June 26, 2013
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 06:11 PM * 149 comments
He once wrote an eight-volume trilogy. He published his first sonnet in a paying market at the age of three. He ended a novel with the revelation that it was only a dream, and people loved him for it. He only uses prepositions when it is entirely necessary. He doesn’t misplace commas: He helps commas go into the Punctuation Protection Program. The characters in his novels send him fan letters. The New York Times apologized to him that there was no slot on their best-seller list higher than #1. He once wrote a story that consisted of a single sentence—which was serialized in three issues of The Paris Review. When he publishes a hardcover it uses up the entire world paper supply for a month just to print enough copies. When Michiko Kakutani dreamed of giving him a bad review she woke up and begged forgiveness. He is his own genre. He turned down the National Book Award because it seemed too faddish. Charles Bukowski went on the wagon after reading one of his poems. His ink-jet printer never clogs. He abandoned Emacs as a word processor because it wasn’t flexible enough. You need more adjectives to describe his adjectives than most people have in their working vocabularies. He once made up a word and Webster’s added it to their dictionary the same day. The Pope has him on speed-dial for when he needs help with a sermon. When he was in a coma after an automobile accident he made his deadline anyway. A copy-editor once queried one of his sentences—and he remained gracious. The financial crisis of 2007 was caused by him cashing one of his royalty checks. When he responds to Amazon reviews the reviewers thank him. He opened a novel with ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ and made it work. He invented metafiction—on a bet. He considers mere words to be a necessary evil. He makes cliches fresh. People read his prologues. His grocery lists have gone for six-figure advances at auction. Grammarians adjust their rules to match his realities.
He is the most interesting writer in the world.
Inside of a dog, you can still read his books.
The Angel Gabriel appeared before him and said, "You mind if I just take notes while you talk?"
Once he accidentally sold a well-written query letter.
He doesn't own a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare, he just recreates them on demand.
He thinks Tolstoy was once a promising writer.
His experiments with galley distribution in the 90s invented the modern Internet.
The Universal Library contains extra prints of each of his books.
He won the Nobel Prize for Literature using only Markov chains.
On a bet, he invented a religion that was so convincing, reality changed to conform to it.
CliffsNotes doesn't sell study guides for his books because high school students want to read every word of the originals.
He doesn't participate in year's best anthologies, because his writing is the best for more than a year at a time.
The copyright office registers with him.
His books are never filmed because not even 3D has enough dimensions to contain his characters.
Alternatively, his books are never filmed because Hollywood is afraid to mess them up.
When he attended a WSFS business meeting, all the motions passed unanimously without debate.
He doesn't need comments on his blog because once he's finished writing, there's nothing left to say.
Or, he doesn't need to moderate the comments because everyone respects him too much to be uncivil.
He translates his novels into six different languages -- simultaneously.
Readers buy the translations just to learn other languages.
Once his book was accidentally remaindered and sold for more than list price.
Each of his revisions improves upon the perfection of his original lines.
Alphabets were invented for several languages so his works could be translated into them. That came to an end when audiobooks were invented so people could hear him pronouncing his own prose.
He won a Hugo and a Nebula just for talking about one of his dreams.
House style guides are rewritten to conform to his drafts.
His plot twists are never expected, even when read more than once.
AuthorHouse pays him not to do business with them.
When Chuck Norris is afraid of the dark, he tells him stories until he can sleep.
His dangling modifiers spontaneously generate new nouns to attach to. When he splits an infinitive, the pieces fit so closely that you cannot slide a piece of foolscap between them.
English had a fourth, fifth, and sixth person until he gave them the cut direct.
In his unmarked dialog, it is always clear who is who, even if they're just exchanging eloquent, wordless glances.
His sex scenes are so hot that nobody has ever managed to finish reading one in one session.
He once wrote a novel whose protagonist was a better writer than him.
He tied for the Best Novel Hugo—with himself.
@18 "He once wrote a novel whose protagonist was a better writer than him."
And included quotations proving it.
She never quotes Shakespeare because people might find out she wrote the plays.
Personalized inscriptions from her book signings have won the Best Related Works Hugo four years running. It would have been five but she wrote the Hugo committee a mildly worded letter. Now the award is named after her.
Twitter gives her extra characters, but she donates them to charity because she never needs them.
Plagiarists cannot manage to copy more than one of his sentences before they can no longer control their weeping.
He wrote all the best Chuck Norris and Bruce Schneier facts -- none of which were true until he put pen to paper.
She isn't just familiar with all Internet traditions -- she created them.
When parents read her "A B C" book to their toddlers, the children become fluent readers in their own right before their parent finishes the page devoted to the letter "U".
