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Grex > Books > #38: Mysterious Relay Quote, Spring Edition | |
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remmers
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Mysterious Relay Quote, Spring Edition
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Mar 21 15:37 UTC 1995 |
Here's how this works. A person enters a short quote by a well-known
author. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, whatever. Other
people try to guess the author. Whoever guesses correctly gets to give
the next quote.
If people are having trouble guessing your author, you should give
hints or more quotes by the same author.
When you make a guess, it'd be nice to supply the reasoning behind it;
that way, we all learn more about literature.
There's a leftover quote from winter agora that I entered and no one has
guessed, so I'll start by reposting it with the guesses so far.
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| 214 responses total. |
remmers
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response 1 of 214:
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Mar 21 15:40 UTC 1995 |
Here's my quote, left over from winter agora:
Alice once told me that pioneer women suffered from anexoria, that
there was evidence that proved it was so. I couldn't imagine Thomas
Clausen walking up the lane from California only to find his wife
skin and bones. I was used to thinking of that first family as
long-suffering but philosophical, wise and robust. I found a
picture up in the attic of a later family, standing out in front of
the house, all of them, even the baby, looking grim as hell. I
actually don't have too much rapture about time past, although Alice
has accused me of being hopelessly sentimental. There has never
been a time of simple light. Still, I try to imagine the land for
the taking, and what it must have meant to have space for as far as
the eye can see. The Wisconsin Indians in 10,000 B.C., perhaps
sleeping right where our yard was, hunted mastodon. *Mastodon*.
They ate bison, giant beavers, caribou, and elk. It is unthinkable
now that anyone could ever have drunk out of our rivers and lakes.
I don't have the power to imagine what it must have been like. I
can't even visualize the endless prairie, the vast tracks of
woodland. I can't hold it in my mind long enough to know absolutely
what we've lost. And so the loss is magnified, knowing, as I do,
that my powers are poor, and that our world has become diminished
beyond all measure.
Guesses so far -- all incorrect -- are John McPhee, William Least Heat
Moon, and Peter Matthiesen. It's known that the author is a living
American.
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popcorn
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response 2 of 214:
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Mar 21 15:46 UTC 1995 |
This response has been erased.
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rcurl
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response 3 of 214:
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Mar 21 20:49 UTC 1995 |
There is a relation with Alice to consider.....
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wjj
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response 4 of 214:
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Mar 22 05:01 UTC 1995 |
Hmm...I was reading something by Annie Dillard this afternoon, and the style
struck me as somewhat similar to this. Unfortunately, I don't have the means
at my disposal to check if she's still alive. But, I'll guess her.
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remmers
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response 5 of 214:
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Mar 22 16:06 UTC 1995 |
She's still alive and writing. However, it's not Annie Dillard. It's
correct, though, that the author is a woman.
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remmers
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response 6 of 214:
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Mar 25 13:11 UTC 1995 |
Hm, no guesses for a couple of days. Okay, here's another quote from the
same work:
During my time in jail I wasn't always sure that Howard and I would
weather the storm, and I often tried to think what it was, a single
thing, that went deep enough to hold us. I knew that what had
brought us together in Ann Arbor was the mysterious chemical
bonding that is not rational, eyeball to eyeball, so that we both
went to our respective apartments and dreamed each other up,
yearning, never straining aginst the force that drew us right
against each other. Emma had been conceived shortly after we met,
we had bought the farm, and then Claire came along. There were
children and real estate to bind the ties. His parents, Nellie and
Walt, had had a strong union, and Howard believed, with a kind of
fervor that seemed nearly Christian, that there was a sanctity in
marriage to uphold, that the huband and wife were to make their way
through the world, shoulder to shoulder. I hadn't known anything
to speak of about marriage when we met, but I had found his
aspirations impossible to resist. Lying in the hospital bed I
thought to myself that my passion for Howard had soon been replaced
by something that was stronger than respect, or habit, or maybe
even need. It wasn't a simple connection like affinity, because
there had been periods when I felt as if I was living with a
stranger, that I didn't know or particularly like the man asleep
beside me, the man who always got up so early. There were dozens
of feelings that came to me in varying strengths as I lay still. I
recalled my affection for Howard, my admiration, the attraction I
felt to him, and the way he could take me by surprise and amuse
me. Those feelings were on the side of what I called love. On the
other side there was rage, irritation, disappointment, boredom.
