Monday, May 26, 2008

a post for Sisyphus...

... who asked for more amusing AP bloopers. I'm sure there will be many more to come next month, but here are a few left over from last year:

"Jody has obviously learned some words (educated himself) that he knows people don't know and soon rises above and becomes mayor. No longer having to work for his money or make himself look better by wearing "pimp-associated" suits, he can just be himself."

"Upon being married, her story is recited to her husband and the veal of shame is lifted only to find hatred."

"In Germinal, the main character (who will be referred to as Jacques for the purpose of this essay) Jacques leads a revolution of miners against the wealthy mine owners ... Germinal was written in the 1600s ... and builds on Marxist ideas."

"His values began to change from being a general to owning an abundance of shirts."

"The Great Gatsby gives us a good perspective of life during the prohibition. At one istance alcohol was legal and in another it wasn't. This has great literary merit because the struggle Gatsby went through is going on today in a different form, marijuana, the most widely used illegal drug."

"On his exhile he comes across a royal band and murders everyone due to their obnoxiousness. Continuing his trek he comes across a Phenix that terrorized the kingdom of Thebes."

"The meaning of the book Frankenstein as a whole was that you shouldn't create something you know nothing about ... If you don't know how to express love to others but yourself, as Victor had done, then this is evidence that you yourself are incapable of handling another being especially loving it, even when your unsure of how it'll look."

"'Like father, like son' comes unfortunately to the feet of innocent bystanders in life as trainwreck parents drag their children in the dirt beside them."

"This action drove Heathcliff away, leaving him bitter and shellfish."

"And ultimately, Gatsby's obsession leads to his demise, proving that living in the past is not just unhealthy, it can kill you as well."

"Without the past, exsistence would not be."

"Blanches way of thinking throughout the whole novel is crazy. She actually doesn't think throughout the novel she just does things right before they happen and I'm telling you that's not how it works."

6 comments:

Dr. Virago said...

Oh man, there is much to love in these bloopers, but I'm especially fond of this:

"This action drove Heathcliff away, leaving him bitter and shellfish."

It's Wuthering Heights, only by Kafka.

Anonymous said...

I envy you? I pity you? I envy you, I pity you.

And I also now understand why I got a 5 on the exam. I probably made things up, but they did not involve shellfish or elaborate and undefensible existential claims. Well, probably undefensible existential claims, but they were about litrachure.

Don't hurt yourself, dear Porpentine.

Renaissance Girl said...

Holy cow, I love these. More! More!

Sisyphus said...

Mmm, I love that veal of shame! So tasty.

Personally, I aspire to combining an abundance of shirts with a pimp-associated suit. I'm gonna wear it all at graduation.

Thanks for the bloopers!

Anonymous said...

Well, I suppose living in the past *does* kill. Eventually.

Horace said...

I did the comp exam 5 or 6 years ago, when they had the Kundera passage about the division between public lives and private actions. Clinton/Lewinski was still fresh enough for many that many referenced it, one of which yeilded one of my favorite rhetorical questions of all time:

"How do you draw the line between pubic and private?"

well now, that's a mighty fine line to be drawing there...