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  • The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."
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April 30, 2004

word theatre PROGRAM

word theatre, which will now fill the vacancy left by the departing Spoken Interludes, has announced a Mother's Day program which includes:

Billy Campbell (Once and Again, Enough) reading Tobias Wolff's Firelight

Judy Geeson (Mad About You,To Sir With Love) reading William Trevor's Gilbert's Mother

Julianna Margulies (E.R., Evelyn) reading Mona Simpson's Admissions

Taylor Negron (So Little Time, The Hughleys) reading an original story, My Mother

Visit the wordtheatre site for details about this and other programs.

Posted by TEV at 12:22 AM |

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» word theater from L.A. Brain Terrain
Hey, all is not lost. Just as Spoken Interludes shuts down and decamps East, we learn, via The Elegant Variation, that w o r d t h e a t r e is alive and kicking with its ... [Read More]

Tracked on May 05, 2004 at 10:42 AM

Comments

Don't forget McLean Stevenson reading Robert Louis Stevenson. Sorry--Spinal Tap is my life.

Posted by: Jimmy Beck | April 30, 2004 at 10:34 AM

It's a very thin line between clever and stupid ...

Posted by: TEV | April 30, 2004 at 11:19 AM

Hello, my name is Cora Smilkovich and I am the founder of a new nonprofit art center in Davison MI called the "Art Cafe". I started this grassroots organization with a group of local artists in December 2003. Our goal is to be a creative outlet for both able bodied and outsider artists to develop, maintain and facilitate art/media projects with an outreach component. We offer a "Word Theatre " program too and it provides opportunities for self and cultural expression through a variety of mediums including creating artwork, music/spoken word performances, play writing and conflict resolution plays. Performances will take place at the Art Cafe and local stores that will host youth performances. If you would like to schedule a reading then contact us with the subject "Word Theatre" at: staff@artcafeonline.org.
Short stories read at word theatre must be approved by our selected committee. We are looking for pieces that run approximately 15 minutes when read aloud. If you represent a writer and would like to talk about scheduling him or her for a reading during a book tour feel free to contact us.

Posted by: Cora | March 09, 2005 at 12:49 AM

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