The Elegant Variation: IT'S ALL TRUE

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March 02, 2005

IT'S ALL TRUE

We normally resist the siren's call of these memes, but Lizzie has taken her inimitable shot at Terry's "Ten Things I've Done That You Haven't (Nyah nyah)", and we felt inspired to troll the memory banks this morning. In no particular order:

Played Paul McCartney in a Beatles sound alike band
Severed Achilles tendon while killing a fly.
Spent three childhood summers at sleepaway camp in Hungary.
Ridden a three-hour spinning class
Spent $575 for a ten-course dinner in a 3-Michelin-star restaurant in Paris.
Met Paul McCartney – twice
Had an affair with a 35-year-old woman at the age of 17.
Been interviewed on NPR
Have been kicked out of college
Snuck in after dark to Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West in Phoenix.

Posted at 09:54 AM | Permalink

Comments

The only thing I've done is pose as a 35 year old women outside of high schools.

Posted by: Lola | March 02, 2005 at 10:22 AM

That three hour spinning class bodes well....

Posted by: Old Hag | March 02, 2005 at 10:25 AM

Mark, we need a little more detail on some of those...heh.

Here's my list for anyone interested:

http://bobsassone.typepad.com/bob_sassone/2005/02/things_ive_done.html

Posted by: Bob Sassone | March 02, 2005 at 11:22 AM

Wanker.

Posted by: Jim Ruland | March 02, 2005 at 11:43 AM

What was the restaurant? :)

Posted by: Justine Musk | March 02, 2005 at 01:51 PM

It was called Arpege; it's the 7eme arrondissment, near the Rodin Museum. And "Lola," I should have mentioned that said affair took place in Paris.

Posted by: TEV | March 02, 2005 at 02:04 PM

Does MOTEV know all of this?

Posted by: Annette | March 02, 2005 at 02:13 PM

Who do you think TOOK me to Paris??

Posted by: TEV | March 02, 2005 at 02:18 PM

Hmmmph. All the way to Paris to round up desparate Sallys looking for love? What do you think closing time at the bar on Valentine's day is for? Good on you for getting MOTEV to fund the escapade, though.

Posted by: Lola | March 02, 2005 at 02:44 PM

I sneaked (NOT snuck) over the wall into Highgate Cemetary in London after dark to see Karl Marx' grave--and went into the wrong Highgate across the road. (If you remember, a famous movie star took flowers.)

Posted by: John Shannon | March 02, 2005 at 07:06 PM

Tell us where and when with the Liverpudlian ( probably not the femme d'un certain age, though). For the record, I once sang 'Endless Love' ( the couple's request, not a regular tune) at a wedding service.(Or as I call it, Endless Sluv). You don't say no when you're a 20 y.o. student with no regular income.

Posted by: genevieve | March 02, 2005 at 09:42 PM

Can totally relate on the Beatles thing. There's an incriminating tape somewhere of a scrawny, shirtless nineteen year old version of me singing "Riders on the Storm" in a band I was in. It went on for about 27 minutes and turned into a strange speed metal version of the Doors.

Posted by: Ed | March 02, 2005 at 10:22 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

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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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*Now in Paperback*

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SECOND LOOK

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Penelope Fitzgerald's second novel is the tale of Florence Green, a widow who seeks, in the late 1950s, to bring a bookstore to an isolated British town, encountering all manner of obstacles, including incompetent builders, vindictive gentry, small minded bankers, an irritable poltergeist, but, above all, a town that might not, in fact, want a bookshop. Fitzgerald's prose is spare but evocative – there's no wasted effort and her work reminds one of Hemingway's dictum that every word should fight for its right to be on the page. Florence is an engaging creation, stubbornly committed to her plan even as uncertainty regarding the wisdom of the enterprise gnaws at her. But The Bookshop concerns itself, finally, with the astonishing vindictiveness of which provincials are capable, and, as so much English fiction must, it grapples with the inevitabilities of class. It's a dense marvel at 123 pages, a book you won't want to – or be able to – rush through.
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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

March 02, 2005

IT'S ALL TRUE

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

March 02, 2005

IT'S ALL TRUE

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism