August 20th, 2012 / 3:17 pm
 Snippets
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what is the last thing you felt surprised by that you remember, i need to know

24 Comments

  1. August 20th, 2012 / 3:21 pm Ethan—
  2. August 20th, 2012 / 3:33 pm Adam Robinson—

      Molly Ringwald’s lips seem really big, and she looks like she’s 17.

  3. August 20th, 2012 / 3:38 pm Ethan—

      htmlly Ringwaldiant

  4. August 20th, 2012 / 3:42 pm Bobby Dixon—

      That Denis Johnson is not Dennis Johnson.

      Also, the ‘McSweeney’ connection.

  5. August 20th, 2012 / 3:44 pm Jacob Wren—

      An overwhelming feeling of absolute failure. (Happens almost every day and I’m always equally surprised by it.)

  6. August 20th, 2012 / 4:17 pm Trey—

      something in the movie Moon, maybe? I remember watching some movie recently and audibly gasping at one point, but can’t remember exactly what thing in what movie

  7. August 20th, 2012 / 4:19 pm Trey—

      or was it in a graphic novel? I can’t remember. graphic novels I’ve read recently include the Essex County trilogy, Ghost World (I don’t think it was this), V for Vendetta, Lost at Sea, and I don’t know what else

  8. August 20th, 2012 / 4:21 pm Alban Fischer—

      hipster ass

  9. August 20th, 2012 / 4:43 pm A D Jameson—

      Theodoros Angelopoulos died on 24 January of this year and no one told me; I learned only yesterday due to an offhanded comment in The New Yorker.

  10. August 20th, 2012 / 5:28 pm sam salvador—

      always forget that when i read ‘i need to know,’ my brain then repeats the phrase, followed by ‘tell me baby girl cause i need to know’

  11. August 20th, 2012 / 5:29 pm Kristin Randolph-Pepsi Hayter—

      i took my cat outside and the further i carried her from the house the harder her obese gut trembled with terror against my heartcage. when we got back to the house she splayed out on the wood floor like a distended bear rug with PTSD and she stayed there all night real quiet.

  12. August 20th, 2012 / 7:15 pm Emma Rayward—

      The trailer for Survive Style 5+
      My heart went plop, 10 seconds in.

  13. August 20th, 2012 / 8:03 pm krysbeau—

      Saw the “machine elf” hallucinatory creatures right after thinking to myself that I must have smoked the DMT “wrong”.

  14. August 20th, 2012 / 8:14 pm John Minichillo—

      After my best year of writing to date, I wasn’t rehired at my former institution, to teach writing, because, I was told, I was more interested in writing than teaching writing. Also surprised to land a similar job two weeks later at a sister institution. Life is weird, I’m really lucky, and I won’t forget that worthless feeling for a long long time.

  15. August 20th, 2012 / 9:12 pm shaun gannon—

      i remember the last time i was surprised that i woke up

  16. August 20th, 2012 / 10:52 pm Charles Hale—

      surprised that html giant didn’t mention when Harry Crews died.

  17. August 21st, 2012 / 11:21 am A D Jameson—

      It’s too bad that movie isn’t better than it is.

  18. August 21st, 2012 / 11:22 am A D Jameson—

      It surprised me, too.

  19. August 21st, 2012 / 12:43 pm deadgod—

      It was surprising to me, too–until I learned of the backstory (Scott had inoperable brain cancer, according to broadcast-network news (?)).

      That’s an interesting distinction: between what’s surprising ’til one learns enough of the story, and what’s intrinsically surprising or somehow defiant of anticipation.

  20. August 21st, 2012 / 12:46 pm deadgod—

      The President of United States of America is black?!

  21. August 21st, 2012 / 10:24 pm Brooks Sterritt—

      the new Disqus

  22. August 22nd, 2012 / 2:17 am Taylor Napolsky—

      Batman comics. These things are surprisingly good.

  23. August 22nd, 2012 / 9:43 am deadgod—

      I responded on this minithread yesterday but the comment vanished – I’ll try again.

      I was surprised by Scott’s suicide, too — not in particular, as I don’t know much about him except what makes the celebrity ‘news’, but because suicide is generally at least a bit of a shock.

      –but as I learned of his inoperable brain cancer (?) – now disputed by his family (?) – the surprise melts away into distanced understanding.

      This mutation of surprise raises the interesting question of “surprise”: what is the difference between startlement that’s normalized (or ‘familiarized’) by contextual information – or routinized into normality (or familiarity) – and ‘surprise’ that’s intrinsically surprising, that resists or defies normalization or familiarization or reasonable anticipation? Is there such a thing as ‘real’, persistent surprise?

  24. August 30th, 2012 / 3:09 am megan boyle—

      felt surprised to read this, have 3 recent “unable to be surprised” themed tweet drafts