Random
Comment: Easy there Bernhard, it’s as easy as ‘Enter’ then ‘Tab’…
Thus far, Justin RM has garnered 2 “people liked” for his quick response to Kyle Minor’s admittingly Bernhard-esque sans ¶ break post. Minor has an MFA in Literature, and obviously knows how to indent; he was simply employing a denseness in aid of the compulsive quality of the post, a rhetorical compulsion that operates as sentiment/endearment towards the book under review. Justin’s comment is witty, but does things which bother me: 1) he name drops a non-mainstream esteemed author to establish himself as one of the initiated, 2) he uses “easy there,” a phrase commonly used at/with/for a horse, dog, or some unconstrained wild animal, 3) he ends with the ever ominous ellipses, as if he could go on, but won’t, because, well, he’s not an impulsive uncontrollable hog, unlike Minor; and finally, 4) he uses “easy” twice, splitting the effect of that word in half, with no ear for alliteration.
Justin’s comment pairs well with gorgonzola on wonder bread, for one wonders if it’s the cheese, or if Justin just removed his shoes.
Jimmy, if 2 people hadn’t clicked that they liked the comment, would it have been as irritating? I saw it before it was liked and just felt disappointed that the first response to Kyle’s nice review was so blah.
I’d add a 5th annoyance to your list — if you hit “tab” in a text field online, you’ll lose the cursor. I assume Justin RM knows this though.
This is the first time yet I’ve seen an article written about someone’s comment. Perhaps you ought to write about why the comment has gotten under your skin?
Hmm… .
I think if you can say that recognizing a text’s similarity with an obscure author (as opposed to one not-so-obscure, eh?) is an act of self-agrandizement… then so is borrowing characteristics of other people’s style when you write (especially, I suppose, a more-or-less not-so-well-known author): and I certainly don’t fault Kyle Minor for this. So… lest this get out of hand and we’re all accusing one another of lack of virtue: let’s cut it out.
In short: relax, man. This doesn’t seem characteristic of you… but then, I haven’t been here long, so who am I to say? (shrug)
*sips*
my irritations in general are autonomous
finally the sheriff is back in town to lay low some wayward gunslingers/shitslingers.
jimmy = john wayne
htmlgiant = rio bravo
you relax bro. “sommelier says,” somewhat defunct, was a feature at htmlgiant that i’m revamping; it’s meant to be jokey
and htmlgiant continues its recursive abuse
What kind of stink does Gorgonzola breed? Were you going for Limburger or Roquefort, I wonder.
Jimmy,
I was going to give a long and detailed analysis of your comment–and use words that would show you that I’ll be pursuing a Master’s in philosophy very soon. And I was going to say something almost apologetic by wondering out-loud why it is that I felt the need [as the first commenter] to lay a brown-ass-stink-turd within three-to-five inches of Kyle Minor’s chunk of text. But then I realized that that would be a lot of work. And I suppose the best explanation I can give you is that I am tall, semi-ugly, and have fuzzy hair.
Being tall is okay. But combined with the hair it hurts. I can comb it and use shampoo that has organic botanicals, et cetera. But it stays fuzzy. Always fuzzy. I don’t know why. (I can’t cut it because my ears are big and kids used to call me “Dumbo” on the playground. The trauma.) On top of this: I’m kind of ugly. Not, like, “god damn that dude is ugly!” ugly. Just slightly below average. We’ll just say: below average. Kind of like, “well, he’s not good looking, but he’s a nice guy so that makes up for it” ugly.
So I suppose all of these features of who I am coalesced and produced something that annoyed you: the Bernhard comment. Well, okay, but the important thing to remember is this: my feet don’t stink. My-feet-do-not-stink-god-damn-you! As a tall guy with fuzzy hair that is passably ugly: I have nothing else. And you don’t have the god damned right to take that away from me.
Anyways: This was entertaining. And it made my day. Thanks.
re cursive, your best bet would have been to italicize that
i didn’t know html was enabled in comments
check this out motherfucker!
