Here I come to save the day!

[pauraque_bk]

...with random links.


-How much is inside? This is a favorite at my workplace. (When customers ask how long a Sharpie lasts, we are sure to tell them that it labels 968 CDs.)


-The Voynich Manuscript. A handwritten book apparently from the 13th century, in an unknown language. Is it a code? A constructed language? Nonsense? Whatever its meaning, the script is quite beautiful.


-The Diary of Samuel Pepys. One entry a day. LJ feed at pepysdiary.


-Geoffrey Pullum of languagelog has several posts on why he hated The Da Vinci Code, focusing on Dan Brown's interesting linguistic choices. V. amusing.

The Dan Brown code.

Dan Brown still moving very briskly about.

Renowned author Dan Brown staggered through his formulaic opening sentence.


-uchidachi at scans_daily has been posting scans from The Super Dictionary. I... have no words.

Press.

Settle.

Idea.

Rock.

You should all join scans_daily. You should add it to your friends list. Please join me in doing so. Please do it with me. Then we'll all join hands and suck in the sweet, sweet crax. We'll hold each other's hands and smoke crax.

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Wow. I've never read The DaVinci Code (I'm the third person) and I'm amazed it's as bad as it is! That opening paragraph...wow. A shadow that stares. Wow. And the clunky, "the 76 year-old man..." It made me realize how much of a pet peeve that is of mine. It's so hard to do smoothly. In fanfics, of course, it's usually, "the black-haired Seeker," or "The Slytherin."

It also makes me feel better about something I'm writing that I've been painfully struggling with. Just when I was convinced that *I* was the worst stylist in the history of the world, I wrote a scene where someone said something that made a character angry. I wrote, "Alex went very still." I was thinking he was keeping very calm and thought maybe he should do something deliberately, like fold a napkin. But I couldn't get him to do anything because...well...I'd just said he'd gone very still. So he couldn't move. Shortly thereafter, I read about Dan Brown. Clearly I am not the worst stylist in the world, if at least I don't have frozen people turning their heads!:-)

[pauraque]

In fanfics, of course, it's usually, "the black-haired Seeker," or "The Slytherin."

Renowned blond Slytherin Draco Malfoy put his hand sexily on the taller boy's ass and moved it briskly about

Okay, suffice it to say I thought the same thing.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

...the lanky FBI Agent.

[woolf.livejournal.com]

Eeee, I love cockeyed.com. He's so incredibly hilarious. Don't neglect to read about his halloween costumes and pranks.

And I think I'm going to make icons and such out of the Voynich Manuscript. It's so beautiful, and I love a mystery. :D

You always have the best links and things. Thanks, Eo.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

Never read THE DAVINCI CODE... and I don't plan on it.

I read about the Voynich Manuscript in Fortean Times a while back. I'm itching to write something about it, if I can only be bothered to do the research.

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

You haven't missed much! Just read THE TEMPLAR REVELATION and you'll see all the weird shit esoteric sources Brown ripped off. Truly, the reason it's so popular is because the general public hdn't previously read stuff like THE HOLY BLOOD & THE HOLY GRAIL or THE TEMPLAR REVELATION and hence didn't know that the figure to the left of Christ in the LAST SUPPER is obviously a woman. The woman in the picture is a pretty mind-blowing revelation, but what a pity Brown had to couch that and the consequent heretical re-interpretation of Scripture in such dreadful prose and ridiculous characterization!

Also, even THE TEMPLAR REVELATION admitted that the Priory of Sion (an alleged organization which passed the secrets of the Templars down the ages) was a simple hoax caused by the deft insertion of some fraudulent documents into the archives at Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris. (The fraudsters were a bunch of French neo-Fascists.) Brown either didn't know or didn't care that the PdS was a hoax, he's based a significant chunk of the book around their "existence". Congrats Brown, you've assisted the French neo-Fascist cause no end...

Also, I saw a BBC2 documentary on the Voynich Manuscript and I go with the theory that Voynich himself faked it, he had the intelligence and motive to do so and I only wish he'd recieved a suitable reward for his magnum opus.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

I read The Da Vinci Code and railed against it for months. I was furious that such utter garbage was a bestseller while very good writers get ignored. The problem is much, much, much more than style. Characterization (argh!), plot, ripping off much better books, all of it!!! Oh, don't get me started. Too late. And the otherwise intelligent people who LIKED IT!!! I was aghast! Ok, enough.

Er, thanks for the fun links.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

Maybe it's just me, but "rock" seemed to show Superboy with super-explosive flatulence. Pow! Oomph! Phew!

[noblerot.livejournal.com]

The Da Vinci Code may well be the only novel ever written that begins with the word renowned.

*laughs*

Brown's writing is not just bad; it is staggeringly, clumsily, thoughtlessly, almost ingeniously bad.

*laughs harder*

God help me, I read both "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons." I have no excuse; it just seemed the thing to do. I was visiting my mama in an Issaquah, WA retirement home. She had them on her shelf. At one point, teh suckage overcame me. I collapsed in a heap. My mama revived me and forced me to move briskly about for 10 minutes, after which I felt better and was able to continue.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, oh my god, why was I not aware of Language Log before? That shit is brilliant.

Also, my dad owns the "Gamesmanship" books! I hadn't thought about those books in years.

[sternel.livejournal.com]

uchidachi is a good bud of mine. The Super Dictionary really is the crax (I got to read it when her copy came) and I just needed to share my Small World!amusement that she has popped up on your flist. That is all =D

[uchidachi.livejournal.com]

ah, yes... it is a small world, isn't it?

it is because the super dictionary OWNS YOUR SOUL
your soul belongs to the dictionary
It has owned your soul since the first time you read an entry
you made a contract with the dictionary, so that your soul would belong to it....

muahahah

[sternel.livejournal.com]

*is owned*


*and stalked*

[pauraque]

It is indeed a world of great smallness!