It was a dark & stormy night at Top Comments; the mojo rained down in torrents like IQ points falling at a Trump rally, and Tara’s bosoms heaved like a CNN anchor’s ego as she cried out: “How did I miss this year’s Bulwer-Lytton awards?”
But first, a word from our sponsor!
Here at Top Comments we strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!
The Bulwer-Lytton awards are given annually for the worst possible first sentence of a hypothetical bad novel. They’re named for Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who began his novel Paul Clifford thusly:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
This year’s, ahem, “winner:”
Even from the hall, the overpowering stench told me the dingy caramel glow in his office would be from a ten-thousand-cigarette layer of nicotine baked on a naked bulb hanging from a frayed wire in the center of a likely cracked and water-stained ceiling, but I was broke, he was cheap, and I had to find her.
-William “Barry” Brockett, Tallahassee, FL
There are also category winners and Dishonorable Mentions. Here’s the winner in my favorite category, Purple Prose:
She was like my ex-girlfriend Ashley, who’d stolen my car, broken my heart, murdered my father, robbed a bank, and set off a pipe bomb in Central park — tall.
-Rachel Nirenberg, Toronto, Canada
And because no Bulwer-Lytton collecrtion would be complete without a jarringly inappropriate metaphor for women’s bosoms, here’s a Dishonorable Mention, in the Purple Prose category:
As she reclined, naked, on the chaise lounge, Constance’s breasts looked like two mounds of creamy coleslaw served up on a fine porcelain plate — but the good kind of coleslaw, not the violent, neon-green stuff you get at KFC.
-Lisa Liscoumb, Oshawa, Ontario
Dishonorable Mention, Adventure category:
Captain Blackheart well knew the penalties for piracy, but out here in international waters there was no one to stop him, so he scanned the horizon with his brass telescope before heading below decks to check on his high speed DVD copying machines.
Phillip Davies, Cardiff, Wales
There’s lots more: romance, crime, horror, science fiction, and even a special section for vile puns.
And since I’ll never use them anywhere else, here are my own failed Bulwer-Lytton entries for this year:
They raced through the jungle just ahead of their pursuers, Roxana’s bosoms heaving like two suicidal cheetahs hurtling over a cliff, until Felipe stopped to show her how to identify and use the deadly buzzberry plant, and Roxana couldn’t help wondering if this information would somehow save her life later.
Charlene crept home with her panties in her purse and her pride in the pit of her stomach from where she’d swallowed it last night, along with a half-dozen cosmos, and it lay there like an unbaked biscuit at the bottom of the ocean.
There were so many vampires at the Romance Writers Convention that it was nicknamed the LOL-We’re-Bitten Conference, but it was the piercing eyes of the elegantly dressed zombie that made Veronica’s heart explode like a Glad bag bursting open when the dead body inside it began to twitch.
It was a picture-perfect wedding, except that there was no music, no minister, and no flowers, and it took place in an underground bunker, the groom having been eaten by mutants three days before, but the guests understood that it had been a rough time for Sarah since the nuclear attack, so they made it as festive as they could.
Denny held the door for his date, and didn’t tell her that her dress looked like the color of a sneeze (not that sneezes have a color, but you know what I mean), and he spent an hour pretending to be interested in her stupid life, and he paid eighteen bucks for dinner, and she still hadn’t put out – why, oh why, couldn’t women see what a great guy he was?
The fog choked the valley like an asthma attack, until the morning breeze, nature’s Albuterol ™, blew it away.
Oog’s death agony went on for ages, like a lawyer giving a closing argument in a case where his client’s been caught red-handed but he still has to earn his fee, so he quotes precedents and argues legal minutiae until everyone’s sick of his voice, except that this story is set in the caveman era when there were no lawyers, so Oog was unaware of the similarity.
It was a beautiful moonlit night, and Lester, a 56-year-old product placement specialist, was in an outdoor bathtub, with 25-year-old Cheryl next to him in an identical bathtub, while he explained his idea to put promos for products like ManUp™ in the opening scenes for novels, so long as the author also mentioned the risk of cardiac events, fatigue, impaired judgment, ennui, itching, and that French disease that nobody remembers the name of.
On to Top Comments!
From JG in MD:
This is the most amazing first comment in the history of first comments. (Note from Tara: comment is from jiarizona in Hunter’s diary, Journalists haven’t been able to verify that Trump donated anything at all to Louisiana flood relief.)
From elfling:
Comment by PJ Evans, submitted for my favorite new word of the day, “disemvowelling."
From Tamar:
Perfect description of Trump’s chances of winning in California, by harrije.
Highlighted comments:
In her diary Online comments sections are mostly going away. Kudos to DK for keeping the ship afloat, StellaRay highlighted this thoughtful comment from Empty Vessel, about the priorities of large social media organizations. And also this comment from citisven on what makes dailykos a real community.
In Laura Clawson’s diary Media damns Hillary Clinton if she does, damns her if she doesn’t, Isherman highlighted this comment from Catskill Julie, with great resources and suggestions for taking action.
From your humble (if antisocial) diarist:
The diary title got changed, but it was originally, “Hillary would be losing to Jeb by 10 points, half because of Bill.” Treg offers this perfect response.
In Laura Clawson’s diary, Donald Trumps’ campaign manger unskews the polls, Laughing Gravy asks a sensible question, and Tuffie has a hilarious answer.
Top mojo, courtesy of mik:
Picture quilt, courtesy of jotter:
cd /home/jotter/dk4/dk4c; /usr/local/bin/swish-e -f 20160823.index 20160824.index -w 'images=(png or gif or jpg) not (images=(flame or candle or candleflame) or subject=(mojo or kitty or pooty or pootie or puppy or pony or ponies or meow or "tip jar") or (kitty or pooty or pootie or puppy or pony or ponie or meow) or cid=1)' -H 1 -b 0 -m 200 -s n_recrates desc -x ' '