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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!
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To: Father Terrence who wrote (48542)8/2/1999 11:46:00 PM
From: jbe  Read Replies (2) of 108807
 
Very good, Terrence! Rather -- very bad! Almost bad enough to put you in the running for First prize in the next Annual Bad Writing Contest!

But not quite bad enough. You botched the last sentence, tsk, tsk. Look at the last sentence of the passage you were rebutting. See how it builds up to a grand finale, and then poops out with a weak conclusion :

...the strategy of carceral negotiation and street control
remains the tirelessly American one of inflicting regeneration through violence upon the racially heteroglossic wilds and others of the inner city.

"And others"? What others? Others wilds? Hmmm... "Of the inner city" ...trails off not with a bang, but a whimper. In short, the author has undercut his own purple prose. Exquisitely bad.

Now you, on the other hand, conclude with a consistent, powerful image:

...the electronic rage oftimes seen exhibited by artists who deny race by screaming out their names in darkened alleys while palpably enraptured by the corroding Campbell Soup cans clutched in their imperfect grasp.

Now, how can we effectively kill this ending? Some proposals:

...Campbell Soup cans cluthced in their imperfect grasp or whatever.

....Campbell Soup cans clutched in their imperfect grasp or something like that.

....Campbell Soup cans clutched in their imperfect grasp and other such thingamajiggers in the upper nasal passages.

You get the idea. Just play with it a little longer, and you will have an absolutely perfect piece of Bad Writing. <g>

How in God's name can people write like that???!!! But they do! As Dave Barry might say, "I am not making this up!"
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