Off the Mark by Mark Parisi for June 03, 2023

Snoopy might take umbrage at that.

A novel approach.

Once upon a time they lived happily ever after. The end.

Once upon a time there were two chinese. Now there are a billion.

The last man on Earth sat alone in a locked room.

He never heard the knock on the door as he was busy on his phone, deleting Spam and watching cat videos.

Once I tried to read the manual for my auger – the chapter how to change the boring bit was a bit boring

Sounds like good book.

There are at least two fascinating real world books called “A Million Dots.” They are similar in that they both depict exactly what the title promises, all the while offering insight about math and numbers.

This is the song that never ends

It just goes on and on my friends

Some people started singing it

Not knowing what it was

And now they go on singing it forever just because

This is the song that never ends….

TYPO!!! It was a dark and snorey night.

Snoopy would have used this since he did a “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night” novel.

The line was first used in “Paul Clifford,” in 1830 by Sir Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton. the English novelist, playwright, and politician. The book tells the story of a highwayman in the time of the French Revolution who doesn’t know his origins. While disguised as a gentleman, he meets and falls in love with Lucy Brandon. Clifford is arrested and brought before Judge Brandon, her uncle, for trial, where it is revealed that Clifford is actually Brandon’s son. Clifford is convicted and condemned to death, but instead he is sent to a penal colony. He escapes and Lucy and he flee to America

But what is remembered are the first 7 words of the introduction. In full, it reads:

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

A 58-word starting sentence — conventional at the time, over-descriptive and melodramatic. But the first 7 words caught on and were borrowed and parodied almost from the beginning. One of the chapters of “The Three Musketeers” [Alexander Dumas, 1844] begins, “C’etait une nuit orageuse et sombre,” [It was a night stormy and dark]. Madeleine L’Engle’s Newbery Award-winning “A Wrinkle in Time” (1962) begins with the exact same line. And then there is Snoopy launching his literary career on top of his doghouse [Peanuts].

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest was started in 1982 and sponsored by the English department at San José State University, California. It’s an annual contest that asks people to send in their best terrible opening sentence to a novel. Check out the winners at https://www.bulwer-lytton.com .

If a book hasn’t engaged my attention by the end of the first chapter, I don’t read it.

But it was a huge hit in the feline community

They thought it would be the sleeper hit of the Christmas season.

Trial and Error, see today’s BC…

Comes preinstalled with Moby Dick, Death Comes for the Archbishop, and the complete works of Ayn Rand.

Am I the only one who thinks it should be “Downloads the most boring books”?

Sounds like a good sleep aid