Towards more picuresque language

[Clare Quilty]

Three men at McAlester State Penitentiary had larger penises than Lamar Pye, but all were black and therefore, by Lamar's own figuring, hardly human at all. His was the largest penis ever seen on a white man in that prison or any of the others in which Lamar had spent so much of his adult life. It was a monster, a snake, a ropey, veiny thing that hardly looked at all like what it was but rather like some form of rubber tubing.

first paragraph of Dirty White Boys by Stephen Hunter

Helluva way to start a novel.

I would never be so glad to be 6' 6" as I would be if I found myself in that prison. Yikes!!!

 

[tolyk]

THe new system showed me that I had a subscription to this thread, so I thought it deserved a bump

 

[elsol]

my donation to the thread.


In whispered lyrics, my voice was not deep or dark. It sounded as heartfelt as my heart felt living Alejandro's words for the first time.

and from the same story... something I consider to be truth.


'Not Guilty' means 'It never happened' when the person it happened to hears them.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[herecomestherain]

James Joyce in a letter to his wife;

"Nora, my faithful darling, my seet-eyed blackguard schoolgirl, be my whore, my mistress, as much as you like (my little frigging mistress! My little fucking whore!) you are always my beautiful wild flower of the hedges, my dark-blue rain-drenched flower."

This, without fail brings the prickle of tears to my eyes everytime I read it.


-- my dark-blue rain-drenched flower...

 

[herecomestherain]

I'd like to know
Does the failure
To recognise
A blessing in disguise
Constitute a curse?

'rain

 

[EnglishMuffin]

Eggerton opened his mouth to answer. He was going to say something about the principle involved, the concept of a free society, the rights of the individual, liberty and due process, the encroachment of the state. It was at that moment that Richards snapped on the powerful outdoor searchlights he had rigged up especially for the occasion; for the first time, his great achievement was revealed for everyone to see.

 

[EnglishMuffin]

Eggerton told him. "You see? All these years . . . and he couldn't tell. But we could tell instantly." Eggerton rose excitedly. "We can run our own society, again! Consensus gentium - we've had our measuring standard all the time and none of us has realized it. Individually, each of us is fallible; but as a groupe we can't go wrong. All we have to do is make sure the random check-nets get everybody; we'll have to step the process up, get more people and get them oftener. It has to be accelerated so that everybody, sooner or later, gets hauled in."

 

[impressive]

... she felt entirely sexual and female in a way that went beyond politics and beyond apologies ....

As soon as I saw gauche's post, I thought of this sentence. It's what drew me to comment on that story in the first place.

 

[wornoutkeyboard]

Who doesn't love a little Poe?

"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which have excited disgust"

If we could all say that about our lives when we die I think life will have been worth living.

Someone hand me a kleenex.

~WOK

 

[impressive]

"Love me. LOVE me. Love ME."

It was whispered, whimpered, and roared. It was her foundation, her fantasy, and her freedom.

From "Topping Love"

Free, both literally and figuratively, Jenna's body sang to the harmonious accompaniment of both her mind and her heart. Her song was mesmerizing in its omneity, and the night stilled to listen to its beauty. Carly's hands took her higher with each passage, closer to the place where the symphony of senses merged – where sound became indistinguishable from scent, taste from touch.

From "Boiling Point"

 

[cloudy]

I don't think I've written anything profound or inspiring.

Well, except for maybe the little snippet about Pops throwing that woman over his shoulder, and knocking his parrot off.

 

[Songcatcher]

These noise-oholics. These quiet-ophobics.

 

[BlackShanglan]

From me, I liked "Listen, Mordred, as my pen whispers these words to your ear." So did others, from the gist of the PC's. From the same ("Camlaan A. D. 539") I also liked his last image of his lover, "forever lost to me in the paths between the wood and the water."

As for others, I've quoted it before, but I think this little snip from Rushdie just sublime:

"At dawn the next morning a flower-vendor was rowing his boat through water to which the cold of the night had given the cloudy consistancy of wild honey ..."

Every time I read that line, its beauty strikes me, and Yeats comes back to me. I know what he means, then, about that which sings peace into one's breast.

Shanglan

 

[NoJo]

"Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Brilliant!"

My father, a few months before he died of lung cancer.