WHOOOAAAA
In addition to Bernhard, there was seven other major unacknowledged influences in the blog post about The Orange Eats Creeps, which wasn’t really a review so much as it was a category of consumer advocacy I want to call an “enthusiasm.” If anyone can correctly name all seven major unacknowledged influences in addition to Bernhard, I will send them copies of Bernhard’s Correction plus one copy each of a major work of all the other writers.
I need a copy editor. There “were” seven, and I will send them “a copy.” Contest ends at midnight. Not valid in Florida, Nebraska, Argentina, or the moon.
Whoops, missed that. Sorry.
Sigh… joke’s on me.
first explain yourself comes back, and now sommelier says rises from the dead? good things are happening here.
yes!
What if recursive meant writing something in cursive again.
What is everyone sucked here but Jimmy C had the cord to the vacuum?
Jimmy,
I was going to give a long and detailed analysis of your comment–and use words that would show you that I’ll be pursuing a Master’s in philosophy very soon. And I was going to say something almost apologetic by wondering out-loud why it is that I felt the need [as the first commenter] to lay a brown-ass-stink-turd within three-to-five inches of Kyle Minor’s chunk of text. But then I realized that that would be a lot of work. And I suppose the best explanation I can give you is that I am tall, semi-ugly, and have fuzzy hair.
Being tall is okay. But combined with the hair it hurts. I can comb it and use shampoo that has organic botanicals, et cetera. But it stays fuzzy. Always fuzzy. I don’t know why. (I can’t cut it because my ears are big and kids used to call me “Dumbo” on the playground. The trauma.) On top of this: I’m kind of ugly. Not, like, “god damn that dude is ugly!” ugly. Just slightly below average. We’ll just say: below average. Kind of like, “well, he’s not good looking, but he’s a nice guy so that makes up for it” ugly.
So I suppose all of these features of who I am coalesced and produced something that annoyed you: the Bernhard comment. Well, okay, but the important thing to remember is this: my feet don’t stink. My-feet-do-not-stink-god-damn-you! As a tall guy with fuzzy hair that is passably ugly: I have nothing else. And you don’t have the god damned right to take that away from me.
Anyways: This was entertaining. And it made my day. Thanks.
And I tempt to fuel the argument fires once more by “liking” Justin RM’s comment directly above.
actual “italics” is a bit angular to be called cursive.
(and let me recommend y’all try it, with a real, uh, you know, pointy implement those long things, pen or pencil — italics is easy, fast, and much more legible than any other script. up-down-up-down-up-down.)
(Post-post, oops i apologize, no one likes a fop to pick apart their puns!)
I have no idea what that means, but I’m gonna take umbrage, anyhow.
Gosh, just seven? I found:
Donald Barthelme (father-authority stuff)
Classical Greek Drama (chorus of voices)
Woody Allen (Manhattan)
Alfred Kazin (I went out to look at the city… walking the sidewalk)
David Lynch/Twin Peaks (a cup of coffee… in the coffee shop)
Ghandhi (I held strong to my resistance)
Franz Kafka (The Methamphetamine)
Emily Dickinson (slant)
Charlie Chaplin (“the tramp code”…. park bench)
Jeffrey Eugenides (“the dead girls”)
Peter Finch/Network (what I ought to do right away was get up out of my chair… and tell everyone how they ought….)
The Wizard of Oz (a vivid dream… in black-and-white… change the dream into color)
Alice in Wonderland (if I pass through a side door somewhere just behind me and to my left… but this time I could not find the door)
Tom Wolfe/Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (“Microbes living on the little pebbles are supposed to make you psychic”)
Mr Chen, your post is 2/4’s weird as fuck, and 4/2’s hilarious.
420 -4- life.
Mimi: You’ve laid bare not only my entire writing process but also the lie at the center of all contemporary literature!
Huh, that is deeper than anything I might have thunk up, and certainly not my intention.
I think what I (inadvertently) revealed is a truth near the center of my reading experiences.
players’re tired. players hate how players inherit the obligation to “play” after any snark players read, to mock the commenter, with her or his inherent playfulness, for seeking to exploit such playfulness. point-scoring is opinion rhetorically veiled as truth, that’s all. on a blog, it’s not even point-scoring, but…a blogoma. players’re tired.