response 28 of 278:

Apr 1 19:46 UTC 1999

thomas pynchon?

response 30 of 278:

Apr 3 23:35 UTC 1999

seems to be a dearth of guessing.  let's try another quote from
the same work...


At this moment journalists, dandies, and idlers were all examining the
charming subject of their bet as horse-dealers examine a horse for
sale. These connoisseurs, grown old in familiarity with every form of
Parisian depravity, all men of superior talent each his own way,
equally corrupt, equally corrupting, all given over to unbridled
ambition, accustomed to assume and to guess everything, had their eyes
centered on a masked woman, a woman whom no one else could identify.
They, and certain habitual frequenters of the opera balls, could alone
recognize under the long shroud of the black domino, the hood and
falling ruff which make the wearer unrecognizable, the rounded form,
the individuality of figure and gait, the sway of the waist, the
carriage of the head--the most intangible trifles to ordinary eyes,
but to them the easiest to discern.

In spite of this shapeless wrapper they could watch the most appealing
of dramas, that of a woman inspired by a genuine passion. Were she La
Torpille, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, or Madame de Serizy, on the
lowest or highest rung of the social ladder, this woman was an
exquisite creature, a flash from happy dreams. These old young men,
like these young old men, felt so keen an emotion, that they envied
Lucien the splendid privilege of working such a metamorphosis of a
woman into a goddess. The mask was there as though she had been alone
with Lucien; for that woman the thousand other persons did not exist,
nor the evil and dust-laden atmosphere; no, she moved under the
celestial vault of love, as Raphael's Madonnas under their slender
oval glory. She did not feel herself elbowed; the fire of her glance
shot from the holes in her mask and sank into Lucien's eyes; the
thrill of her frame seemed to answer to every movement of her
companion. Whence comes this flame that radiates from a woman in love
and distinguishes her above all others? Whence that sylph-like
lightness which seems to negative the laws of gravitation? Is the soul
become ambient? Has happiness a physical effluence?

The ingenuousness of a girl, the graces of a child were discernible
under the domino. Though they walked apart, these two beings suggested
the figures of Flora and Zephyr as we see them grouped by the
cleverest sculptors; but they were beyond sculpture, the greatest of
the arts; Lucien and his pretty domino were more like the angels
busied with flowers or birds, which Gian Bellini has placed beneath
the effigies of the Virgin Mother. Lucien and this girl belonged to
the realm of fancy, which is as far above art as cause is above
effect.

response 32 of 278:

Apr 4 12:09 UTC 1999

Balzac.

response 34 of 278:

Apr 5 02:11 UTC 1999

Balzac is, indeed, correct.  From "Scenes From a Courtesan's Life".

response 36 of 278:

Apr 5 04:03 UTC 1999

Balzac's a real author?  Wow.  I just remember the line from "Music 
Man."

response 38 of 278:

Apr 6 17:23 UTC 1999

This quote is from a living American writer:

             The study -- sold as a prefabricated toolshed -- is
        eight feet by ten feet. Like a plane's cockpit, it is
        crammed with high-tech equipment. There is no quill pen
        in sight. There is a computer, a printer, and a photo-
        copying machine. My backless chair, a prie-dieu on which
        I kneel, slides under the desk; I give it a little kick
        when I leave. There is an air conditioner, a heater, and
        an electric kettle. There is a low-tech bookshelf, a
        shelf of gull and whale bones, and a bed. Under the bed
        I stow paints -- a one-pint can of yellow to touch up
        the window's trim, and five or six tubes of artists'
        oils. The study affords ample room for one. One who is
        supposed to be writing books. You can read in the space
        of a coffin, and you can write in the space of a tool-
        shed meant for mowers and spades.

response 40 of 278:

Apr 6 19:27 UTC 1999

Richard Bach?

response 42 of 278:

Apr 7 01:06 UTC 1999

I'm looking forward to finding out this one.  Nice.

response 44 of 278:

Apr 7 05:53 UTC 1999

Got me.  About all I'm reading nowadays are texts.

response 46 of 278:

Apr 7 14:41 UTC 1999

Sounds like a room description from an Infocom text adventure (except 
for the first-person statements).

response 48 of 278:

Apr 9 00:53 UTC 1999

Okay, here's more of the author's workplace description begun in
resp:38 - perhaps there are some clues here.

            I walk up here from the house every morning. The study
        and its pines, and the old summer cottages nearby, and the
        new farm just north of me, rise from an old sand dune high
        over a creeky salt marsh. From the bright lip of the dune
        I can see oyster farmers working their beds on the tidal
        flats and sailboats underway in the saltwater bay. After
        I have warmed myself standing at the crest of the dune, I
        return under the pines, enter the study, slam the door so
        the latch catches -- and then I cannot see. The green spot
        ini front of my eyes outshines everything in the shade. I
        lie on the bed and play with a bird bone until I can see
        it.
            Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a
        room with no view, so imagination can dance with memory in
        the dark. When I furnished this study seven years ago, I
        pushed the long desk against a blank wall, so I could not
        see from either window. Once, fifteen years ago, I wrote
        in a cinderblock cell over a parking lot. It overlooked a
        tar-and-gravel roof. This pine shed under the trees is not
        quite so good as the cinder-block study was, but it will
        do.
            "The beginning of wisdom," according to a West African
        proverb, "is to get you a roof."

response 50 of 278:

Apr 9 10:42 UTC 1999

Heh. Cute guess, but nope.

response 52 of 278:

Apr 9 14:20 UTC 1999

Yup - Annie Dillard it is. Her best known work is "Pilgrim at Tinker's 
Creek". I've been quoting from an essay published in the late 1980's.

Nice job. Dan's up.