 

[impressive]

Just read neonlyte's "Burning Bridges" and this really struck me:

My mind wanders down the path of our discovery, replaying encounters, wondering just when it was that she entered my soul, bestowing a sense of fulfillment that I had never before had the courage to accept.

Gorgeous.

 

[Songcatcher]

I don't think I've written anything profound or inspiring.

Well, except for maybe the little snippet about Pops throwing that woman over his shoulder, and knocking his parrot off.

"Dark hair - correct me it (sic) I'm wrong - and dark eyes. You have a fully formed image. Maybe there's a specific girl. Let's see, she's short, fairly pretty and her name is -"
Philip K Dick

Reminded me of some other genius.

 

[Guest]

"Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Brilliant!"

My father, a few months before he died of lung cancer.

Simple and real, like a Beckett bit; the drama of life.

Perdita

 

[tolyk]

I've missed this thread!!

 

[BlackShanglan]

I read this years ago in a piece of fluff poetry from a fluff novel. And yet it comes back to me at the oddest times. It's a comment on a king who betrayed his duty and was forced to wander the earth as a ghost:

For every wraith who breaks his faith
Must wander without cease,
And, cold, perform what he did warm
And never rest in peace.

If we're going for the better known, there's this from Yeats's play On Baile's Strand, which I have always thought one of the best plays in the English language. This is the Irish hero Cuchulain, restless and uneasy, explaining to his king, Conchubar, why he does not wish to obey the commands of the king's children:

We in our young days
Have seen the heavens like a burning cloud
Brooding upon the world, and being more
Than men can be now that cloud’s lifted up,
We should be the more truthful. Conchubar,
I do not like your children - they have no pith,
No marrow in their bones, and will lie soft
Where you and I lie hard.

There are far too many excellent lines in that play to quote at random, but that one is especially dear to me.

Shanglan

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Whenever I hear someone bad-mouthing Shakespear, I think of the climactic line from MacBeth. MacB is fighting MacDuff on the stairs of the castle and gloating because he's just told MacDuff that, according to the Weird Sisters, no man born of women could ever slay him. To which MacDuff growls:

MacDuff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped!

There are so many wrong ways he could have said this:

Ha! My mom had a C-section!

Too bad for you, buddy! I wasn't born that way!

Born? Well, technically I wan't "born" at all!

The jokes on you, MacBeth!

etc. etc.

This was the first Shakespeare I'd ever been exposed to, in freshman HS English, and I remember the line gave me chills then, and still does. It was the first hint I had that there might be more to this literature stuff than I'd imagined.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Othello has long been my favorite. His meditation upon Desdemona as he comes to kill her is stunning:

It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,--
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!--
It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out the light:
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again.
It must needs wither: I'll smell it on the tree.

Kissing her

Ah balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
Justice to break her sword! One more, one more.
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
And love thee after. One more, and this the last:
So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,
But they are cruel tears: this sorrow's heavenly;
It strikes where it doth love.

It overwhelms me every time - not merely so beautiful, but so true to every pulse of emotion that such a man would feel in such a circumstance. That, and Emilia's simple answer to him:

Do thy worst:
This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven
Than thou wast worthy her.

I've lost all patience with those who attack Shakespeare. I can only assume that they are blind to beauty. His comedy, perhaps, grows harder to comprehend with each passing year; he is very fond of puns, and puns do not age well when the language is five hundred years onward from his own. But his tragedy is incomparable, and lives as beautifully now as it did then. Who has no patience to learn this, has no love of words.

Shanglan

 

[tolyk]

This was a damned good thread, and a great way to exercise descriptive writing. Reviving, and hopefully someone has something picturesque to say.. far too late in the evening for me.. Night all

So many faces that are gone now...

 

[Handley_Page]

This was a damned good thread, and a great way to exercise descriptive writing. Reviving, and hopefully someone has something picturesque to say.. far too late in the evening for me.. Night all

So many faces that are gone now...

The faces I saw when I joined. . .

I do hope this revival works.

 

[tolyk]

The faces I saw when I joined. . .

I do hope this revival works.

Yeah, was hoping for that myself. Maybe we should just try to write some picturesque things to revive it versus bumps

 

[tolyk]

Bump!!