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md
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Five mysterious miniquotes
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Dec 17 21:11 UTC 1992 |
Here are five mystery quotelets. As usual, I'm entering them from
memory, but I'm pretty sure I've got them right except for #3,
which I've never seen in print: I know it only from the author's
reading of it on an old Caedmon recording. The words about right,
but I suspect the format is not. Good luck!
1. [In answer to the question "Do you believe in God?"] I've never
told anyone this before, so I hope it gives you a salutary
little chill: I know more than I could ever express in words,
and I could not have expressed the little I have expressed if I
had not known so much more.
2. I owe all my financial success to a bit of advice my father gave me
on my twenty-first birthday. He said, "Son, here's a million
dollars. Don't lose it."
3. Obediently and now we form a dumb me sandwich, and now which moves.
Three Comrades move: Comrade Before-Me, Comrade I, Comrade Behind-
Me. Un and move and un. And always behind Comrade Behind-Me:
Num-ber-less-ness.
4. Sexual intercourse began
In 1963
(Which was rather late for me)
Between the end of the Chatterly ban
And the Beatles' first LP.
5. Back in the days when I performed my part as a keel boatman, I
made the acquaintance of a trifling little steamboat which used
to puff and wheeze about in the Sangamon River. It had a five-
foot boiler and a seven-foot whistle, and every time it whistled
the boat stopped.
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| 21 responses total. |
remmers
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response 1 of 21:
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Dec 17 21:23 UTC 1992 |
4. Ogden Nash?
5. Samuel Clemens?
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davel
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response 2 of 21:
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Dec 18 02:52 UTC 1992 |
Twain on the Sangamon? And it strikes me as a bit late for Nash, but other-
wise reasonable. But I'll ***guess*** X. J. Kennedy for 4. Other than that
I have no ideas right off. Er ... 3. cummings?
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remmers
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response 3 of 21:
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Dec 18 11:30 UTC 1992 |
Where *is* the Sangamon River?
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rcurl
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response 4 of 21:
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Dec 18 15:21 UTC 1992 |
Its a mediocre river in Illinois, tributary to the Illinois River. It
flows past Lincoln, IL.
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md
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response 5 of 21:
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Dec 18 16:17 UTC 1992 |
#3 is e.e. cummings. It's from the "Lenin's Tomb" episode
in his book EIMI.
#4 is neither Ogden Nash nor X.J. Kennedy.
#5 is not Clemens.
One down, four to go!
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davel
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response 6 of 21:
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Dec 18 19:36 UTC 1992 |
Ah yes. I was thinking less literally or that would have been easy.
That one was really an afterthought.
I don't suppose #5 is Edgar Lee Masters. I really don't know anything
biographical ...
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md
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response 7 of 21:
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Dec 18 21:42 UTC 1992 |
Hints:
They're all dead white males. Two of them were murdered, the
others died of natural causes.
Quote #1 is from an interview in Playboy magazine. The interviewer
who asked the question "Do you believe in God?" was Alvin Toffler,
before he became famous as the author of _Future Shock_.
The author of quote #4 was an Englishman who was offered the
position of Poet Laureate and turned it down. When asked why he'd
refused this coveted honor, he answered: "I wake up screaming."
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remmers
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response 8 of 21:
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Dec 18 23:16 UTC 1992 |
I don't suppose #5 could be Abraham Lincoln? He did have some connection
with Sangamo County and the Sangamon River, and he's a murdered white
male.
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davel
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response 9 of 21:
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Dec 18 23:20 UTC 1992 |
(Tongue firmly in cheek, as it misses on *almost* everything:)
1. Jimmy Carter
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davel
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response 10 of 21:
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Dec 19 14:06 UTC 1992 |
I mentioned these to Grace, & she also came up with Lincoln as a possibility
for #5.
