a borrowing by the Standard from slang. Its etymology is disputable; perhaps fun is related to fond, and fond meant “stupid.” Joke, contemporaneous with fun, despite its source in Latin, also arose as slang.
We seldom think of the inner form of the word witty. Yet it is an obvious derivative of wit. One could expect witty to mean “wise, sagacious,” the opposite of witless (compare also unwitting), and before Shakespeare it did mean “clever, ingenious.” In German, the situation is similar. Geistreich (Geist + reich) suggests “rich in spirit (mind)” but corresponds to Engl. “witty.” Likewise, jest had little to do with amusement. Latin gesta (plural) meant “doings, deeds” and is familiar from the titles of innumerable Latin books (for example, Gesta danorum “The Deeds of the Danes”). Apparently, in the absence of the concept we associate with wit speakers had to endow the existing material with a meaning that suddenly gained in importance or surfaced for the first time. “The street,” where slang flourished, reveled in low entertainment and supplied names for it. Sometimes the learned also felt a need for what we call fun but were “lost for words” and used Latin nouns in contexts alien to them.
Jest is by far not the only example of this process. Hoax, which originally meant “to poke fun at,” is an eighteenth-century verb (at first only a verb) derived from Latin hocus, as in hocus-pocus. By an incredible coincidence, Old English had hux “mockery,” a metathesized variant of husc, a word with a solid etymology, but in the remote past it may have meant “noise.” When the history of the verbs for “laugh” comes to light, it often yields the sense “noise.” Such is Swedish skratta (with near identical cognates in Norwegian and Danish). People, as rituals and books inform us, laughed on various occasions: to promote fertility (a subject I cannot discuss here), to express their triumph over a vanquished enemy, or to show that they were happy. Noise sometimes constituted part of their reaction. None of that had anything to do with our sense of humor.
German Scherz “joke” first denoted “a merry jump.” Its synonym Spaß reached German from Italian (spasso; in the seventeenth century, like so many words being discussed here), but German did not remain a debtor. It “lent” Scherz to Italian, which returned it to the European languages as Scherzo, a musical term. The origin of Dutch grap “joke” is uncertain (so probably slang). Almost the entire English vocabulary of laughter and mockery is late: either the words were coined about four hundred year ago, or new meanings of old words arose. It is as though a revolution in attitudes toward laughter (or at least one aspect of it) occurred during and soon after the Renaissance. People felt a need for new terms expressing what we take for eternal impulses and began to promote slang and borrow right and left.
Below I will list a few verbs with their dates and some indication of their origin. The roman numbers refer to the centuries.
Jeer (XVI; “fleer and leer have affinities for form and meaning”; so The OxfordDictionary of English Etymology),
fleer (XV, possibly from Scandinavian),
sneer (XVI; perhaps from Low German or Dutch),
flout (XVI, possibly from Dutch),
taunt (XVI, from French),
banter (XVII, of unknown origin).
Only scoff and scorn are considerably older, though both also came from abroad. To be sure, the picture presented above is too simple; it does not take into account the history of people. New words were borrowed, while old ones fell into desuetude. The formula “of unknown origin” does not mean that no suggestions about their etymology exist. They do, but none is fully convincing.
Our ancestors laughed as much as we do, but we have added a new dimension to this process: we can laugh at a witty saying (when they spoke their native languages, this was, apparently, a closed art to them). Strangely, the educated “barbarians” enjoyed Roman comedies, but laughing at Latin witticisms taught them nothing and did not become a transferable skill. The Europeans who descended from those “barbarians” needed a long time to catch up with their teachers. A study of laughter is not only a window to the development of European mentality. It also sheds light on popular culture. We observe how the slang of the past gained respectability and became part of the neutral style. Here etymologists can make themselves useful to everyone who is interested in how we have become what we are. Enjoy yourselves, friends, but don’t be always the last to laugh.
Science works in mysterious ways. Sometimes that’s even truer in the study of the origins of the human race.
Piltdown is a small village south of London where the skull of a reputed ancient human ancestor turned up in some gravel diggings a century ago. The find was made by Charles Dawson, a lawyer and amateur archaeologist, with an unusual knack for major discoveries. Shortly thereafter a lower jaw that fit the skull turned up and, voilá — the missing link between the apes and man had been found in the British Isles.
The Manchester Guardian headlined “The earliest man? Remarkable discovery in Sussex. A skull millions of years old.” The find was widely regarded as the most important of its time. The discovery of Piltdown Man made Europe, and especially Great Britain, the home of the “first humans”. The find fit the expectations of the time and resolved certain racist and nationalist biases against evidence for human ancestry elsewhere. Early humans had large brains and originated in Europe.
Piltdown Gang by John Cooke (1915). Back row: (left to right) F. O. Barlow, G. Elliot Smith, Charles Dawson, Arthur Smith Woodward. Front row: A. S. Underwood, Arthur Keith, W. P. Pycraft, and Sir Ray Lankester.
