[Editors] Oh, fellow editors and writers, take a break for this one...

Tue Sep 22 12:47:49 EDT 2009

Here are few more to tickle you.  The first four are from this year's  
winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Contest. The last one, and surely the  
best, is from The Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy, without question  
the worst writer currently working in the English language.

Here's the grand prize winner from the contest:

Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full  
moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east  
and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the  
awful screams of the crew of the “Ellie May," a sturdy whaler  
Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the  
rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men  
on deck for the first of several screaming contests.
David McKenzie
Federal Way, WA

And here are some dishonorable mentions:

In a flurry of flame and fur, fangs and wicker, thus ended the  
world's first and only hot air baboon ride.
Tony Alfieri
Los Angeles, CA

Without warning, their darting tongues entwined, like a couple of  
nightcrawlers fresh from the baitshop--their moist, twisting bodies  
finally snapping apart, not unlike an old man's muddy galosh being  
yanked away from his patent leather shoe.
Matt Dennison
Erie, PA

The gutters of Manhattan teemed with the brackish slurry indicative  
of a significant though not incapacitating snowstorm three days  
prior, making it seem that God had tripped over Hoboken and spilled  
his smog-flavored slurpie all over the damn place.
Eric Stoveken
Allentown, PA

And finally, in a purple flurry, our boy Pat:

I looked up and saw my father shaking my mother, her eyes brimming  
with tears, with humiliation. I never loved anyone as much as I loved  
her at that moment. I looked at my father, his back to me, and I felt  
the creation of hate in one of the soul's dark porches, felt it  
scream out its birth in a black forbidden ecstasy.

Who knew the soul had PORCHES?  And not just one, but SEVERAL!

A friend of mine says that his soul actually has a very nice gazebo,  
thank you very much.
______________________________________

Scott Campbell
Director of Communications
MIT School of Architecture + Planning
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge MA 02139
Mail: MIT 7-231 .  Office: MIT 9-422

On Sep 22, 2009, at 11:17 AM, Teresa Hill wrote:

> Thanks a lot, Nancy. Now I'm guffawing in my office and passersby are
> looking at me funny. Funnier than ususal. Terry
>
> Nancy DuVergne Smith wrote:
>>
>> Hi all
>>
>> This is passed-on Internet humor…just makes you love our trade,
>>
>> Nancy
>>
>> *Subject:* FW: *Analogies Written by High School Students***
>>
>> 1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides
>> gently compressed by a ThighMaster.
>> 2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances
>> like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
>> 3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience,  
>> like a
>> guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without  
>> one of
>> those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country
>> speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar
>> eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
>> 4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was
>> room-temperature Canadian beef.
>> 5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog  
>> makes
>> just before it throws up.
>> 6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
>> 7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.< /div>
>> 8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated
>> because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a
>> surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
>> 9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
>> bowling ball wouldn’t.
>> 10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag
>> filled with vegetable soup.
>> 11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an
>> eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city
>> and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
>> 12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
>> 13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when
>> you fry them in hot grease.
>> 14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced  
>> across
>> the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one  
>> having
>> left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from  
>> Topeka
>> at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
>> 15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences
>> that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
>> 16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who
>> had also never met.
>> 17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was
>> the East River.
>> 18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap,
>> only=2 0one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.
>> 19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
>> 20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike  
>> Phil,
>> this plan just might work.
>> 21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not
>> eating for a while.
>> 22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either,
>> but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land
>> mine or something.
>> 23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender
>> leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
>> 24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around
>> with power tools.
>> 25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells,
>> as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
>>
>> Nancy DuVergne Smith
>>
>> MIT Alumni Association | Editorial Director
>>
>> W98-3rd Fl | 617-253-8217 | ndsmith at mit.edu
>>
>> http://alum.mit.edu/ | Slice of MIT blog: http://alum.mit.edu/ 
>> sliceofmit
>>
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