Lord knows, it's been done before, but this little dictionary of literary "reviewese" is pretty funny.
You could compile a similar list for music "reviewese," of course, and there would be many overlapping terms. They even tend to drop some of the same gratuitous names. The main difference: music reviewers will by and large refer to "your ass" more frequently than book reviewers. Otherwise, it's basically mad lib city.
My favorite one from the article: "(the) name of that young German corporal was Adolf Hitler."
Posted by Dr. Frank at August 18, 2004 05:51 PM | TrackBackFrank--Question time:
Just wondering how it is you find time to pull up all of these nifty little snippets from across the world (wide web)? Don't get me wrong, I spend more than my share time wasting away in one corner of the net or another, but only when I have real work I'm avoiding.
Pro-crast-I-nation???
Posted by: anna at August 18, 2004 06:02 PMI think the CD equivalent to book jacket reviewese would be the little sticker that come on the album packaging. It usually has a 2 or three word quotation to describe the sound. "Deceptively simple" sounds like a MTX cd sticker reviewese quote for sure.
Posted by: Michael Lee at August 18, 2004 07:22 PMoh man, this has nothing to do with the post. but a couple years ago we shared stalker stories at the Launchpad in Albuquerque NM, anyway, I used one of your's in a monologue I wrote for a playwright performance.
My monologue rules! Thanks.
And...come back to Alb.
I am deceptively simple.
When I read "the name of that young corporal was Adolf Hitler," I automatically heard it in Kasey Kasem's voice.
Try it -- it's fun!
Posted by: Nick at August 21, 2004 01:48 AMOr Paul Harvey, good day!
Posted by: Zaphod at August 24, 2004 06:55 PMThe name of that young American punk rocker was Dr. Frank.
Posted by: myke at August 25, 2004 06:51 PM