For 40 years this Piltdown Man was generally accepted as an important ancestor of the human race. Various authorities raised doubt and critiqued the evidence, but Piltdown kept its place in our early lineage until a curator at the British Museum, Kenneth Oakley, took a closer look. Oakley and several other scientists assembled incontrovertible evidence to the show that Piltdown was a forgery. The chemistry of the jaw and skull were different and could not have come from the same individual. The teeth of the lower jaw had been filed down to make them fit with the skull. The skull was human but the jaw came from an ape. The bones had been stained to enhance the appearance of antiquity. In 1953, Time magazine published this evidence gathered by Oakley and others. Piltdown was stricken from the record and placed in ignominy, a testimony to the gullibility of those scientists who see what they want to see.
Hoax, fraud, crime? Perhaps the designation is not so important, but the identity of the perpetrator appears to be. More than 100 books and articles have been written over the years, trying to solve the mystery of who forged Piltdown. Various individuals have been implicated, but the pointing finger of justice always returns to Charles Dawson. Dawson’s knack for finding strange and unusual things was more than just luck. His sense of intuition was fortified by a home workshop for constructing or modifying these finds before he put them in the ground. A recent book by Miles Russell, The Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed, documents Dawson’s numerous other archaeological and paleontological “discoveries” that have been revealed as forgeries. As Russell noted, the case is closed. That fact, however, is not keeping British scientists from throwing a good bit of money and energy into the whodunit, using the latest scientific technology to try to unmask the culprit.
So, 100 years of Piltdown. Not exactly a cause for celebration — or is it? Science does work in mysterious ways. Although Piltdown misled the pursuit of our early human ancestors for decades, much good has come from the confusion. Greater care is exercised in the acceptance of evidence for early human ancestors. Scientific methods have moved to the forefront in the investigation of ancient human remains. The field of paleoanthropology — the study of early human behavior and evolution — has emerged wiser and stronger. The earliest human ancestors are now known to have come from Africa and begun to appear more than six million years ago. Evolution, after all, is about learning from our mistakes.
T. Douglas Price is Weinstein Professor of European Archaeology Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include Europe before Rome: A Site-by-Site Tour of the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages; Principles of Archaeology; Europe’s First Farmers; and the leading introductory textbook in the discipline, Images of the Past.
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[This, from Mister Furkles, is the last of the fake queries for memoirs of famous people. Although in this case it's more like the memoir than the query.
The three titles now in the query queue are real books awaiting fake plots.]
Growing Up Borgia
I’m Lucrezia Borgia. I was raised Catholic. Gandpa Alfons was Pope Calixto and Papa Rodrigo was Pope Alejandra – you can’t get any more Christian.
Mama, Vannozza dei Cattanei, was a grand lady. When I was twelve, Papa betrothed me to Giovanni Sforza. I had six months to learn a wife’s duties. Mama gave me lady training. Cesar, my sixteen-year-old brother, taught me about the boudoir; I learned quickly but Cesar – ever the perfectionist -- insisted plenty of practice.
At thirteen, I wed Giovanni. He was more interested in his business and his bros so I honed my skills on the stable lads. Giovanni’s devotion to business didn’t pay off; he lost his fortune. At fifteen I went to a convent and was completely isolated except for my chamberlain, Perotto. He was a twelve-year-old precocious lad who was strikingly like a donkey in one valuable respect. Perotto and I spend the hours on end learning everything about one another. After half a year, the annulment was final; they declared me a virgin.
My second husband was Prince Alfonso of Aragon. He was sixteen and I was a seventeen. Alfonso’s sister had been given to my Uncle Gioffre so, we made a cozy foursome. Alfonso was better looking than Perotto and just as well endowed. He was a most gorgeous hunk and everybody wanted a piece of him – I got the best piece.
Unfortunately, Papa wanted to make kissface with the King of France who invaded Aragon. So Alfonso was on the outs. I hid him but Papa caught Al and had him strangled the night our son, Rodrigo was born. That sort of thing’s okay if you’re the Pope but it didn’t sit well with me.
Papa said if I liked Alfonsos so much he’d get me another. At twenty-two I wed Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. Al Two did not compare well with Al One. But we were rich and neither objected to the other’s dalliances.
5 Comments on Face-Lift 1056, last added: 8/2/2012
Of course, it isn't real. It's simply a spoof on "Growing up Gotti". As for the voice being off, yes it is. It’s extremely difficult for a man to write first person POV for a female character and vice versa. I would never attempt it.
If a woman historian with extensive knowledge of renaissance Italy wanted to write a fictionalized history, Lucrezia’s life story could be a hit. It could be like “I Claudius” but darker and possibly depressing. I would never attempt to write it.
