That guy again? I thought I stopped payment on the check.

/You read lips?

Wide open beavers.

Actual Farking: This was basically his rejected anthropology thesis "Fluctuations Between Good and Evil in Simple Tales." I think it was also in "Wampeters, Foma, and Granfaloons."

I thought it was at the back of Palm Sunday.

'Understanding Poetry,' by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D.

To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme and figures of speech, then ask two questions: 1) How artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered and 2) How important is that objective? Question 1 rates the poem's perfection; question 2 rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered, determining the poem's greatness becomes a relatively simple matter.

If the poem's score for perfection is plotted on the horizontal of a graph and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness.

A sonnet by Byron might score high on the vertical but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great. As you proceed through the poetry in this book, practice this rating method. As your ability to evaluate poems in this matter grows, so will, so will your enjoyment and understanding of poetry.

That guy doesn't know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut.

Saw this in person. Not this exact talk. He gave it more than once.

Oh fark me?! Well fark you!

I really enjoy his way of looking at things. It follows the way I see the world, so of course I think his work is some of the best I have read.

This one leaves off his graph of Shakespeare -- might have been Hamlet. It was a straight line because he felt that all of the major plot points were ambiguous.

I'm a big fan of Vonnegut.

He's up in heaven now.

Knara: 'Understanding Poetry,' by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D.

Oh Knara, my Knara!

You can read it here:

And so on.

It Smee: I'm a big fan of Vonnegut.

He's up in heaven now.

+1

Blocked at work so this is indeed a bookmark. Always enjoyed Vonnegut's sense of humor.

Also, Douglas Adams had an interesting take on math and music (and cricket amongst other things) in one of the Dirk Gently books.

Another version of this story from Hyperland (Douglas Adams and Tom Baker) (new window)

(from 1:30 on...)

The 3rd one is The Matrix, right?

notmtwain: You'll enjoy hearing him talk about how upset he is that Americans were enjoying our then recent victory over Iraq.

That probably explains why Fox News shiat all over him in their obituary for him when he died.

"[Vonnegut] said...that he hoped his children wouldn't say of him, when he was gone, 'he made wonderful jokes, but he was such an unhappy man'...so I'll say it for them." - James "human piece of shiat" Rosen, Fox News

He committed suicide by cigarette but was foiled by an automobile accident. I guess it was better than freezing to death at a bus stop in Indianapolis waiting for a bus that's 3 hours late. And definitely better than growing old waiting decades on Titan for a robot to decide whether it wanted to commit suicide again.

and *another* thing, Vonnegut! I'm gonna stop payment on the cheque!

Yeah, how about you go ahead and rip that page out of your book.

In fact, rip out the whole introduction.

/why no, I dnrtfa - thanks for asking

It Smee: I'm a big fan of Vonnegut.

He's up in heaven now.

Playing poker with Asimov, if there were any justice in the omniverse.

That's odd. I dropped this ice cube in my drink, and now the whole thing's frozen over.

thelordofcheese: The 3rd one is The Matrix, right?

Came for a Matrix reference; leaving satisfied.

/Do you think that's O² you're breathing?

Greatest. Author. Ever.

ciberido Quote 2011-05-27 12:50:11 AM
That's odd. I dropped this ice cube in my drink, and now the whole thing's frozen over.

nice, nice, very nice