Funny stuff!
Posted on 07/30/2003 5:54:25 AM PDT by rhema
They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white . . . Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn't taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would have you believe it does by coloring it differently.
Ms. Mariann Simms
Wetumpka, AL
The wife of an Air Force retiree, the mother of an eight-year-old daughter and a fifteen-year-old herpetologist son, and the doting owner of an Australian Bearded Dragon, Mariann Simms of Wetumpka, Alabama, is the winner of this year's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. When not stroking the beard of her Pogona vitticeps, she gardens, cooks, and runs an online interactive humor site, HumorMeOnline.com. Like Tony Soprano, a native of New Jersey, she has lived in Alabama since her husband was stationed there thirteen years ago. Besides becoming a household name, she will receive the contest's traditional prize, a pittance.
An international literary parody contest, the competition honors the memory if not the reputation of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), who has just enjoyed his bicentennial. The goal of the contest is childishly simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Although best known for The Last Days of Pompeii (1834) and the phrase, "the pen is mightier than the sword," Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, "It was a dark and stormy night."
The contest began in 1982 as a quiet campus affair, attracting only three submissions. This response being a thunderous success by academic standards, the contest went public the following year and ever since has attracted thousands of annual entries from all over the world.
Runner-Up:
The flock of geese flew overhead in a "V" formation - not in an old-fashioned-looking Times New Roman kind of a "V", branched out slightly at the two opposite arms at the top of the "V", nor in a more modern-looking, straight and crisp, linear Arial sort of "V" (although since they were flying, Arial might have been appropriate), but in a slightly asymmetric, tilting off-to-one-side sort of italicized Courier New-like "V" - and LaFonte knew that he was just the type of man to know the difference.
John Dotson (U.S. Naval Officer)
Arlington, VA
Grand Panjandrum's Special Prize:
Colin grabbed the switchgear and slammed the spritely Vauxhall Vixen into a lower gear as he screamed through the roundabout heading toward the familiar pink rowhouse in Puking-On-The-Wold, his mind filled with the image of his comely Olive, dressed in some lacy underthing, waiting on the couch with only a smile and a cucumber sandwich, hoping that his lunch hour would provide sufficient time for both a naughty little romp and a digestive biscuit.
Randy Groom
Visalia, CA
Winner: "All Creatures Great and Small" Category:
His knowing brown eyes held her gaze for a seeming eternity, his powerful arms clasped her slim body in an irresistible embrace, and from his broad, hairy chest a primal smell of "male" tantalized her nostrils; "Looks like another long night in the ape house" thought veterinarian Abigail Brown as she gingerly reached for the constipated gorilla's suppository.
Paul Jeffery
Oxford, England
Winner: Adventure
It wasn't the desolate remoteness of the campsite that bothered him, or even the terrifying roar of the rapids beating themselves against solid granite below, so much as the eerie sound of pigs squealing in the distance and the fact that, in this light, cousin Billy looked disturbingly like Ned Beatty.
Cindy Erickson Gilman
Mission Viejo, CA
Runner-Up:
On the fourth day of his exploration of the Amazon, Byron climbed out of his inner tube, checked the latest news on his personal digital assistant (hereafter PDA) outfitted with wireless technology, and realized that the gnawing he felt in his stomach was not fear--no, he was not afraid, rather elated--nor was it tension--no, he was actually rather relaxed--so it was in all probability a parasite.
Chuck Keelan
Stern Stewart
New York
Children's Literature:
The Prince looked down at the motionless form of Sleeping Beauty, wondering how her supple lips would feel against his own and contemplating whether or not an Altoid was strong enough to stand up against the kind of morning breath only a hundred year's nap could create.
Lynne Sella
Susanville, CA
(Excerpt) Read more at sjsu.edu ...
Standing in the concessions car of the Orient Express as it hissed and lurched away from the station, Special Agent Chu could feel enemy eyes watching him from the inky shadows and knew that he was being tested, for although he had never tasted a plug of tobacco in his life, he was impersonating an arms dealer known to be a connoisseur, so he knew that he, the Chosen One, Chow Chu, had no choice but to choose the choicest chew on the choo-choo.
regards
Brad Jolly
Longmont, CO
Groan.
SD
The Chancellor's knuckles grew white, his smirk broadened to wrap around the sides of his Palpatine face as he squeezed his fists, his hands poised above the keyboard, preparing to slash and burn the thread at his vicitmized discussion website, doing what the Chancellor did best, condescend.
Still, I think your best audience is right here. Given the statistics I've seen on politically monolithic faculties, I wonder if there are any university English professors capable of rendering an objective judgment on Bulwer-Lytton entries that treat liberal icons with less than adoring deference.
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