I thought you might enjoy a totally hedonistic memoir from one of history’s most notorious. Lucrezia was not just a sexual predator but is also believed to be a serial killer – using poison – and a major player in power politics.
1. After Olympic swimmer Bryan Lock deflowers the University President's daughter in public and the video goes viral on the Internet, his life seems ruined--until a Mexican drug lord hires Lock to operate his new ocean research center.
2. Sweden is surrounded by fish, and the population loves it. However, it rots quickly and the smell is hurting the tourism industry. Sven Dalgaard, one of the premiere scientists in the country, discovers a new way to preserve the nation's favorite food - it's a little thing he's named "salt".
3. When the body of 70s eco-warrior Jacques Champlain is found by kids fishing in MacArthur Park, homicide detective Zack Martinez knows two things. One, the old man didn't harpoon himself; and two, some camarones would be great for dinner.
4. 1969. High schoolers Rachel, a native of the ruined Owens Valley, and Gabriel, a transplant from Sherman Oaks, discover love, life, environmentalism and each other in this coming-of-age story set in California's historic fish hatchery on Highway 395.
5. Detective Jorge Calderon thought his danger days were over when he retired from the NYPD. He moved to sleepy Cortez Florida and joined the Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritage. One day he investigates a slaughtered manatee. On the way back, his jeep is forced off the road by a large pickup. Two days later he finds three teens shot execution style. Now Jorge knows he can’t retire yet.
Original Version
[It's another fake query, this one from Dave F. We do have a couple real queries in the queue now, waiting for fake plot writers to notice them.]
Dear EE
Olympic swimmer Bryan Lock dreams he is a butterfly flapping his wings in China... But wait, let's change that butterfly to a fish and China to the Yucatan. The proposition becomes: If a doctoral student and champion swimmer who dreams of becoming a world renowned oceanographer deflowers the University President's Daughter in public and the video goes viral on the internet, what sort of job can he expect after graduation? The answer, a dead end job in the fast food industry. However, the storms of chaos theory blow a fair wind his way in the form of a Drug Lord in the Yucatan. The Drug Lord hires Lock to operate his new ocean research center.
Our butterfly, being chaos personified, returns in the form of the Drug Lord's son who boozes, trips, whores, rapes, and kills in the villages where the drugs grow. Even bad dreams come true in chaos theory. A Drug Lord's son can't escape punishment for wanton murder and the punishment is death. As the storms of chaos abate, justice will be served. The murderous son, his partner and the researchers are not killed are given a strange new lease on life, the Drug Lord gains their silence, and Lock his dream job -- a successful oceanic researcher. However, he's no longer human. He's more of a half-man, half-fish creature, with gills.
My novel, THE FISH PRESERVE is bizarro Sci Fi complete at 80K. It is breaking out of its cocoon just for you.
7 Comments on Face-Lift 1055, last added: 7/31/2012
I didn't have the heart to name a real swimmer in the Olympics. It felt too mean and nasty and then, they could beat the crap out of me if they really wanted toooooo.......
AlaskaRavenclaw said, on 7/31/2012 6:37:00 AM
Where is the query queue? The place where it used to reside is occupied by a startling pic, and the link on the left to the query queue says it doesn't exist.
It should now be in QUERY QUEUE in the sidebar. Not sure why it wasn't, or what I did to get it back.
Where it used to be wasn't worth devoting an entire blog to, so it's now one of the "Pages" on the main blog.
PLaF said, on 7/31/2012 10:51:00 AM
I'm assuming your doctoral student is doctoring in oceanographic studies, but the use of chaos theory and the butterfly effect make me wonder if it's physics instead. Then the sentance with the new lease on life seems to be missing a word or two that might make it slightly less bizarro. Is this the true story of how Aqua-man got his gills?
This isn't an Aquaman reboot. He is an oceanographer and ichthyologist. A nerd who teamed up with his buddy and the Pres' daughter to go viral on the internet. The price of 15 minutes of fame.
Chaos theory is a thought experiment about tiny events having out of proportion effects -- unintended consequences, you might say. The premise of the experiment is that if a butterfly flapping its wings in China causes a storm front in the Atlantic ocean a half a world away. This is a conjecture.
The very real effect in Physics is illustrated by the thought experiment of Schrodinger's Cat. Where we know that there is a cat in a black box and we don't know if the cat is alive. Quantum Mechanics say the cat is both dead and alive as long as we don't look. When we do look, we determine the cat's fate. That's called indeterminacy, not chaos. Although most fiction confuses the two because the differences are profoundly subtle. Indeterminacy makes my head hurt.
That's more than anyone wanted to know.
This is a bizarro story and it matches with New Beginning 961. I don't think that I could sustain this story for 80,000 words.