Her translation of the Bible into English is considered to be of far more influence on the language than the King James version.
It would take two infinities of monkeys with typewriters an infinite amount of time to replicate his works.
Readers don't just fall in love with her characters—they marry them and have their children as well. Registrations of birth in seventeen countries now have a space for recording this.
If you type out her writing on the musical typewriter she herself designed, each novel is a symphony that makes Beethoven's music appear childlike.
You don't need light to read her work. Even on paper and eInk screens, her words glow.
He was once the subject of an advertising campaign proving definitively the superiority of radio over television.
Every page at TV Tropes has a reference to one or more of her works. She is the trope-namer for a good number of them.
Leaders of all major religions have pronounced that her characters have souls and are therefore admitted to the afterlife. Readers who are grief stricken by the loss of these characters when her novels end are authorised to hold funerals in religious buildings.
Before she started writing, there were only six basic plots.
The CIA, the FBI, and the Secret Service go to great lengths to ensure that no American politician ever reads one of his books: John F. Kennedy was difficult to explain.
The line always asks him to toe it.
He seldom posts on someone else's blog, but when he does, he never has to wish it had an 'edit' button.
(Plaintively): Can someone tell me who the guy in the meme photograph is?
Charlie Stross: Here ya go. (The actor, Jonathan Goldsmith, once played a redshirt on Star Trek, in "The Corbomite Maneuver". His character survived.)
Charlie @37:
The actor is named Jonathan Goldsmith; he's playing the part of "the most interesting man in the world" from a series of American beer commercials (for Dos Equis).
Further information here.
(I didn't know either; it's after my time in the US. But I was looking at Know Your Meme for other reasons just yesterday and learned about this guy.)
His postings are always polite, readable and on-topic, even without vowels.
Lila... He did play a redshirt, but he made thru the episode. Maybe Balok wanted to trade beer tips with him.
Lila... Somehow I missed that last bit you wrote.
I'm just curious to see what she looks like now.
When he coins a phrase it never becomes a cliché.
Stay thirsty, my friends.
When The Most Interesting Writer In The World makes up a gender-neutral or gender-ambiguous third-person pronoun for English, it enters common use just from people who got ARCs adopting it. By the time the actual first edition comes out, it's already been accepted for the next edition of the OED.
Her blurbs for other author's work have won the National Book Award. Twice.
He once wrote a lipogram. Before that, English had 27 letters.
STET is derived from her initials.
Charlie @37
Notable lines (as in, lines I can remember) from the actual commercials include:
"He once ran a marathon just because it was on his way"
"His small talk has altered foreign policy"
"He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it feels"
"He has inside jokes with complete strangers"
"He's won trophies for his game face alone"
"He can speak French in Swahili"
"He won a lifetime achievement award -- twice"
There's a whole series of these commercials. They start something like "He's the most interesting man in the world", show vignettes with voiceovers of him Doing Interesting Things, and end with the Interesting Man saying "I don't always drink beer, but when I do, it's Dos Equis. Stay thirsty, my friends."
abi @ 39: ...from a series of American beer commercials (for Dos Equis)
Ah. I was going to be the Not Quite The Most Pedantic Man In The World and "correct" you that Dos Equis was, in fact, a mexicano beer not a norteamericano one, but then I see you were not, in fact, saying it was an American beer.
Signed,
The Not Quite Most Mistaken Man In The World.
I know very well that Dos Equis is a Mexican beer. I am, in point of fact, a big fan of Dos Equis in both of its varieties. It's a continuous annoyance to me that one can't get it in any but the most specialist of beer shops on this side of the Pond, while that Sol crap is everywhere that fajitas are sold.
I'm quite fond of Dos Equis Amber.
--------------
The most interesting writer in the world is the namesake for three major literary awards. One is named after her first name, one after her last name, and one is just her middle initial.
From the commercials, but almost applicable here: "Even his nod Sounds Like a Plan".
I think The Most Interesting Writer In The World and The Man Who Doesn't Always Drink Beer, But When He Does, He Drinks Dos Equis may both be descended from Ira Gershwin's plaintive polymath in that sleeper hit from Ziegfeld Follies of 1936, "I Can't Get Started:"
I've flown around the world in a plane
I've settled revolutions in Spain
The North Pole I have charted
But I can't get started with you
[...]
I've been consulted by Franklin D.
Greta Garbo has had me to tea
But I'm broken-hearted
'Cause I can't get started with you
Melody by Vernon Duke.
Many of her best-loved characters have taken on lives of their own, including Chuck Norris, Bruce Schneier, and a character of indeterminate gender known only as The Most Interesting Writer in the World.
