Comments on: Testing, Testing: One, Two Three

By: Matt Blankman

Matt Blankman — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 02:18:00 +0000

“It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”

By: Mr OK Jazz Tokyo

Mr OK Jazz Tokyo — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 01:02:21 +0000

[2] Amazing, and neatly sums up V.S. Naipaul’s view of the world. He’s a phenomenal writer who also has very questionable attitudes towards race, religion and equality of thew sexes. A titan but a deeply flawed one.

First Lines: ‘Shammy cleaning all the windows,
Singing songs about Edith Piaf’s soul.’ Van Morrison, ‘Sain’t Dominic’s Preview’.

By: Sliced Bread

Sliced Bread — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 20:16:17 +0000

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 19:47:45 +0000

I can’t get no satisfaction.

By: Sliced Bread

Sliced Bread — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 19:35:25 +0000

My favorite is:

“Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John.”

The opening line of Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle,” in which he let’s you know off the bat this book is the “Moby Dick” for wiseasses. The opening line, and entire story knocked my socks off as a teenager.

By: Matt Blankman

Matt Blankman — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:27:21 +0000

And of course:
“You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.”

By: Matt Blankman

Matt Blankman — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:24:42 +0000

I thought of the HST immediately and of course, there it was.

By: GaryfromChevyChase

GaryfromChevyChase — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 17:29:48 +0000

“I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I telt you, he’s the one. Or at least as close as we’re going to get.”

Or, “Cal me Ishmael.”

Or, of course, “It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

By: Bluenatic

Bluenatic — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 17:05:12 +0000

“On Sunday, the eleventh of November, 196-, while sitting at the bar of the New Parrot Restaurant in my home town, Watertown, New York, awaiting the telecast of the New York Giants-Dallas Cowboys football game, I had what, at the time, I took to be a heart attack.”

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 15:59:03 +0000

“The world it was it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.” A Bend in the River.

By: RIYank

RIYank — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 15:45:37 +0000

To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.