My cover letter for the short story only had one sentence about the plot: There are fish in Campeche Bay. Man-made fish paying for their sins and the sins of the father. What strange quirk of fate brought them to this point?
khazar-khum said, on 7/31/2012 1:19:00 PM
PLaF---I thought everyone knew Aquaman was King of Atlantis.
Dave F--Your original story line sounds like Deep Ones.
Chaos and Quantum are also similar in the interdeterminancy department. Again, one is unforseen consequences, while one can only determine the consequences if they have been formulated by looking at them. And then there is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which can also derail fiction discussions merely by being read.
This book doesn't exist; the query comes from a writing exercise in which the task was to write a query based on one of the fake plots on this blog. Which should make choosing the correct plot more difficult than usual. [The top 3 titles in the query queue are for actual books, and await a few more fake plots.]
1. Felicity Miller is the closest thing to an angel on Earth, When she steps on a shell at the beach, her pain leads to tears which release the demon Canziel from his conch shell prison. Cranziel immediately sets out to make all of mankind suffer by cutting off their delicious supply of shellfish.
2. When her tears When a bad fall at the Regional Ice Skating Championships leaves 16-year-old Missy Watanabe in a wheelchair, it seems her dreams of Olympic glory are dashed forever...until she hears of a miracle cure from a weeping statue of Mary. Can she convince her family to make the trip to the highlands of Bolivia for a cure--and will a miracle really happen?
3. Da’miqua’s mother died when she was only 3. She was raised by her paternal grandmother while her father worked on an oil rig thousands of miles away to provide for his family. Now in her early 20’s the dad she barely knew moves in with her after a life-changing injury.
4. The new ladies-only pub in Tottenham is a roaring success, until beagle trainer Martha Pates is found buried in the garden. Worse, Inspector Ada Menzies suspects her own mother.
5. When someone steals the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary from Our Lady of Guadeloupe mission, crack detective Zach Martinez knows two things: the upcoming Tears of an Angel festival is in serious jeopardy, and he still owes some Hail Mary’s from his last confession.
6. As priests, nuns, and even the Pope's own guard rush to locate him, angel Michael must place his trust in neophyte nun Sister Mary Celeste, to return to Heaven and keep the most powerful relic of all – the tears of an angel – from falling into the wrong hands.
Original Version
The Millers have it all – wealth, a beautiful house, and the sweetest, most talented daughter anyone could ask for. That all changes the day their little angel, Felicity, trips over a seashell on vacation in the Florida Keys. For little do they know, but that seashell was planted on that particular beach just waiting for that particular angel to fall. And when Felicity’s tears of pain and grief land on the shell, the demon Cranziel is unleashed on the Earth.
Cranziel has been waiting centuries for this opportunity, ever since Saint Michael caught him attempting to break all the shells of all the shellfish in the world. For punishment, Cranziel was sentenced to spend the rest of eternity in a conch shell. The curse could only be broken if an angel sheds a tear for him, and the closest thing to an angel south of Heaven itself is Felicity Miller. Cranziel has been planting himself in her path ever since he felt her step foot on his beach, and his luck has finally paid off. The girl falls, scrapes her knee in the sand, and cries all over his pink prison. [She cried on the shell at the end of the previous paragraph; no need to repeat it.]
Now he’s free, angry, and determined to make all of mankind suffer by cutting off the delicious and lucrative supply of shellfish, starting with the fishing grounds in t
8 Comments on Face-Lift 1042, last added: 7/2/2012
I kind of love this. And you really bring it home at the end, tying in your personal experience as a demon hunter. Sounds to me like a Must Read!
Except . . . Felicity sounds either really young or really wimpy at first, and then she's kicking demon butt later on. Would a demon hunter cry because she scraped her knee? I'm not sure.
Going from "ponies and hair ribbons" to "sledgehammer and steel-toed boots" cracked me up. In fact, that whole last paragraph made my day.
I also liked the way the query made me think that Cranziel has met his match in this Louisiana gal.
Chelsea, I didn't have much of a problem with the wimpy-to-warrior thing. She goes from a sweet little girl who's getting everything she wants, to a kid defending her lifestyle.
Anonymous said, on 6/29/2012 6:20:00 PM
I like to practice the query structure, but the plot was totally just for fun.
And yes, Chelsea, demon hunters do cry. Especially during that time of the month. Believe me, I know.
Author.
Anonymous said, on 6/30/2012 8:42:00 AM
If this was just for fun I'd love to read your purpose written tales.
1. A writers' guide to coming up with titles that roll off the tongue.
2. The history of the Transformation and its impact on the history of Arvakeria.
3. Ho hum. Another fantasy novel. Set in another world. Our hero/ine has the unique magical ability to transform their shape, and it has long been prophesied that a person with such an ability will be the one to [fill in blank]. Is anybody interested?
