[Editors] Oh, fellow editors and writers--another good writing source

Wed Sep 23 10:41:06 EDT 2009

Done! (Nice thing about adding pubs to my aggregator: it's as easily  
as adding a URL to a Google spreadsheet.)

If anyone wants tips on how to aggregate related website content--say,  
different MIT publications--into a single feed and post the results  
for others to use, I'm happy to help.

Andrew Whitacre
Communications Manager
Comparative Media Studies & Center for Future Civic Media
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(617) 324-0490
awhit at mit.edu

On Sep 23, 2009, at 9:33 AM, Nancy DuVergne Smith wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> My vote for a little dose of good writing and thinking is Arts &  
> Letters Daily, compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education
> http://www.aldaily.com/. And it’s even education-related…
>
> nancy
>
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: editors-bounces at MIT.EDU [mailto:editors-bounces at MIT.EDU] On  
> Behalf Of Andrew Whitacre
> Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 1:07 PM
> To: Scott Campbell
> Cc: editors at mit.edu
> Subject: Re: [Editors] Oh, fellow editors and writers, take a break  
> for this one...
>
> In case this thread has anyone fearing for the future, know that  
> there's a great way to find good new writing while being totally  
> lazy: http://readsfeed.com. It's a site I built recently to make it  
> easier for me to find newly posted fiction. Works both as the site  
> itself, as an RSS feed (http://readsfeed.com/feed/) and even as a  
> Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/readsfeed).
>
> If anyone has suggestions for more publications to include, let me  
> know!
>
> Andrew Whitacre
> Communications Manager
> Comparative Media Studies & Center for Future Civic Media
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
> (617) 324-0490
> awhit at mit.edu
>
> On Sep 22, 2009, at 12:47 PM, Scott Campbell wrote:
>
>
> 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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