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Re: New Yorker Opal parody: "Wilma, light of his life"
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Dear Andrew,
I'm not sure that I got them all. But I did just finish turning all the
papers, the translation work, and the grades for the two world literature
class I was teaching, and so had time to go through it. I'm sure I missed a
few (I've posted the ones I could identify below).
Best,
Juan
Dear All,
Since I haven't really seen it-I may have missed it-and since it's been on
my mind, I really wanted to thank the Listserv. This is a ridiculously
bountiful resource, and proved invaluable this semester when working on a
paper on Nabokov and Borges.
I am particularly grateful to Abdellah's gloss of Nabokov's "house without
porticos" comment, and to the other contributors' analysis of VN's comments
on Borges. Thank you. Whatever merits the paper may have (and it does have
some, but it does fall short of what I was hoping for, and it's ultimately
flawed; I was looking for affinities in the authors' use of time to deal
with history, and it all led to some Kinbote/Menardian ruminations on Ada,
"Tlon," and South America), they are due in large part to the online
discussion-which, while we're at it and given that this precedes a
plagiarism parody, let me be clear: they were all duly credited,
acknowledged, and cited.
Best,
Juan
* * *
A screeching comes across the sky. --> Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow
Stately, plump Fred Flintstone stood upon the 'saur's head, bearing a
boulder of granite, on which a bird perched, its eyes crossed. An orange
dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild
Mesozoic air.
He held his shell aloft and intoned:
Yabba dabba doo! --> James Joyce's Ulysses
Afoot and lighthearted, he took to the open road, healthy, free, the world
before him, the long brown path before him leading back to Bedrock. -->
Whitman's "Songs of the Open Road."
Fred repeating to himself, as he ran, the words of an old song:
Flintstones, meet the Flintstones.
Fred Flintstone never made a lot of money. His name was never in the
tablets. He was not the finest cartoon character ever drawn. But he's a Homo
sapien. --> Miller's Death of a Salesman
They're the modern Stone Age family.
He is simply a human being, more or less. --> Bellow's Herzog
From the town of Bedrock.
Stonecutter for the world, toolmaker, stacker of meat, player with reptiles
and the nation's cave dwellers, balmy, gritty, city of big boulders,
Bedrock. --> Sandburg's "Chicago"
They're a page right out of history.
It was the best of times, it was the first of times, it was the age of ice,
it was the age of lava, it was the epoch of large sloping foreheads, it was
the epoch of dictabirds and monkey traffic signals and woolly-mammoth shower
massages. All the modern inconveniences. --> Dickens's Great Expectations &
Twain's Life on the Mississippi
He feels the wind on his ears, his heels hitting heavily on the gravel, but
with an effortless gathering out of a kind of sweet panic growing lighter
and quicker and quieter, he runs. Ah: runs. Keep on truckin'. He outlives
this day and comes safe home. --> Updike's Rabbit Run & Shakespeare's Henry
V
See Dino run. Run, Dino, run. --> the Jack & Spot books
Let's ride with the family down the street.
Let us go then, Hominidae, with the drive-in spread out against the sky,
side of piquant bronto ribs from the takeout. --> Elliot's "Song of
Pruffrock"
Through the courtesy of Fred's two feet.
What makes Fred run? Wilma, light of his life, fire of his loincloth. His
sin, his soul. Wil-ma.
When you're with the Flintstones.
"Oh, Fred," Wilma said, "we could have had such a damned good time
together." --> Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises
Have a yabba dabba doo time.
"Some fun!" Barney said.
A dabba doo time.
"Shut up, Barney," Flintstone said.
You'll have a gay old time.
Once again at midnight nearly, while Fred pondered weak and weary over many
a quaint and chiselled tablet of prehistoric lore, while he nodded, nearly
napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of something gently scratching,
scratching at the cavern door. --> Poe's "The Raven."
Someday maybe Fred will win the fight.
Nothing's more determined than a cat of sabre tooth-is there? Is there,
baby? --> Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
And that cat will stay out for the night.
The door was slammed by a thrust of a claw, and then at last all was still.
The house was locked, and he thought his stupid cook or the stupid maid must
have locked the place up until he remembered the maid was a mastodon and the
cook a wacky collection of labor-saurus devices. He pounded on the door,
tried to force it with his shoulder, he shouted: --> Cheever's "The Swimmer"
Willllll-maaaa!
And so he beat on, fists against the granite, borne back ceaselessly into
the past. --> Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
-----Original Message-----
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On Behalf
Of NABOKV-L
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 6:46 AM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] New Yorker Opal parody: "Wilma, light of his life"
Great satire. The New Yorker really shines with that sort of stuff, and
much
else. Especially the irreplaceable Henrik Hertzberg (apologies for
probable
mispelling).
Were you able to identify all the allusions, Juan? I'm afraid I only got
about half of them, if that.
Thanks for the light-hearted contribution.
Andrew Brown
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
I'm not sure that I got them all. But I did just finish turning all the
papers, the translation work, and the grades for the two world literature
class I was teaching, and so had time to go through it. I'm sure I missed a
few (I've posted the ones I could identify below).
Best,
Juan
Dear All,
Since I haven't really seen it-I may have missed it-and since it's been on
my mind, I really wanted to thank the Listserv. This is a ridiculously
bountiful resource, and proved invaluable this semester when working on a
paper on Nabokov and Borges.
I am particularly grateful to Abdellah's gloss of Nabokov's "house without
porticos" comment, and to the other contributors' analysis of VN's comments
on Borges. Thank you. Whatever merits the paper may have (and it does have
some, but it does fall short of what I was hoping for, and it's ultimately
flawed; I was looking for affinities in the authors' use of time to deal
with history, and it all led to some Kinbote/Menardian ruminations on Ada,
"Tlon," and South America), they are due in large part to the online
discussion-which, while we're at it and given that this precedes a
plagiarism parody, let me be clear: they were all duly credited,
acknowledged, and cited.
Best,
Juan
* * *
A screeching comes across the sky. --> Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow
Stately, plump Fred Flintstone stood upon the 'saur's head, bearing a
boulder of granite, on which a bird perched, its eyes crossed. An orange
dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild
Mesozoic air.
He held his shell aloft and intoned:
Yabba dabba doo! --> James Joyce's Ulysses
Afoot and lighthearted, he took to the open road, healthy, free, the world
before him, the long brown path before him leading back to Bedrock. -->
Whitman's "Songs of the Open Road."
Fred repeating to himself, as he ran, the words of an old song:
Flintstones, meet the Flintstones.
Fred Flintstone never made a lot of money. His name was never in the
tablets. He was not the finest cartoon character ever drawn. But he's a Homo
sapien. --> Miller's Death of a Salesman
They're the modern Stone Age family.
He is simply a human being, more or less. --> Bellow's Herzog
From the town of Bedrock.
Stonecutter for the world, toolmaker, stacker of meat, player with reptiles
and the nation's cave dwellers, balmy, gritty, city of big boulders,
Bedrock. --> Sandburg's "Chicago"
They're a page right out of history.
It was the best of times, it was the first of times, it was the age of ice,
it was the age of lava, it was the epoch of large sloping foreheads, it was
the epoch of dictabirds and monkey traffic signals and woolly-mammoth shower
massages. All the modern inconveniences. --> Dickens's Great Expectations &
Twain's Life on the Mississippi
He feels the wind on his ears, his heels hitting heavily on the gravel, but
with an effortless gathering out of a kind of sweet panic growing lighter
and quicker and quieter, he runs. Ah: runs. Keep on truckin'. He outlives
this day and comes safe home. --> Updike's Rabbit Run & Shakespeare's Henry
V
See Dino run. Run, Dino, run. --> the Jack & Spot books
Let's ride with the family down the street.
Let us go then, Hominidae, with the drive-in spread out against the sky,
side of piquant bronto ribs from the takeout. --> Elliot's "Song of
Pruffrock"
Through the courtesy of Fred's two feet.
What makes Fred run? Wilma, light of his life, fire of his loincloth. His
sin, his soul. Wil-ma.
When you're with the Flintstones.
"Oh, Fred," Wilma said, "we could have had such a damned good time
together." --> Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises
Have a yabba dabba doo time.
"Some fun!" Barney said.
A dabba doo time.
"Shut up, Barney," Flintstone said.
You'll have a gay old time.
Once again at midnight nearly, while Fred pondered weak and weary over many
a quaint and chiselled tablet of prehistoric lore, while he nodded, nearly
napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of something gently scratching,
scratching at the cavern door. --> Poe's "The Raven."
Someday maybe Fred will win the fight.
Nothing's more determined than a cat of sabre tooth-is there? Is there,
baby? --> Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
And that cat will stay out for the night.
The door was slammed by a thrust of a claw, and then at last all was still.
The house was locked, and he thought his stupid cook or the stupid maid must
have locked the place up until he remembered the maid was a mastodon and the
cook a wacky collection of labor-saurus devices. He pounded on the door,
tried to force it with his shoulder, he shouted: --> Cheever's "The Swimmer"
Willllll-maaaa!
And so he beat on, fists against the granite, borne back ceaselessly into
the past. --> Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
-----Original Message-----
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On Behalf
Of NABOKV-L
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 6:46 AM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] New Yorker Opal parody: "Wilma, light of his life"
Great satire. The New Yorker really shines with that sort of stuff, and
much
else. Especially the irreplaceable Henrik Hertzberg (apologies for
probable
mispelling).
Were you able to identify all the allusions, Juan? I'm afraid I only got
about half of them, if that.
Thanks for the light-hearted contribution.
Andrew Brown
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