4. Old Zippo, forced to buy a suit for his son's wedding, goes to the local suit store, Arvakeria. In the changing room, he's transformed into a small Labrador, and wanders around town wearing the ill-fitting pin-striped suit. He's recognized as a brilliant dog, and gets a job as a financial adviser to the town council. When the town goes broke, Old Zippo runs off with a poodle named, "Zelda Muffin," and they live fairly comfortably in the back of a Volkswagon bus with a bunch of vegan hippies.
5. 6646 BC. Most of the human race died out two thousand years earlier under the reign of King Arvaker. Now, just as we're making a comeback, a new threat arrives: vampire orcs. Humans go underground and morph into dwarfs to await their savior, but when he finally shows up, he's kind of lazy.
6. Arvakeria was the rowdiest, most lawless city on the planet . . . until the Transformation, when all Arvakerians became angels. Now the Arvakerians travel from town to town punishing rowdy lawless people with death and torture. Hey, it's a living.
Original Version
Transformation In Arvakeria is a literary science fiction and fantasy future best seller at approximately 196,672 words.
Rumor has it that twelve thousand years ago, humans had magic. The orcs are not pleased about this because, while they are stronger than humans (their natural STR scores would default at 18) and bigger (orcs grow to about 6'5" at minimum all the way up to 8' whereas humans of course have a wide range but never that tall!) magic is obviously more powerful. So the orcs set about to kill all the humans. Around the reign of King Arvaker, circa 8573 b.c., these humans were all but destroyed and were on their final legs as a species.
Icarus is the only man who can stop all the senseless dying and kill off all the other species. But he won't be born for another few thousand years, so lots more people will die before then.
Left to their own devices, the orcs and dragons and dragon-orcs would kill and enslave all of the humans. Fortunately the world almost ended at about 6646 b.c. and all of the orcs died off. But a new threat was threatening... vampire orcs.
Left with few soldiers left (a typical army at about this time would contain around a thousand soldiers, broken up into "decades" of 200 troops. Each one would have a command structure roughly equal to one commander per 50 men) the humans have no choice but to hide until their savior is borne.
Rapidly the humans underground start to develop into dwarves, which helps boost their STR scores, but they become too belligerent and the remaining true humans are forced back above ground.
Icarus still hasn't been born yet, but he will. All of the humans await this day. That is when everything will be happily ever after... but will he command the humans?? Death follows those who worship the path of darkness...
Eventually Icarus is born and the savior grows up into a great warrior. Unfortunately Icarus is spoiled as a child since he is the chosen one and doesn't like to do very much. So his friends must tackle the fate of the world and save the humans from the dangers above ground and below...
T.In.A. is complete and await
7 Comments on Face-Lift 941, last added: 8/16/2011
Author: It was funnier with the paragraphs included that allowed the THRILLRIDE structure of the first paragraph letter to remain intact. Ah well! Thanks for the fun :)
1. Memoir of my years in the Communist Party and my struggles with acid reflux.
2. She's a pyromaniac. He's a fireman. When they fall in love, it's a doomed relationship. But at least they have really hot sex.
3. Okay, think modern-day Cinderella in love with the prince, but set in France and Santa Claus is in it.
4. Twenty-eight year old Norm Charles receives the first successful permanent artificial heart. With his new lease on life Norm searches New York looking for romance. The romance soon turns to uncontrollable violence and lust as something inside the robotic part of Norm sparks what he calls . . . the bright red fires of my heart.
5. Every time Magnesia "Maggie" Smith has heartburn, something in town goes up in flames. She can't help it, it's just a reflux. When Maggie gets a job waitressing at Big Bob's Gas n' Grill, the ensuing fires threaten to destroy the town. Deputy Sheriff Urrp suspects the truth, but his superiors find the idea hard to digest. Will a bottle of Maalox put an end to the whole dismal bismuth?
6. An old matron reminisces on past love affairs conducted during her years as a cardiologist/welder.
Original Version
Thank you so much for giving up of your time to consider my latest probably bestselling romance.*
I based it on the classic story Cinderella and though it's all handwritten, when you want it I can photocopy everything and I'll even pay for that. (this letter is written out on my friend's typewriter, just in case you're curious. She's written a book about elves and it's really really good.) For now I have sent you on the first four pages because that is how I know it is except for I got writers cramp and had to rest myself so it might seem as if it kind of ends suddenly because it actually does. My hand is okay now. If you would like to have a look at page number five I should be all right in a couple of days I suppose.
STOP PRESS
I am a lot better now as it happens as you might well have guessed from this email which I have typed out but when you get the letter it might be a backup.
THIS IS WHERE THE STOP PRESS ENDS AND YOU GO BACK TO THE LETTER
It's the same up to the bit with the fireplace, only because mine's modern times, it's central heating. That means a rethink on the stagecoach, which is original, and Santa Claus is in it at the end, a bit like Raymond Brigg's** Snowman so it will make a brilliant film even if Jonny Depp is working on another one somewhere about a dragon or something.
