# Literature Game **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 17, 2001, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976 "2001-10-17T13:51:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Nacho4Sara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Nacho4Sara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nacho4Sara)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/21 "2001-10-19T04:58:43Z")
Since no one has posted their own panache yet, I’m going to do one. Yay! This is fun: > [@](#): > > There was a moment, long ago, a moment ripe with excitements: excitements that I can now only bring to mind against all possible implausibilites; there was a moment when I wished to speak, to express a fervent and utterly urgent passion once residing quietly in my soul, a passion now struggling to free itself from the imprints of my deepest, my darkest, desires, and though I struggled to birth this palpible passion, I was able only, for reasons unknown to all mankind, to loosen the slackened syllables silently - somnolent, soporific - ultimately unsaid. Extra points to anyone who can actually translate that into English. I’m going to do another too, because it’s so fun. > [@](#): > > Sleep is a river that is a-flowing always. Some days it is so deep I cannot see the bottom. Other days the tide ebbs away and I wake. River of sleep, wash over me; let the tallest reeds remain covered. I died the day I was born. The written word has undone me. Sleep is but a poisen; it slowly kills all that pursue it. I want to be awake always. I am most alive when I am awake. I am a fish, swimming at the bottom of the river. I swim faster, fighting the rising tide. I die a slow death as I swim faster. Sleep and death are united: I see them dimly, I reach, then I awake. (My metaphors aren’t quite as intertwined as this person’s, but it’s 1 am, and I tried.) ---
**Author:** ![Yersinia\_Pestis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ccd318/32.png) [@Yersinia\_Pestis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yersinia_Pestis)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/22 "2001-10-19T06:07:07Z")
Luce Irigaray? [sub]psst–I think you mean _pastiche_.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/23 "2001-10-19T13:26:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Legomancer \* > \*\*For Hemingway, I would have done this: > > Libertarian sounded the chime. The chime needed to be sounded, and now it had. Libertarian regarded the chime that had now sounded. It had sounded well. It needed to be sounded and had now sounded well. Previously, there was no chime. Now there was chime. Libertarian had sounded it.\*\* Lego - is that Hemingway or Mojo Jojo? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/24 "2001-10-19T14:34:51Z")
With nameless trepidation, Athur Quincy Winslow approached the door. He felt the hideous chill dread as once more he recalled the hellish import of the portal’s mephitic inscription. The slightest utterance of the terrible phrase would set dogs for blocks around to pandemonaic howling, as if the gibbering terror that was the unmentionable horror within could be summoned forth by the merest whisper. Through repulsed by the shrieking insanity he knew lay within, Winslow was undeterred, and read aloud the foul incantation. Witnesses to what followed recalled only the dimmest fragments, their memories mercifully blasted by the terror of what happened after Arthur Quincy Winslow summoned forth the nightmare that dwelt behind the door marked… HUMAN RESOURCES And I got Kafka, but Euty beat me to it. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/25 "2001-10-19T14:56:03Z")
It’s been several years since I’ve read him, **Nacho** , but yours smacks of Pynchon. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/26 "2001-10-19T15:00:23Z")
> [@](#): > > If there were anyone sitting here, ladies and gentlemen, ignorant of the mores and customs of the Straight Dope Message Board, he would surely not understand the sudden rash of bannings, the purges, the taking up of arms against the Moderators, and the unlawful demonstrations against the rightful workings of the State. I would urge him to observe closely, for in order to demonstrate how the affairs of the Forums are conducted on a day-to-day-basis I shall bring forth an old, venerable, gray-bearded spirit of the Dope: Silo… ---
**Author:** ![Nacho4Sara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Nacho4Sara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nacho4Sara)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/27 "2001-10-19T16:44:34Z")
You guys are both wrong. Here’s a clue: think American lit, a hundred years ago or so. ---
