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Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Valve-Autovalve-Metavalve Best/Worst Titles Awards
I was pondering, in my self-regarding way, the title of my last post, ‘Troping Prog as Toes’. It’s a nicely clogged-up, Browningesque title; appears gibberishical at first sight, but parses when you know what I’m talking about. Looks like it might be an anagram, but isn’t. Makes you think ‘tripping the light fa – no’ and then ‘trooping the co – no’ and then ‘groping professional Tories, maybe?’ All of which are things I look for in a title. (’Browning?’ you ask. ‘Why Browning?’ Well, I’m thinking of his line ‘Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?’ Which, for some reason, his contemporaries thought slightly ungainly and even ugly qua poetry. Who knows why.)
But from self-regarding desiderating my thoughts moved on to the following: I think we ought to inaugurate a competition for the best and worst titles-of-Valve-posts published over the last six month period. I propose six months because trawling back further than that is too much like hard work, frankly.
But titles are important. Titles snag the eye, or alienate the heart; draw readers in or repel them to other websites, with their better-titled posts. We need to acknowledge and celebrate the best of our titles. And, since I’m a snippy sort, hold up to collective ridicule the most ridicule-worthy. To create a climate in which posters are encouraged to strive for the best. So I call on you all, Valve readers and commentators. I’ve selected, using the powers of my selectivity, an indicative shortlist. You have the power to decide, who wins these coveted awards:
The Valve-Autovalve-Metavalve Best Title Award 2006 (second half)
and
The Valve-Autovalve-Metavalve Worst Title Award 2006 (second half)
Preliminary nominations-list below the fold.
Note, please, that it is not the content of these posts that is to be judged; merely the titles. Alternate or additional suggestions for best/worst titles of the last six months are of course admissible.
John H: from the genius of his Pirates of the Caribbean post title ‘Yes but is it Arrrrt?’, to the wordsalad ‘Between Infinite Judgment and Infinite Jest - or - the Howl of ‘da Noive of!’ takes wing at dusk’.
Scott: from the triply-positive ‘Am I not right? Yes? Yes? Yes? Holy wax and holifer!’ to the patently-lacking-the-courage-of-its-convictions
‘Silas Weir Blah Blah Blah: Read the Post, Please, It’s Actually Not Insular and Terrible’.
Amardeep: from the elegantly double, or triple-edged ‘Fat Ulysses’ to the rather Malkovitch-Malkovitch repetitions of
‘Theorizing Blogging, Theorizing Theory (and a little on Spivak)’.
Bill: from the nicely attention-snagging ‘Shrine of the Triceratops’ (which I first thought was going to be a pastiche Edgar Rice Burroughs, lost-world style adventure) to the couldn’t be duller does-what-it-says-on-the-tin ‘Calls for Papers’.
Daniel Green: from the forceful and appropriate Joyce-estate post-title ‘No!’ to the Zero-Mostel-lookalike ‘Harold Bloom’.
Jonathan G.: From the getting-the-jump-on-the-Velvet-Underground ‘Saturday Morning’ to the ever-so-slightly ingratiating ‘Dear Valve Commenters’
Lawrence: From the punny ‘Fantastic Four Zoas’ to the untimely-ripped-from-an-Abbott-Costello-routine ‘How vs. What’
Matt G. : From the ‘oh please let the answer be me!’-ness of ‘Who is King of the Cats?’ to the wearing-its-disjointedness-rather-on-its-sleeve-osity of‘A Few More Disjointed Thoughts on the MLA’
Miriam B: From the nice, and nicely appropriate, nineteenth-century stylings of ‘A Sermon, on the Current Disputes Over Turning Off Cellphones in the British Library Reading Rooms’ to the unfortunately toiletesque ‘Information dump’
Sean: From the neat-o self-reflexivity of ‘Déjà Vu All Over Again’ to the neo-what?-who?-whyshouldIcare? hyphenated ‘Neo-functional?’
So, people: alternate suggestions; votes; hurry and make your voice known. With a little hustle we could make this something so prestigious you’d want it at the top of your CV in a red font where everything else is in black.