As my mother died last year, I will dedicate it to her.*** I have some poems she wrote to go on the first page****, possibly in a floral box, and which may open out. We'll have to work out what profit goes to her favourite charity, cats.*****
Some of it is in French. That will help it to go abroad, though my French isn't that good as my English, though I feel you will have translators. My friend (whose written the elf book I mentioned to you about) can't speak French at all
10 Comments on Face-Lift 887, last added: 4/2/2011
OK, it was way too early in the morning for me to wade through that. I'm going to be mildly insane for the whold day now. That thing's contagious. Should be quarantined.
This query was submitted by our own Whirlochre a while back. I saved it for April Fools Day, which, coincidentally, is Whirl's 3rd Blogiversary, so get on over to his blog (http://abysswinksback.blogspot.com/) and take his quiz and win some gravy.
1. Come on. Do I HAVE to explain what this book is about?
2. Tiffany spent her entire summer vacation coaxing the octopus to emerge from that tide pool. But now Dad won't let her bring him home. If she pretends to obediently flush the gastropod, can she sneak her new pet back to Kansas in her suitcase?
3. Every time Nemo Jones tries to complete his speech for the documentary about his undersea miracle of post-modern living, that damn girl swims to the window and makes silly faces at the camera while her octopus sullies the glass with its arm-slime. Where does this pesky wench come from, and how can he be rid of her?
4. In 2487, Earth depends on the asteroid miners for raw minerals. Miner Jax Subit is one of the youngest, driving her eight-armed mining droid in the outer belt to support her family Earthside. When war leaves half of Earth a smoking hulk, Jax realizes that she can finally afford those implants, since she doesn't have to send money home anymore.
5. Sheila's cool with the prune look, the suction cup hickies and scarecrow hair from all the salt. Octi makes it all worthwhile, bringing her pretty shells and bits of coral from the deep. But when Octi brings her a doubloon, greedy eyes take interest and the hunt is on.
6. Ever since an octopus saved Octavia from drowning, the two have been inseparable friends. But when she falls in love with Otto, who is allergic to gastropods, Octavia must decide if she can give her octopus up, and be content with a man with only two tentacles…er, arms.
7. After the hurricane, Tina does her best to hide her new pet, but at story time three suckered tentacles grab Mom by the ankle and pull her under the bed, where she is summarily devoured by a monster that will quickly grow to enormous proportions and devour everything that moves in Orlando.
8. Michelle is the richest girl in the universe, but she won't be happy unless she and her octopus guardian Soangdu can break her Aunt Lisa out of the mental institution. Fortunately they have help from a doctor, if they can just get him to focus on the mission instead of his quest for the Twinkies recipe.
Original Version
Dear Evil Editor,
A generation after spaceflight begins, humans have spread to hundreds of planets and haven’t found other sentient life forms; right? [Wrong. Space flight began a couple generations ago, and humans haven't reached any planets.] For ten years after her mother’s kidnapping and murder, twelve-year-old Michelle Gulden, the richest girl in the universe, has lived in her father’s lab on a small planet. Now she must get her aunt, Lisa, from a mental hospital before her father dies, an adventure she’s always wanted. [This is the plot of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, except set on Pluto.]
She has the help of her two guardians, Chirpizadon and Soangdu, but her guardians must be passed off as pets. Chirpizadon, who was bred in her father’s lab and has a genius I.Q.
12 Comments on Face-Lift 858, last added: 1/13/2011
My favorites were "the richest girl in the universe" and the bad punctuation.
Nice going, Author!
Anonymous said, on 1/12/2011 8:11:00 AM
I love the title "A Girl and Her Octopus". As I don't like sci-fi, I'll leave further comments to the experts. (I was secretly hoping it was chick lit. I can just imagine the cover.)
There's a lack of specificity and vagueness that doesn't help the query. In order to buy the book, a reader or an agent needs to like Michelle. The query doesn't give us any information.
Think about the current movie "How to Train Your Dragon." It's about the 97lb weakling son of a Viking who doesn't fit in and discovers that he can train dragons rather than slay dragons.
If the book has errors as grave as those in the query, it doesn't need querying; it needs editing.
Learn the use of the semi-colon, or don't use it.
How is the opening to the query relevant, given that nobody seems to discover any sentient aliens in the course of the novel? Also, 'begins' should be 'began' in order to make sense of the rest of the sentence.
You've missed out some of the plot here, I'm afraid, which means it's hard to understand what happens. Why does Lisa have to rescue her aunt? Does she need a guardian? Can her aunt cure the father?
If Lisa's so rich, surely it would be easy to arrange to get her aunt back? She could just buy the hospital, appoint her own staff, and have her aunt discharged. What obstacles can stand up against her immense wealth?
Who are the conspirators and what are they conspiring to do? How will it affect Lisa, her aunt, or her father, if they succeed? If they fail? We need to know the stakes.