To take flying leaps at a couple:
1. Alfred Hitchcock. (*Purely* on diction.)
2. JFK. (Purely as murdered WM wealthy by inheritance.)
I tracked down the selection from EIMI; it's in _i: six nonlectures_, page
101 of the book form ... I too heard the record, in around 1967 or 1968
in my HS library. The eccentric typography would have been a giveaway to
a lot more of us, Michael:
...Obediently and now we form a dumb me-sandwich. & now which,moves
3 comrades move;comrade before me(comrade I)comrade behind me...un-...and
move...and un-...and always(behind comrade behind me)numb-erl-ess-ness
Nice, Michael - I tried EIMI (BTW this is Greek for "am") and found it
entirely impenetrable & gave up. But nonetheless his impressions of the
USSR (at a time when many intellectuals visited & came back extolling
paradise on earth) are compelling and appear to hindsight to be very
perceptive. There's also a poem:
kumrads die because they're told)
kumrads die before they're old
(kumrads aren't afraid to die
kumrads don't
and kumrads won't
believe in life)and death knows whie
(all good kumrads you can tell
by their altruistic smell
moscow pipes good kumrads dance)
kumrads enjoy
s.freud knows whoy
the hope that you may mess your pance
every kumrad is a bit
of quite unmitigated hate
(travelling in a futile groove
god knows why)
and so do i
(because they are afraid to love
***********************************
(from _no thanks_, 1935)
Sorry for the long drift, folks
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aa8ij
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response 11 of 21:
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Dec 20 00:17 UTC 1992 |
re 3. Springfield IL
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davel
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response 12 of 21:
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Dec 20 01:42 UTC 1992 |
Well, it's a few other places around there too. (Grace is from Decatur,
halfway between Springfield and Champaign. "Central Illinois" is more
like it. (But I don't really know where it comes from before that.)
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md
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response 13 of 21:
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Dec 21 16:56 UTC 1992 |
Good guesses, all. The "bingos" so far: #2 is John F. Kennedy, #3
is e.e. cummings, and #5 is Abraham Lincoln.
That leaves #1 and #4.
Quote #1 does sound like Hitchcock, doesn't it? The author was
sometimes compared to Hitchcock (whom he greatly admired) because,
among other similarities, he liked to make secret personal
appearances in his novels. He was very much in vogue from about
1960 on. He even made the cover of Time magazine in 1968 or 1969.
His reputation declined somewhat after his death. In the same
interview the quote is from, he seemed to foresee this decline:
"With the devil's connivance, I turn to the books page from 2015
and find, 'Nobody reads _______ or Fulmerford anymore.' Awful
question: Who is this unfortunate Fulmerford?"
#4 was a well-known quote, I thought, so if no one's guessing the
author it must mean he's not as well-known as I thought. He wrote
another poem that began: "They fuck you up, your mum and dad."
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jdg
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response 14 of 21:
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Dec 23 18:20 UTC 1992 |
Forseeing a decline? That quote in 13 sounds like Heinlein. But the
first quote (#1) in 0 doesn't. Hmm..
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keats
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response 15 of 21:
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Dec 25 14:56 UTC 1992 |
well, my little seasonal gift is to keep this item going by admitting that
i know the answer to #4 is philip larkin.
that just leaves #1 for some enterprising mind...
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davel
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response 16 of 21:
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Dec 25 23:04 UTC 1992 |
Wonder what Lincoln's point was on #5. It's the kind of anecdote he liked,
but he usually didn't waste them.
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md
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response 17 of 21:
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Dec 28 22:17 UTC 1992 |
Philip Larkin is right, keats, you slyboots.
I think Lincoln was cautioning his staff about inappropriate boasting.
Everyone give up on #1?
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keats
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response 18 of 21:
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Dec 29 03:11 UTC 1992 |
no, give me a bit of time to think about it...you've given us some very useful
clues...
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davel
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response 19 of 21:
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Jan 9 22:22 UTC 1993 |
Well?????
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md
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response 20 of 21:
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Jan 12 14:32 UTC 1993 |
Vladimir Nabokov
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keats
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response 21 of 21:
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Jan 21 02:06 UTC 1993 |
oops. i hadn't been back to writing in a while.
i can't exactly say i'm stunned that md used a
nabokov quote, though...
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