It was a dark and stormy night...

[desh]

The 2006 results of the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest are up! For those of you who don't know, the contest is to write the worst possible opening sentence of a hypothetical novel. The grand prize winner this year is in the detective genre:

Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.

I haven't read the rest yet, but it promises to be fun reading, as usual.

In other news, Y100 is back! The top only Alt Rock station in Philly went off the air over a year ago, but stuck around online as Y100 Rocks, with the same program director and everything. It was more popular than I predicted it would be, and it actually made money. Now WXPN, the only station I listen to anymore, has bought Y100 Rocks, and is putting it on the air ten hours a week! The Y100 name is going away, but everything else is staying, even the 24/7 internet stream separate from XPN's.

I didn't listen to Y100 much in the few years before it shut down, since I was a bigger fan of 1997ish alt rock (Third Eye Blind) than 2001ish alt rock (Limp Bizkit). But I was always glad it was still around, and I can't wait to actually hear it on the radio again. Philadelphia rock fans rejoice!

Comments

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

Wow, between that and the saga of Baltimore's WHFS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHFS#Live_105.7_and_the_revival_of_WHFS), maybe there's some hope to get good music back in NYC.

[desh]

If not, there's always WXPN online!

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

If only my work computer let music streams through :(

and about that contest...

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

i dont care if it's supposed to be bad, i think this phrase "whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean" is awesome.

and the burrito motif = fantastic!

Re: and about that contest...

[desh]

Yeah, you clearly have to be a skilled writer to have a chance of placing in this contest. It's not really about bad writing; just bad results. Or something.

LOL!!

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

Winner: Purple Prose

A single sparkling tear fell from Little Mary's cheek onto the sidewalk, then slid into the storm drain, there to join in its course the mighty waters of the Los Angeles River and, eventually, Long Beach Harbor, with its state-of-the-art container-freight processing facilities.

Re: and about that contest...

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

Actually as I'm reading through the winners, I'm noticing that a lot of them would work really well inside spoken word pieces. (I've got Slam on the brain). popular Slam works in my expert spectator-ish experience seems to involve equal parts outlandish metaphors, humor, and run-on sentences.

[leftyjew.livejournal.com]

What about 93.3 MMR? That's always been my favorite Philly radio station (Y100 a close second)

[jdcohen.livejournal.com]

Man, I miss 103.9 WDRE... back when it was an alternative rock alternative to the more commercial Y100. Then WDRE became "Urban", then it became Gospel. Now, Y100 is dead as well, yet resurrected. Weird.

--Jeff

[desh]

I don't have much DRE cred. I started listening about 5 days before they shut it down. But yeah, it (and, well, current rock music in general at that time) was much better even than Y100. Though Preston went from DRE to Y100 (and then to MMR), which was quite cool. I love Preston.

[jdcohen.livejournal.com]

While Y100 was playing Nirvana in a continuous loop after the death of Kurt Cobain, DRE was playing the Toadies, the Nixons, Toad The Wet Sprocket, and even the Caulfields (a small band from Wilmington which had one good song). Hell, I think even G. Love got some DRE air time before they became a Philadelphia staple. Basically, Y100 was mass-marketed alternrock while DRE had a much more indie feel to it. So indie, that they fucking got bought out by a rap and R&B format. And now fucking Gospel. Deshie, it cuts deep.

--Jeff

[dredpiraterober.livejournal.com]

I miss DRE also...*SIGH*. Not like I listen to the radio anymore anyway, but if I did...

[jdcohen.livejournal.com]

Me neither. The radio just sucks of late, particularly in DC where there's a preponderance of Christian Rock stations and talk radio compared to any other programming types.

--Jeff

[dredpiraterober.livejournal.com]

I don't listen to radio, because the only time I listened to radio was
1) While driving. I rarely drive anymore
2) ON my walkman. I don't have any devices with a radio anymore, and I have an ipod which is better.

THE END

[jdcohen.livejournal.com]

Same here - iPod = the death of radio. Yay!

--Jeff