Discover Your Literary Personality (via Books Inq.)

My results:

You scored as A classic novel. Almost everyone showers praise upon you for your depth and enduring relevance. According to your acolytes, everything you say is timeless, erudite and meaingful. Of course, none of them actually listen to you. Nobody listens to you at all, but it’s fashionable to claim you as a friend. Fond of obscure words, antiquated notions and libraries, you never have a problem finding someone to hang out with. The fact that they end up using you to balance their kitchen tables is an unfortunate side effect, but you’re used to being used for others’ benefit. Oh the burden of being Great. A classic novel 86% A coloring book 79% Poetry 64% A paperback romance novel 57% A college textbook 50% The back of a froot loops box 39% An electronics user's manual 39% Your Literary Personality created with QuizFarm.com

New York Post: “Denham also recalls that Mailer, one of her literary heroes, turned out to be a bit weird. At one party, Mailer and his second wife, Adele, stripped and began jumping up and down on a bed, with Adele trying to coax Denham to get naked, too. ‘Norman was just square, no particular waist or pectoral definition, sturdy legs, large at the knees,’ and an ‘ordinary’ sex organ.”

Wired ask numerous writers for stories contained in six words. (My favorite: Margaret Atwood’s “Starlet sex scandal. Giant squid involved.”) The folks at Metafilter took it one step further. (Alas, I too was seduced for a time while logged in at the blue. Damn these glorious haiku-like formats! Infinitely more addictive than goldfish crackers!)

Millenia Black recently challenged her critics with this assertion:

For those who are of a practical mindset, and to demystify my previous post, yes, a complaint was indeed filed against the publisher the first week of this month (October), in the Southern District Court of New York. Such documents are public record and are readily accessible via a simple trip to the clerk’s office.

Calling Black’s bluff, I checked the Southern District of New York Court docket. There is no “Millenia Black” lawsuit, per se. There is, however, a lawsuit filed against Penguin Group (USA) Inc. and Signet (Black’s publisher) by one Nadine Aldred, residing in Orlando, Florida. The suit was filed on October 2, 2006, within the time frame suggested by Ms. Black. It is a civil rights case: Case No. 1:06-CV-07887 to be exact, assigned to Judge Paul A. Crotty. (And if anyone wants to drop by the Southern District of New York Court (Foley Square) and pick up copies of the complaint, you can tell the clerk that the case file is available in Volume CS1.)

Is Millenia Black the nom de plume of Nadine Aldred? Well, you make the call. I should note that this is the only case filed against Penguin Group (USA) in the month of October. Further, Ms. Black’s profile indicates that she is from Florida, which matches the location of Ms. Aldred.

Interestingly enough, Ms. Aldred has not retained an attorney for this. She’s filed the lawsuit pro se, which is a fancy Latin adjective that essentially indicates that Ms. Aldred is representing herself. (And why?)

When the complaint becomes available per the Southern District of New York Court’s ECF requirements, I will investigate further.

Okay, I’m working on something and I’ve ripped what little hair I have out of my head trying to find a specific story (possibly a short section of a novel) I’m trying to reference. We’re talking volumes ripped out of the library all over the floor. We’re talking crazed Google searches. We’re talking a few desperate emails to hard-core literary pals. This was something I read about fifteen years ago, written in a very poetic manner, that involves a man who walks the streets, who serves as a self-declared guard for a neighborhood community in an urban center but who is very much unappreciated, and whose services are scoffed at by the other people who live in the neighborhood. Think Knut Hamsun’s Hunger, but with the protagonist having more noble aspirations, a great call to duty for services that nobody around him can understand. It’s something that may have come before Ray Bradbury’s famous story “The Pedestrian,” which is similar, but not the story in question! I want to say that this was written at some point during the 1950s, but I’m not so sure. And this may have been the binding, because I think I checked this book out of a library, which is probably why I don’t have the book in question here.

I’m now considering the possibility that I somehow hallucinated this story, but I’m convinced that I read it somewhere. But it was long ago, in the days when I wasn’t so serious a reader, and I can’t recall the precise story. And this kills me, because normally I have a pretty good memory for things like this.

If anyone has any leads on this, I would be beyond appreciative! And perhaps I might send you some books or something. Any ideas what this story might be?