Isn't Beowulf only around because of a single written version of it that was discovered in the 17th century?
And you're sure this isn't just some fanboy thing? 'Cause I've fought more than a couple pimply, overweight vamps that called themselves Lestat.
Buffy ,'Lessons'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Kathy A - Mar 06, 2007 9:23:29 am PST #2017 of 28175
We're very stretchy. - Connie Neil
Nutty - Mar 06, 2007 9:28:22 am PST #2018 of 28175
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."
Yes, and the original ms. was a wee bit charred at one point, having been rescued from a housefire. That's why there are "...and then something happened. Skipping ahead!" notes in the narrative.
The same is true of one of the six extant originals of the Magna Carta, which I saw under glass in the British Museum years ago. Five of the copies are all officious Germanic-looking lettering, presumably done with painstaking care by monks of some order; and the sixth is all screwy with the letters shrunk and sent sideways by the paper as it contracted on exposure to the heat of a fire. It got rescued before it actually burned, but, I think it is a good thing that fire-suppression methods are a major part of archiving and museum studies, these days.
DavidS - Mar 07, 2007 12:17:22 pm PST #2019 of 28175
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
I was looking at an edition of Raymond Chandler's notebooks during lunch.
It had some great stuff in it, including lists of similes that he'd go back and poach from. Some ones I remembered:
"A mouth like wilted lettuce"
"Lower than a badger's balls"
"A thready smile"
"He was a great long gallows of a man with a ravaged face and a haggard eye."
(Beautifu rhythm in that line too, hitting on the G's.)
There were also lists of slang for San Quentin, shooting craps ("Ada from Decatur" for eights, "Little Josie" for four.) and pickpockets ("Hanger binging" is stealing things from a woman's purse without taking the purse. Presumably while hanging from a strap in the subway.)
Which inevitably brings us to:
Write a Chandlerian Simile
Here I'll prime the pump...
"She had eyes harder than...."
DavidS - Mar 07, 2007 12:44:01 pm PST #2020 of 28175
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
::taps foot impatiently:: C'mon slackers.
"She had eyes harder than Karl Rove's heart."
"She had eyes harder than Chinese calculus." (a venerable old trope)
"She had eyes harder than an untenured English professor at a small state university." (to steal from myself)
"She had eyes harder than..."
Connie Neil - Mar 07, 2007 12:47:38 pm PST #2021 of 28175
brillig
"She had eyes harder than the ancient gum petrifying under the movie house seats."
Strega - Mar 07, 2007 12:49:20 pm PST #2022 of 28175
[Dragging the concept over from Natter...]
She had eyes harder than Prince's guitar neck.
Connie Neil - Mar 07, 2007 12:50:04 pm PST #2023 of 28175
brillig
To go for the crudity . . .
She had eyes harder than what was in my pants.
P.M. Marc - Mar 07, 2007 12:50:50 pm PST #2024 of 28175
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear
Sigh.
"She had eyes harder than the Hope Diamond, and a history twice as cursed."
Strega - Mar 07, 2007 12:52:29 pm PST #2025 of 28175
She had eyes harder than last year's fruitcake.
Connie Neil - Mar 07, 2007 12:52:39 pm PST #2026 of 28175
brillig
Nice one, Plei.