Bill Higgins @ 52: Ah, the progenitor of "I Can't Get Next to You."
(Because he was all of the Temptations--at the same time.)
If he had written the script for The Hobbit, three films would not have been enough.
Performance video of "I Can't Get Next To You" because it's better.
The ink in his pen is of no earthly colour.
Her short story about a rock band won the Grammy for Best Song.
He is the least interesting writer in the world.
But he sure is popular.
He is Dan Brown.
He once wrote an eight-volume trilogy.
no wait, he is George Ronald Reuel Martin.
His palindromes work vertically, as well. And in other dimensions.
Her works in Second Person are obeyed by readers.
He avoids future tense because it always comes true.
Her postings are always polite, readable and on-topic, even without vowels.
Nate Silver proved that every possible re-emvoweling of a given post is polite, readable and on-topic.
One of his novels won the Rita, the Howie, the Stoker, the Hugo, the Golden Duck, the Pushcart Prize, the Pulitzer, and the Booker, simultaneously. Its title won the O. Henry award for short story.
Her novels don't just suspend disbelief, they give it escape velocity.
Wait a minute--- there's no way his inkjet printer doesn't clog.
The number of his errata is a negative value.
Time travelers arrange for him to be their grandfather.
The identical twin he sent at 0.999c to Sirius returned older, wiser and more interesting than any of us.
She talked Skynet out of going there and doing that.
Many states have enacted exemptions to incest laws, in case he is ever female-cloned and wants to do a "heinlein."
The Singularity met with her for an hour, came out and declared itself redundant.
Charlina Bukowski changed gender after reading her poems.
He once wrote a book with George R. R. Martin as a character... and killed him in the third chapter.
Her books are so wonderful that all the would-be vanity-published authors give up* in despair, and PublishAmerica and its ilk go bankrupt.
*but keep writing for their own enjoyment and that of their families
Are our European correspondents familiar with Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” ad campaign? Chris and I have been hoping The Man Your Man Could Smell Like and The Most Interesting Man In The World would team up for a buddy movie.
The Most Interesting Smelling Man in the World.
His Erdős and Bacon numbers are both less than one. In fact, he invented bacon so convincingly that it seems to us it has always existed.
Nobody writes fanfiction of her books because, really, what would be the point? She's said it all. So beautifully.
[Sobs]
When he isn't drinking Mexican beer, the most interesting author in the world drinks Irish whiskey.
Her "million words of shit" are on permanent display at Gagosian Gallery.
No artist has ever been commissioned to design a cover for her books -- her publisher simply picks a marginal doodle from her manuscript. She won the Hugo for best professional artist three times in a row, then withdrew her name from future consideration to give Bob Eggleton a chance.
Avram @ #72, why not? The Man You Could Smell Like already teamed up with Beowulf's followers.
One of her manuscripts once fell out of the envelope and scattered all over the floor. The editor picked the pages up at random, read through the story, and was astonished to realize that every page was in exactly the right place.
Later, the manuscript fell over again. A different editor picked them up in a *different* random order, and *got a better novel*.
They haven't had the nerve to try it a third time.
He wrote a novel without the letter E. Nobody has ever noticed. They were distracted by the fact that it was a perfect palindrome.
The strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was only true in languages in which she has not yet written. As of 2003, that means no languages.
PublishAmerica gave him an advance.
"He once wrote a book with George R. R. Martin as a character... and killed him in the third chapter."
Who hasn't?
Harvard has a two-semester 400-level course just to analyze his first graffito. It's in the Philosophy department.
The year after each of his books comes out, the protagonists' names lead the world-wide baby-name popularity lists.
Each of his books is printed in a typeface he designed himself. A different one for each book.
Her daughter Quinoa is following in her footsteps, albeit on another front.
The most interesting writer in the world would never be gnomed. Their use of Words of Power would give entirely different results, and whatever punctuation they used would be fine. Oh, wait. Maybe the gnomes would change the filters and arrange be-gnomings so they'd get extra time to review the posts and bask in the glorious text.
If she did get gnomed, the food offerings would be ambrosial. In my unworthy case, I'll gladly share my fresh cherries and strawberries.
Bill Higgins @ #52, Have you ever heard trumpeter Bunny Berigan's version?
Interesting note from Wikipedia:
In 1975, Bunny Berigan's 1937 recording "I Can't Get Started" on Victor as VICTOR 25728-A was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
The most interesting writer in the world once wrote a revue comparing J.R.R Token, Gandi, and Samuel R. Delayn but instead of turning out to be an ambarrasment it was wierdly appreciated by Coinosuers around the world.