Anonymous said, on 1/12/2011 11:25:00 AM
Do you know the painting called Fisherman's Wife? It's drawing of a woman getting it on with an octopus and it comes from Japan, the birthplace of tentacle porn. It's also quite infamous.
When I read the title I thought this book would be scathing critique on the perversions of Japan: Subway groping so bad that they've decided to build a second subway just for woman; tentacle/rape porn cartoons; a history of raping wartime captives and using them as "comfort women" for their soldiers after they were hit by the nuclear bombs, and then denying such a thing ever happened by writing it out of their own history.
So is this a hoax/fake query then? I'm not sure if I should be critiquing or chuckling.
As for the title, I'm wondering if this could be part of a series a la: A Girl and her Orangutang A Girl and her Orange Juice A Girl and her Octagon...
“Jean Nepomucene Auguste Pichauld, Comte de Fortsas, was a man with a singular passion. He collected books of which only one copy was known to exist…. [W]hen he died on September 1, 1839 he possessed only fifty-two books, but each of them was absolutely unique. His heir, not sharing the old man’s passion for book collecting, arranged for an auction to sell off the library”
Compelling no? The auction really happened, the rest of it is made up, the creation of a local antiquarian, having a bit of a practical joke. Read more at blacksundae, or see the auction catalog, itself a rarity, on Google Books.
0 Comments on possibly the best library hoax as of 1/1/1900
First of all, thank you so much for the lovely panties. They are so comfortable and cute too! I have to say, though, I’ve been concerned about your behavior lately. I mean, when I was jogging in the woods and you were suddenly there, it kind of creeped me out. And then when you burst into that job interview it was pretty humiliating. I mean, how did you know I was there? It was a good thing I had determined I didn’t want the position (though I was still really nervous…always am at those things) because I’m pretty sure you freaked out the CEO and he wouldn’t have hired me anyway.
Okay, this week you must indulge me, gentle La Bloga readers. Like my earlier “priestcake-calendar” entry, this is one of those “products that just vex me” columns. Occasionally I come across a creation that brings out the sociologist in me, something that allows me to ponder about the state of modern society. Well, if I were to judge our future on the Forget-Me-Not panties I would have to say we are doomed.
I found the site by mistake, I was searching for the phone number for my favorite shop in Johnson, Vermont—the Forget-Me-Not-Shop—and I pulled up this site: http://forgetmenotpanties.com/ The first thing I saw was the seductive photo of the panty clad woman with the ray-emitting flower appliqué. As you can imagine, I was intrigued. And that image…was the flower giving off heat? Massaging her hip? Despite these questions I was about to head back to google when the tagline “protect her privates” caught my eye. Needless to say, I read further.
“Ever worry about your wife cheating? Want to know where your daughter is late at night?”
And my personal favorite:
“Need to know when your girlfriend’s temperature is rising?”
Turns out, it is a pair of attractive brief-cut cotton underwear with a decorative flower that is actually a GPS device that can provide the wearer’s location, temperature and heart rate. Temperature and heart rate…I felt my own ticker pickup its pace with a touch of anger.
“Make sure you will never be forgotten,” it promises.
Now being a marketing professional, I delved further. How does one sell this kind of despicable, personal-liberty-stealing product? The section called “testimonials” give two examples. The first the one I can understand slightly, a father who was concerned about his teenage daughter’s safety after she spent many late nights out. Concern I understand, invasion of privacy I don’t. This goes way beyond reading her diary or rummaging through her purse (neither of which I condone). To top it off, his testimonial attests that the only improvement he suggested for the product was a video camera. I have no words.
The second testimonial was from a man who suspected his wife of cheating on him, which of course, she was. I mean, how creepy would it be to hear about a guy who tracked his wife through her panties and found out she was faithful? That wouldn’t sell too many bloomers, I’ll tell you that!
Okay, so as you’ve surmised, this is not a subject I’m on the fence about. It’s not the GPS, I mean we give our kids cell phones we can track, but it’s the deception that bothers me. Truth be told, I find this whole thing so disturbing it is almost beyond comment. I mean, why not added a banner that says, “Great for the stalker on your Christmas list!” or, “Paranoid? Delusional? Have we got the product for you!”
At this point I find myself asking, what is my raison d’etre for this blog entry? Is it enough to rant and rave about a bizarre and offensive product? Perhaps, but as I reflect on my need to tell you about this find I realize that it is more than that, more than a sociological study. I fear that we risk losing our dignity, our humanity when we give in to our darkest thoughts. There are always marketers out there to prey upon our anxieties, our innermost fears and insecurities. And if we are distrustful of our partners or our children and unable to confront them in a healthy and respectful manner, will we reduce ourselves to buying underwear that track their whereabouts and body temperature? Have we really sunk this low?