**Author:** ![Yersinia\_Pestis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ccd318/32.png) [@Yersinia\_Pestis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yersinia_Pestis)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/28 "2001-10-19T17:43:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sublight \* > **With nameless trepidation, Athur Quincy Winslow approached the door…\** This **must** be Lovecraft, right? I feel so sure about it that I’m going to post mine. This is fun; I’ve never written a parody before. > [@](#): > > Now Florescentia of the flickering beams scattered her rays over all those seated below > At the wooden tables, ranked in long rows, and circled about by chairs, > As when a shining bronze platter of dip is set forth for the hungry, > With celery and earth-growing carrots and other crudités clustered around, > Even so were the tables ringed with four-legged chairs. > Now when Yersinia sat studying there with her many-paged books piled high about her, > One rose up talking, his blabbing mouth open and foolish counsel spewing forth > At great volume, like the shrieking of gulls about the black ships on the shore. > Then bitter rancor rose up in the breast of Yersinia, daughter of Robert. > Whispering her challenge, her wingéd words sped to the foolish oaf, > “Tightly-gagged Silence reigns in these chambers, O gull-voiced chatterer.” > She cast her well-sharpened pencil and it sped true to its target, > Striking the open-mouthed one in the throat so the bright blood sprang forth. > And the talker fell to the earth, and his armor clattered thunderously about him. ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/29 "2001-10-19T18:59:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nacho4Sara \* > **Sleep is a river that is a-flowing always. Some days it is so deep I cannot see the bottom. Other days the tide ebbs away and I wake. River of sleep, wash over me; let the tallest reeds remain covered. I died the day I was born. The written word has undone me. Sleep is but a poisen; it slowly kills all that pursue it. I want to be awake always. I am most alive when I am awake. I am a fish, swimming at the bottom of the river. I swim faster, fighting the rising tide. I die a slow death as I swim faster. Sleep and death are united: I see them dimly, I reach, then I awake.** > [@](#): > > _Originally written by Henry David Thoreau_ > Time is the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. If it’s not Thoreau (he’s a bit more than 100 years ago), I am anxious to know who it is so I can read the two and compare. **Maeglin** : Cicero? **sublight** : The “HUMAN RESOURCES” bit makes it sound like Douglas Adams. **Yersinia** : your entry is very funny, but I have no clue. This should be easy: > [@](#): > > No because she had not once asked such a thing like for him to stop off at the chemist’s for a pair of Hostess brand snow balls that pink kind with the coconut brown at the ends and falling off since when she was a chubby little girl with a runny nose when she spent her time sucking up to her bratty friend Penny who she thought would give her a leg up with the boys in her idiot shcool and she never left anything for her but kept all the boys and the girls too if I’m right about that much for herself for her soul’s own salvation as it were… ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/30 "2001-10-19T20:22:57Z")
_Euge_! Cicero it is. ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/31 "2001-10-19T20:42:14Z")
At least it wasn’t Seneca. He’s the key to no one’s heart. Mine, and I sadly admit to requiring some assistance on this as my mind has been in other places all week: > [@](#): > > Oh, the memorable science of it ALL! Oh, the psychotic color of it ALL! If a feverishly cyclopian clock overwhelmingly danced with a scythe, then a globule about a township beams with underhandedly reptilian-looking power. Oh, the bohemian wheel of it ALL! It took no typical vapour to make me completely evicerate a clock out of a pyramid, but the antiquarian abstraction was unfathomed. It took no iridescent transformation to make me unwittingly negotiate with the statue, but the horrible scout was irregular. I watched in horror as a book ostensibly seldom competed with the sanity! Some stone around an abstraction secreted away the awful knowledge of an annihilation. When a hellish tape recorder awakens, the war beyond a source rejoices. The blood clot accurately formed an uncomfortable alliance with the vacuum related to a transformation. When a fractured blood clot trembles, a cloud formation hibernates. Remembering the psychotic nightmare of the living tome, I prostated myself before the insignificance of the a lover over the tome that stood before me. When a globule beneath some estate dies, the ooze laughs like a man insane. A demon burned a scream about a phantasm. A vista bestowed great honor upon another magnificent fire. Remembering the bohemian abyss of an eldritch memory, I prostated myself before the ocean of the a torch beyond the arch that stood before me. A coffin fainted at the very thought of an ocean. _It took no hardly tattered phantasm to make me often share its power with a case, but the smelly wedge was statesmanlike._ ---