Teressa even went to so far as to accomadize his highly original spellings into her reference, the only such occulence in this Millenium.
Apropos nothing, and at risk of annoying the gnomes, here's Lorem Ipsum translated into English by Google Translate.
(I think it may be an improvement, surrealism-wise.)
Mark Twain's secret hundred-year book cites him. He is the most interesting writer in the world.
The actor often eats in the restaurant of friends of our. I told them they should put "I don't always eat lunch out, but when I do, I eat at the Silver Spoon" - but they ignored my valuable professional advice.
It looks nothing like the original text, and I suspect the chocolate factory has sneaked a Lorem Ipsum detector into the translation software and used it to trigger a word-salad generator.
But that's just me.
I wonder what other translation programs make of it?
Cadbury Moose, 92: Well, obviously! Everyone knows that "Lorem" is the accusative singular of "Lorax."
Her novel won the Tiptree, and so did his—and it was the same novel.
Jeremy 53: There was a brief spate of Cory Booker ones, after he rescued an elderly neighbor from a fire.
Her use of the written word is so economical that when Reader's Digest condensed one of her novels it came out longer.
Cadbury Moose @ #92:
I can see a way it might be genuine.
As I understand it, Google Translate doesn't just rely on dictionaries but incorporates information about how things (including phrases and longer passages) are actually translated in Google's large collection of texts. This means that, at least in theory, it gives better results for vernacular expressions than a word-for-word literal translation. (On the other hand, it's a pain in the neck when you want to know the actual translation of a book or movie title that was called something completely different in English.)
What we see here might be the result of the clever algorithms that identify parallel translation text going to work on all the pages with lipsum on them, and then trying to aggregate the results.
@96, @92: Alternatively, Google is associative -- so these may be random servings of word salad from sites that are under development, with lorem ipsum in some sections and the other text in proximity.
@94: Bravo. I was trying to say something like this yesterday - about Tiptree - but you put it much better than I would have. Again, bravo.
When he wrote an online novel it won all the internets.
bartkid 98: *blush* [expressions of gratitude deleted to avoid visiting the gnomes*]
*Not that I don't like them. Just don't have time for a visit right now.
She identifies imprints by smell.
She invented a concept that is too poignant to be used again.
When she capitalizes every word, it doesn't look like shouting.
Her extra sense is sensawunda.
She does speak a private language... in public.
#92, #94
I did a test; copied a chunk of De Bello Gallico, and it translated fine. Inserted a sentence of lorem ipsum,and that sentence was nonsense about Joomla, embedded in the still sane translation of Caesar. So, it appears to be an ovum paschalico, so to speak.
Commenting on word salad has its risks. We have some nice fresh strawberries, if the gnomes care to indulge.
On further testing, I believe Charlie Stross has the right of it. I started deleting bits of the Latin. Some of the English that appeared, transiently, contained terms like "dummy item". So I am now convinced it's associated text. And I am pondering what else might show up from similar phenomena.
He once shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die, and wrote a bestselling nonfiction novel about the event. He was found not guilty at trial because the jury found that the book justified his actions so well.
Nobody asks him for a cover blurb: he is scrupulously fair, but other people's books just don't meet his standards.
Her novels won her three Nobles Prizes--Physics, Economics, and Peace
Actually, Dave Bell, the issue is that the cover blurbs are beautiful in their own right and as much as we'd like to see them, it's too complicated to figure out the royalty payments. When he does blurb a book, it's for charity.
@38 (The actor, Jonathan Goldsmith, once played a redshirt on Star Trek, in "The Corbomite Maneuver". His character survived.)
After this, it was mandatory for all future red shirts to die, because no one could possibly play a living redshirt better.
The one time she wrote a cover blurb the book became a best-seller -- but no one read beyond the cover.
Advance reader copies of her books are the subject of furious bidding wars from reviewers.
Twelve of her haikus spontaneously became martial arts.
While editing his manuscript, John Ordover didn't want to change a single word.
Gun enthusiasts and horse lovers use his novels as reference books due to their great, and absolutely correct, detail.
At a ceremony in the spirit world, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon declared her "the Second Coming who inaugurated the Completed Testament Age!"
Wait a minute, let me come in again. At a ceremony in the spirit world, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon testified, "if she had been my speechwriter, I would have been elected God-king of the world for life!"
