What It Is (posts below left; rate sheet, client list, other stuff below right)

My name is Bob Land. I am a full-time freelance editor and proofreader, and occasional indexer. This blog is my website.

You'll find my rate sheet and client list here, as well as musings on the life of a freelancer; editing, proofreading, and indexing concerns and issues; my ongoing battles with books and production; and the occasional personal revelation.

Feel free to contact me directly with additional questions: landondemand@gmail.com.

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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Fear Is a Man's Best Friend


A friend once uttered, "It is a wise man who every day learns something new to fear."

I sent him the following quote the other day, from a book I've been working on:

What did he fear?
The commital of homicide or suicide during sleep by an aberration of the light of reason, the incommensurable categorical intelligence situated in the cerebral convolutions.

An email from him earlier today:

Today I woke up fearing that the text of the most sacred work in Modernism is ensconced in Bod's capable, yet conspiratorial hands.

The novel's behind me, but miles to go, oddly.



9 comments:

moi said...

Better in Bod's hands than mine, which would have red-crayoned the entire thing.

I fear Modernist Lit.

czar said...

@Moi: I wouldn't bring up your aversion to a certain southern gentleman author in this crowd, not there's much of a crowd. But I could get a raucous debate going in no time.

Not of course that I've ever read much of his work either, except in some survey course. Sometime I need to go back to my college transcripts and figure out how the hell I got an English major. PoliSci, I can see.

Aunty Belle said...

Fergit fear. How' bout abject despair! That "author" needs a gift of

Come now chillens, WHICH Southern (yes, capital S) gentleman author is y'all so averse to readin'?

Thar's one or two that some folks find tiresome, but shure hope y'aint puttin' none of the Fugitive Agrarians in that bucket.

It's too late tonight to fling out some bait like the difference a'tween authors of regionalism or provincialism (regionalism bein' a local illustration of of a universal human condition, provincialism ain't localized so much as time-bound.)

Mayhap the whole topic of "Southern" writers needs some definin'...jes' to keep clear on such thangs as southern (lower case "s") born writers whose writin' is distinctly yankee-minded. Capote, fer instance.

Aunty Belle said...

ooops--
the gift fer yore author is SIMPLE AND DIRECT: A RHETORIC FOR WRITERS Jacques Barzun (1975)

czar said...

@Aunty: I'll let Moi further dig her own holes, even though I started this one for her. I've got no dog in this hunt.

Chicago tells me cap Southern in a Civil War context and lowercase otherwise. No value judgment intended.

Aunty Belle said...

Yeh, well, Chicago is yankee territory, ya' know--it's certain thar's some value judgment when yankkes (lower case) decide on matters Southern. : )

Aunty Belle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
moi said...

"Chicago is yankee territory." Bwahahahahaha!

Okay, I'll name the southern writer and suffer the falling chips: Faulkner.

I have read just about everything he wrote.

Hate it all.

czar said...

@Aunty: It's funny. I was thinking before I read your comment that you'd probably unearth gremlins behind Chicago's editorial stance. Then I thought, "Aunty's probably shaking her head that I don't see them."

@Moi: Sorry.

I wasn't even thinking of Aunty when I was thinking of friends of mine who will go to the mat over Faulkner. Me? I need to be paid to read some of his stuff.

And if history is any indication, I just opened myself to a world of hurt.