Comments
You neglected to nominate your own, Adam. I’d say, from the appropriately alliterative “Grendel’s Glove” to the horrible mess of “Valve-Autovalve-Metavalve Best/Worst Titles Awards”. But you might have titled this post this way just to try for a win in your own contest, so maybe it should be disqualified.
And Miriam J., you should post more! If you did you too could have great contest entries. (I was actually surprised that everyone else on the current authors list has posted twice in the last six months.)
I notice you’ve packaged these titles two-up, Adam. Does that make them . . . . you know and fear it’s coming don’t you? . . . . bivalves?
That’s it, Bill. Five comments in the penalty box.
You mean I gotta’ clam-up, Scott?
You wanna end up acephalous?
Thought that was your gig.
I knew that one was cheap. Five comments in the penalty box for me.
I liked “From Infinite Judgement to Infinite Jest”—but the second part of that title is ungainly. It might have worked as a subtitle, but post-titles really are not meant for that sort of thing.
IF Bill and Scott are done with their juvenile punmanship, there is serious voting to be done here.
Worst title: the contenders are John’s, Scott’s, and Adam’s. A scientific approach evaluates Scott’s word count at 15, with 4 punctuation marks—in the heavyweight class. But John’s is bulked up even further with 17 words and 5 punctuation marks. Advantage: John. However, Adam’s title is still firmly in the running, with lower word count made up for by staggering ugliness. Both are running even in the made up word subcategory.
Still, John’s annoying mixed metaphor makes his title the “winner”.
Best title: Bill’s. Because everyone worships dinosaurs.
“Shrine of the Triceratops” is the most attention grabbing title on this list. So my vote is for Bill. I also liked “The Genre of this book is legally binding”, a post by Armdeep regarding James Frey.
Sorry “Amardeep”
VTY,
Chris Hailstorm
Rich rumbled my cunning plan to avoid obloquy by omitting my own crunching titles. Ah well. It looks like I’m the Alan Davies here.
On the other hand, it looks like Bill is a nose ahead of Amardeep at the front of the pack. But it’s early in the race yet.
Well, I’ll toss in a vote for Grendels Glove. I like “Fat Ulysses” too. Coulda’ been a song by Cream.
Any vote for a best title that is not accompanied by a vote for worst title will be declared to be invalid by Diebold.
Okay Bill gets my vote again for worst. “Call for papers” is as boring as “Shrine ot the Triceratops” is exciting. So congrats. And then booo!!!
I believe that’s known as extreme bivalving.
Hi, Adam--I wonder if you could favor us with a post about your recent book about the Wonga coup: Simon Mann, Mark Thatcher, and all that.
Jonathan: different Adam Roberts entirely. But you’d be surprised (or perhaps not) how many people, particularly Africans, have contacted me about that book. (THEY: ‘We’d like to interview you for South African TV.’ ME: ‘Great! You know, of course, that I write science fiction, and am not the author of the Wonga Coup. But I’d love to! What time shall I turn up?’ THEY: ‘Uh ...’)
This man is also not me. Not all of us are blessed with as unique, distinguishing and distinguished a name as ‘Scott Eric Fernakerpan Kaufman’ you know.
False modesty is no virtue, so I vote ‘howl of da noive of’ as the best/worst pun I have ever made.
We ought to have some sort of gaudy trophies we hand out. I propose: the Golden Geoduck. (You could call them ‘duckies’.)
Adam-qua-"Adam Roberts” is not a beautiful and unique snowflake. Neither is “Scott Kaufman,” hence the “Fernakerpan.” But were we to trawl, well, once upon a time I put a lot of thought into writing terrible titles like:
“A Derridian Skull-Peeling; or, Damn This Foul Effluvium!”
“Citations & The Damage Done; or, How Much Lacan Before I Resort to Insult and Violence?”
“Miriam’s Hrair Limit; or, How to Shelve Intelligently to Feel More Intelligent”
“A Lexigraphical Lament about Probationer Prosody"
I used to be stunningly brilliant/awful.