Somewhere in the middle was endurance, stolid and essential as
air. I wasn't certain the group of feelings wouldn't cancel each
other out, if any of them could possibly be powerful enough to
carry me along by his side, shoulder to shoulder.
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omni
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response 7 of 214:
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Mar 25 16:58 UTC 1995 |
Oscar Wilde
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davel
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response 8 of 214:
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Mar 26 02:40 UTC 1995 |
A living American? Come on, Jim.
If the dating weren't so clearly more recent, the first quote would have
had me tempted to guess Gertrude Stein. But she's not living, & the
diction is clearly much later. I have no idea, I'm afraid. Ann Arbor,
too. Phooey.
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omni
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response 9 of 214:
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Mar 26 08:01 UTC 1995 |
I was being funny. ;)
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aruba
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response 10 of 214:
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Mar 26 19:44 UTC 1995 |
Alice Fulton?
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remmers
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response 11 of 214:
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Mar 27 12:10 UTC 1995 |
Not Alice Fulton.
Another hint: The work I'm quoting from is very recent.
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davel
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response 12 of 214:
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Mar 28 03:13 UTC 1995 |
It wouldn't be md or remmers, would it?
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remmers
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response 13 of 214:
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Mar 28 11:22 UTC 1995 |
Definitely not remmers, and it's not md unless he uses a female
pseudonym.
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md
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response 14 of 214:
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Mar 28 13:55 UTC 1995 |
Yeah, right.
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popcorn
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response 15 of 214:
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Mar 28 15:23 UTC 1995 |
This response has been erased.
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remmers
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response 16 of 214:
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Mar 29 00:32 UTC 1995 |
Nope, it's not anybody online here to the best of my knowledge.
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davel
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response 17 of 214:
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Mar 30 03:10 UTC 1995 |
My guess was somewhat serious, really! You both are capable of sounding
like that if you decide to try, IMO. I saw that the the
narrator was female, but if you'd said the author was female I missed
it - apologies if so.
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remmers
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response 18 of 214:
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Mar 30 12:03 UTC 1995 |
See response #5.
No new guesses in a while. Okay, I'll put in another quote from
this author, or some hints, later today or tomorrow if nobody gets
it by then.
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md
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response 19 of 214:
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Mar 30 13:48 UTC 1995 |
Are these quotes from a memoir? That is, did this woman
actually spend time in jail?
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remmers
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response 20 of 214:
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Mar 30 15:39 UTC 1995 |
Not as far as I know. The quotes are from a work of fiction.
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remmers
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response 21 of 214:
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Apr 2 16:00 UTC 1995 |
Hmm... no activity for three days. Not sure what hints to give. The
author is current; I'm quoting from her second novel, published in
1994; I believe it's her latest. It hit the best-seller list in Ann
Arbor, though perhaps not nationally. She's won a literary prize or
two. Here's the opening paragraph of the novel:
I used to think if you fell from grace it was more likely
than not the result of one stupendous error, or else an
unfortunate accident. I hadn't learned that it can happen
so gradually you don't lose your stomach or hurt yourself
in the landing. You don't necessarily sense the motion.
I've found it takes at least two and generally three things
to alter the course of a life: You slip around the truth
once, and then again, and one more time, and there you are,
feeling, for a moment, that it was sudden, your arrival at
the bottom of the heap.
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janc
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response 22 of 214:
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Apr 2 17:46 UTC 1995 |
The only writer I know who vaguely fits John's hints is Susan Holtzer, except
I think she has only written one book, and his quotes don't sound at all
like her. However, if she has written a second book, and I have somehow not
heard of it, and the style is very different...nah, impossible.
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remmers
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response 23 of 214:
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Apr 2 20:20 UTC 1995 |
Nope, not Susan Holtzer. Although the narrator of the novel has an
Ann Arbor connection, I don't know if our author ever lived there or
not.
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pphilipp
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response 24 of 214:
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Apr 4 15:42 UTC 1995 |
I'm not at all confident here, but I think that the hints I've seen
could all apply to Annie Proulx.
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