**Author:** ![Nacho4Sara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Nacho4Sara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nacho4Sara)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/32 "2001-10-19T21:22:31Z")
**Humble Servant** guessed it - it was indeed Thoreau, and that was the exact passage I was thinking of (my favorite from _Walden_.) As for the first one I wrote, it’s so easy I thought everyone would guess it right away. American Lit, about a hundred years ago. Another Baltimoron. Someone please guess it! ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/33 "2001-10-19T21:36:27Z")
At least I’ve gotten something right in an otherwise wretched little day.🙂 Sara–I’ve got that passage from Thoreau under the glass of my desk at work, and that post was the third time I’ve quoted it here on the SDMB. It’s one of my pet things too. The only Baltimore poet I know is Poe, but I’m thinking you would have done a parody of _The Raven_ or another poem if it were him. **lno’s** is freaky enough to maybe be from _Revelations_? ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/34 "2001-10-19T22:33:16Z")
Nope, not the Book of Revelations, but this author was just as trippy, if not more. ---
**Author:** ![quarx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/50afbb/32.png) [@quarx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quarx)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/35 "2001-10-19T23:21:18Z")
There was me, that is Meg, and my four sisters, Beth, Laurie, Amy, and Colt, so named for being rather akward and long-limbed, but very handy with a knitting needle and some yarn. We were sitting in the living room, making up our rassadyks about the afternoon tea, what with the long luncheon ahead. The air was sunny and clear, oh my sisters, and we were in a fine mood for darning army socks, being the young chickie-wicks that we were. The five of us were dressed in the height of fashion, which in those days was a home-made dress pulled very tight around the hips with bonnets to match. Very colorful we were, too, but for Little Amy, who had little fashion sense and was beyond all shadow of a doubting Thomas, the bookiest of we five. As was said, the day was most glorious, and suddenly your humble narrator leaped to her feet and shrieked “Out, out, out.” Into the day we ran, knowing not where, my sisters, until running into Mrs. March, we proceeded with the day’s fun, clucking our tongues and wagging our fingers most haughtily, until she ran shrieking “Erk-erk-erk” into the parlour. * * * Sigh. (Hangs head). I think I need sleep. Or at least a social life. ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/36 "2001-10-19T23:43:49Z")
Oh, jesus. I didn’t even see **Sublight** ’s post. I’ll go hide myself now. ---
**Author:** ![Nacho4Sara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Nacho4Sara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nacho4Sara)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/37 "2001-10-20T05:31:14Z")
**Humble Servant** , you guessed again. Actually, I was thinking of _Ligeia_, my favorite Poe story. I love how he writes something as simple as “It was on the tip of my tongue” but turns it into a twelve-line experiance, complete with anticipatory clauses, frequent sentence adverbs and epic similes, and still manages to make it very lyrical. I was trying to say “I forgot what I was going to say” in Poe-speak, but I must have done an awful job since no one really guessed it. Slight Thoreau hijack…that is one of my pet phrases too - for a long time, it was my e-mail signature. I love how he takes three different metaphors - time as a river, intellect as a cleaver, and his head as a mole, and somehow intertwines them and still makes perfect sense. And the inverted image in the line “fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars” is so beautiful. He’s lovely, and although I think a lot of people misinterpret it, _Walden_ is my bible. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/38 "2001-10-20T09:02:04Z")
Sorry, I went to bed just after posting and just now got back from work. **Yersinia Pestis** whose name I find oddly alluring, called it. And **quarx** ’s latest looks like Anthony Burgess. ---
**Author:** ![quarx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/50afbb/32.png) [@quarx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quarx)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/39 "2001-10-20T11:23:00Z")
That’s right, Sublight. It’s actually my favorite Burgess book, “A Clockwork Alcott.” ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976/40 "2001-10-20T17:18:05Z")
Humble Servant, yours was Joyce, from the “Penelope” section of “Ulysses.” Interesting that one could do about fifteen different Joyce parodies from that book, all sounding completely different. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literature-game/87976.md?page=3)