She needed help moving once. Complete strangers offered to help on the condition that they be allowed to keep the boxes. When they discovered that the boxes had been used multiple times by people who weren't the most interesting author in the world, most of them backed out. The ones who didn't now own priceless works of spontaneous poetry incorporating found words, all written on cardboard with permanent marker. Cuisinart attempted to license the label on one of their reused blender boxes because it brought all the text together so seamlessly, exactly the way a blender takes things apart but in the opposite direction, but it turned out the model was discontinued and focus grous reacted very, very poorly to the 'updated' version.
(guess who's typing from a room full of boxes?)
Diatryma @ 117
"(guess who's typing from a room full of boxes?)"
*Raises hand.*
Oh, you mean you. Nevermind.
Linkmeister writes in #88:
Bill Higgins @ #52, Have you ever heard trumpeter Bunny Berigan's version?
Is the Pope Argentine? It's canonical.
I first heard it, though, from my dad. Despite exposure to a fair amount of music from the Big Band Era, I had never encountered this particular standard until I was maybe sixteen. We were working on some project together in the garage, and he started singing "I Can't Get Started." I laughed as the accomplishments of the singer got progressively more awesome ("On the golf course, I'm under par/Metro-Goldwyn has asked me to star") and determined to learn the song.
Never did memorize the chords, but I can sing the words. I have the sheet music around here somewhere. These days, though, one can usually find the chords to a song on the Web someplace.
D. Potter in #54: Yeah, the Guy Who Can't Get Next To You must be the next generation in the family of the Guy Who Can't Get Started With You, just as Stephen Stills's Guy Who, If He Can't Be With The One He Loves, Loves The One He's With is probably descended from Yip Harburg's leprechaun Og, who, If He's Not Near The Girl He Loves, Loves The Girl He's Near, and furthermore, When He Can't Fondle The Hand That He's Fond Of, Fondles The Hand At Hand, as well as Fancying The Face He's Facing when He's Not Facing The Face That He Fancies and Clinging To The Kiss That's Close when He's Not Close To The Kiss That He Clings To.
I love Stephen Stills's music, but he's no Yip Harburg. Nobody is.
Bill Higgins @ 119: Ah. Everything old is remade again. (I've heard the Harburg all my life, but could not have said where it originally appeared. Also, the cleverness attribute in lyrics has been deprecated.;-))
Bill Higgins @ 52:
And a close relative of one who sings*:
I can turn the gray sky blue
I can make it rain whenever I want it to
Oh, I can build a castle from a single grain of sand
I can make a ship sail, huh, on dry land
But my life is incomplete and I'm so blue
'Cause I can't get next to you
* Do listen to Annie Lennox' cover of this song.
Oops, D. Potter @ 54 beat me to it.
Her works fill a wing of Borges' Library of Babel, which is of transfinite cardinality, and every single volume is a superbly written and coherent text which moves and inspires any reader.
Several companies have attempted to use her voicemail as a paid service because so many people call just to hear her recorded message.
She doesn't get jet lag because her time zone travels with her.
There's no point in her playing role-playing games because all other players' characters aspire to be her.
Robert Heinlein admitted that she was the Grand Solipsist.
She wins every beard contest she enters.
Edmund Wilson liked his fantasy novel.
And Hugo Dyson liked his elves.
Libraries have a standing order for resupplying copies of her works, because they are so frequently checked out that they get tattered and worn quickly.
You can never find a copy of his books in a used bookstore or at Goodwill because people always keept their copies around to reread later.
She almost made "sparkly vampires" work. Almost.
(Some things are beyond even The Most Interesting Writer In The World.)
She did, however, make sparkly zombies work.
In their rustling language the trees name her Reaper; they go willingly.
heresiarch! Oh please stay around and post more.
Whoa! Welcome back, heresiarch.
heresiarch: Welcome back! I've missed you.
Hir writings make those who have taken a vow of silence speak! (WB, heresiarch - good to see you.)
Jim #95:
In fact, her writing is so economical, PKZIP used on an ASCII version of her novels returns a slightly longer file.
Thank you! I've missed you folks too.
Yes! The Return of Heresiarch!
Hey! heresiarch!! Welcome back!
(And don't do that to us again!? okay?)
Their form of greeting, I suppose.
Καλώς αιρεσιαρχών! (Thusly do I hope to avoid gnomulation.)
Bruce@121:
Have now watched said video. (It doesn't seem to have an official one, so I watched the first one on the list, fan-made, around 3:19?...) Was irresistibly struck, for nearly its whole duration, by the fancy that the singer was actually Neil Gaiman's Desire character. Please advise.
--Dave, it was uncanny
Alas, my post is en-gnomed. I can only theorize that either I used too few of the personal pronoun, or that I am too late to this thread's conversation. Peanut Butter Crunch, anygnome?
--Dave
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