Buyer Beware: Vol. 14

We're on vacation until August 6th. Until then, buyer beware: this isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Buyer Beware: Vol. 13

We're on vacation until August 6th. Until then, buyer beware: this isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Buyer Beware: Vol. 12

We're on vacation until August 6th. Until then, buyer beware: this isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Buyer Beware: Vol. 11

We're on vacation until August 6th. Until then, buyer beware: this isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Buyer Beware: Vol. 10

We're on vacation until August 6th. Until then, buyer beware: this isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Buyer Beware: Vol. 9

We're on vacation until August 6th. Until then, buyer beware: this isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Buyer Beware: Vol. 8

We're on vacation until August 6th. Until then, buyer beware: this isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Buyer Beware: Vol. 7

We're on vacation until August 6th. Until then, buyer beware: this isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Buyer Beware: Vol. 6

We're on vacation until August 6th. Until then, buyer beware: this isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Buyer Beware: Vol. 5

We're on vacation until August 6th. Until then, buyer beware:  this isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Buyer Beware: Vol. 4

We're on vacation until August 6th. Until then, buyer beware: this isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Literary Devices with Edward Abbey

A couple choice excerpts from Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang:

“They roared down the high-centered road, bristly blackbrush and spiny prickly pear clawing at the truck along the greasy perineum of its General Motors crotch.”

“The enemy, only a few miles behind, out of sight but closing the gap, spurred on with extra vigor by the indignity of singed bottoms, scorched automotive coccyges, seared differential scrota, would soon come round the last bend in the trail and see them—Hayduke and Smith, Inc.—crawling slow and beetle-like up this improbable exit way.”

Gotta admit, the man has a way with words. Of course, the technical  term for this literary device is "anthropomorphization." And for those interested in further study, its commercial application, can be explored here.

"A Ruse of One's Own" or Virginia Woolf: Practical Joker

You learn something new every day. Today, for example, I learned that 28 year old Virginia Woolf helped perpetrate a hoax on the British Navy that got attention around the world. Not merely as a planner or supporter, mind you, but as a cross-dressing imposter prince in black-face. That’s right. Take a closer look at that sleight fellow on the far left below. That is not  an Abyssinian prince. But the officers of the HMS Dreadnought thought it was. And hilarity ensued.

You can read more about the Dreadnought Hoax here and here. But my favorite detail is this: the Navy couldn’t scrounge up an Abyssinian flag anywhere, so the Honor Guard used the flag and national anthem of Zanzibar. Naturally.

—Via Retronaut

Buyer Beware: Vol. 3

This isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Try this one instead:

Meeting your literary hero...

I’ve always wondered, would it go something like this?

Buyer Beware: Vol. 2

This isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Try this one instead:

Buyer Beware: Vol. 1

This isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Try this one instead:

Happy Friday!

“Customers of Irish descent need not apply”

Everybody dies

I poked a little fun at Billy Shakespeare the other day, pointing out a rough similarity in body counts between King Lear  and the comedy/parody film “Hot Shots Part Deux.” And then I came across this infographic at Biblioklept, which only reinforces the point across some of his other tragedies. Enjoy:

Eudora Welty: Songwriter

Paul Simon scored a worldwide hit with his 1986 album Graceland , winning the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1987. The title track from that album, and the song that Simon has called the best he’s ever written, also won Best Record of the Year in 1988. He did it by collaborating with musicians and songwriters from all over the place: African musicians like the Boyoyo Boys, Juluka and Ladysmith Black Mombazo, as well as the Everly Brothers, Linda Ronstadt and Los Lobos closer to home.

And while the music on the album is a mash-up of different styles (World-beat, Zydeco, rock, a cappella, etc.) the lyrics are generally Simon’s own- with one exception I uncovered recently. Here’s how Simon begins the title track, “Graceland:”

 “The Mississippi Delta was shining like a national guitar”

Great imagery, right? Now here is a passage describing a train ride through the Mississippi Delta from Eudora Welty’s 1946 novel Delta Wedding :

“The land was perfectly flat and level but it shimmered like the wing of a lighted dragon fly. It seemed strummed, as though it were an instrument and something had touched it.”

Ms. Welty is not credited on the album, but we were  able to dig up the intriguing jam-session photograph you see above. It’s interesting that she was not asked to add her own vocal skills to the final cut of the record.