I’m being preachy you say? Yes, you’re right, and I apologize. I had intended this to have more humor, but honestly the forget-me-not panties frighten me. As they should you. And ladies, if your husband or partner gives you a pair of lingerie with an odd little appliqué on them, put them on the dog and set him loose through the neighborhood. But be sure to invite me to watch when the gift giver finds out he has been monitoring a mutt’s adventures through the neighborhood streets. I’m sure I could sell tickets, in fact.
P.S. My nephew Jedediah just informed me that this is a hoax created by pantyraiders.org "girls ambushing the media." (read the comments) Guess I got duped! As an art project this is so effective, I mean look at the depth of feeling they got in my reaction. Very powerful. I am not someone who is easily duped, I am often the one who sends you back the email about the toilet spiders or fake tsunami pictures and directs you to urbanlegends.about.com, but the fact that you have to go down so many layers to discover this is a hoax is brilliant (of course I did that once I found out). You click on order, then it gives you a selection of models of panties, and when you click on one, you get a note that flashes at you that says "Gotcha!" and gives the pantyraiders.org address. You should visit the site, it's fascinating.
As I said in my comment, what does it say to those people who actually click on the button with the full intention of ordering a pair? I would hope it makes them reflect.
Gente, this is what art is about.
5 Comments on The gift that keeps on giving me the creeps., last added: 4/8/2008
Just a heads up, but the ForgetMeNot Panties are a hoax. They are not a real product. It's a joke.
If you click on Order Now, it takes you to another page, and if you roll over the images of panties, a banner pops up that says GOTCHA! (pantyraiders.org). Clicking on that brings up a page where they describe who they are and why they made up this product.
"If you thought Forget Me Not Panties were real, you got duped, but you aren't stupid. We had over 300 distribution requests and 90% of the press we got never figured out the "GPS panties" was really an art project. We even created a fake PR company to handle the press that suddenly bombarded our inbox." - from the site
Just wanted to let you know. I am an Internet-sleuth.
(Also, I clicked on Order Now because I was suspicious of the product, not because I was ordering a pair for my girlfriend.)
Ann Hagman Cardinal said, on 4/5/2008 10:18:00 PM
Thanks Jed, for saving face for your dear Tia. What's so interesting about this art project is that in order to find out it is a hoax you have to click order. Then the person who really was trying to order them is forced to reflect on that action. I mean, to me that is what art should be about. I'm so impressed by these women and this piece.
Anonymous said, on 4/5/2008 10:33:00 PM
sure, jed, that's what you were doing, sleuthing.
mvs
Andrea said, on 4/6/2008 10:05:00 AM
Whether or not the panties are a hoax your point still stands! Nicely done.
So if you take a GPS out of a car where do you install it on the dog?
feministsunite said, on 4/8/2008 4:19:00 AM
hey! this is leba from the panty raiders...thanks so much for this blog, i love the graphics! we should add them to the site!
we are doing some new projects with the panty raiders, so email us if you would like to get involved!
we have done a few other sites, my favorite of which is plasticassets.com, but the panties is our namesake :)
thanks la bloga, for your insightful feminist response.
In 1996, Alan Sokal, a Professor of Physics at New York University, wrote a paper for the cultural studies journal Social Text, entitled: Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity. It was reviewed, accepted, and published. Sokal immediately admitted that the whole article was a hoax - a cunningly worded paper designed to expose and parody the style of extreme postmodernist criticism of science. The story became front-page news across the world. Sokal has now written a book for OUP called Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture, which publishes in the UK this week. In the below post, Sokal writes about taking evidence seriously, and the implications it has for public policy.
I entered Journey to Mythaca in a contest for best cover. The contest, called the Covey Awards, is more about how big your network of friends than how good your cover is, but I'm still pleased to see Kris's artwork honored.
Voting is open until Tuesday on the website. Go ahead. Do me a favor and cast a vote for Ivan and Magellan flying through the sky.
.jpg "Piltdown gang")
And then what happened?
(I guess that means I would have read pages :)
I suppose it would be churlish to say I found the voice off. Kind of I-Can-Read-It-Myself up until the last line, when there's a diction shift.
Loved it. I thought it was handled extremely well, and I'd like to read more.
Top drawer.
Of course, it isn't real. It's simply a spoof on "Growing up Gotti". As for the voice being off, yes it is. It’s extremely difficult for a man to write first person POV for a female character and vice versa. I would never attempt it.
If a woman historian with extensive knowledge of renaissance Italy wanted to write a fictionalized history, Lucrezia’s life story could be a hit. It could be like “I Claudius” but darker and possibly depressing. I would never attempt to write it.
I thought you might enjoy a totally hedonistic memoir from one of history’s most notorious. Lucrezia was not just a sexual predator but is also believed to be a serial killer – using poison – and a major player in power politics.
Thanks for your comments.
Not that into tales of 12-year-old sex myself.