&;-)
Posted on 07/16/2002 4:27:18 AM PDT by 2Trievers
A word-puzzle creator has won the 21st annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for horrible writing.
Rephah Berg, of Oakland, triumphed over thousands of entrants from around the world.
The judges at San Jose State University liked how her composition "was a combination of something atrocious and appropriate," said Scott Rice, the professor who began the contest in 1982.
The winning sentence was: "On reflection, Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet paper roll gets a little squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained."
The contest, which seeks the worst beginning to an imaginary novel, is named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, a British writer whose 1830 book "Paul Clifford" begins with the oft-mocked cliche, "It was a dark and stormy night ..."
"There are literary contests on campuses, and they're often deadly serious and end up producing some terrible writing," Rice said.
"I thought, why not be up front and honest about it and ask for bad writing from the get-go?"
Berg, who won in the detective category last year, wrote 10 entries this year. She said she could not recall her inspiration for the winner, but noted that it follows a pattern commonly found in successful Bulwer-Lytton entries.
"There's a sudden change in diction, a drop in tone," she said. "From academic prose, the style suddenly plunges into a mundane image, almost a slang tone."
Berg said she has been a copy editor for 25 years and began her career with a company that sells notes on lectures at the University of California, Berkeley.
Matthew Chambers Hambleton WV
&;-)
FR could win this award.
It was a grate and patriotic ping.....: ) ("Grate" - courtesy of Syncro.) : )
"in conclusion, I will leave you with a story about Professor Irwin Cory, a disheveled, little guy who wore a tux with tails and tennis shoes. Interviewers would ask him, “Why do you wear tennis shoes with a tuxedo?” His answer: “That’s a two part question. First is why - the perennial interrogative. That question has plagued mankind since time immemorial. The greatest philosophers of every age have addressed it. They haven’t answered it. I’m not going to try. The second part of the question is, ‘Do you wear tennis shoes with your tuxedo?’ Yes!”
The day was established to have Professor Irwin Cory, who was known for his rambling, contradicting and deliberately humorous lectures and complex verbiage. Cory posed as an expert, but it was really just a joke to entertain his audiences with a stream of nonsensical gibberish.
MARRIAGE: is like a bank account. You put it in, you take it out, you lose interest.
- Professor Irwin Cory
Some quotes by Alan Greenspn today:
-"Balance sheets should balance."
-"US is more transparent than most(nations)."
-"The economy in the past 6 months follow the pattern we expected as the negative becomes less negative.
-"Let's pretend you and I are businesses. I could sell you something and you could sell it back to me and we both could make a profit. NOTHING OF SIGNIFIGANCE HAPPENED.
WORNG! BOTH STATE AND FEDERAL GOV'TS MADE MONEY ON IT IN THE FORM OF TAXES.
LOL! But I do that on purpose!!!
Something to do with breaking up monotony with humor to land a point.
;-) Oh yeah, I did do the 2000 thread on this...
And here's the 2001 thread...
BTW, did you enter this contest? : )
No, I did not enter the contest. Maybe some day I'll enter (it is my alma matter, after all). :-)
"This is a story of twin Siamese kittens, or, more specifically, of their shared appendage; it is a tail of two kitties.''
David Bubenik, Palo Alto
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