{"id":40194,"date":"2022-02-09T20:11:08","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T20:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/?p=40194"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:58:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T13:58:27","slug":"noahs-blog-fifteen-minute-intermission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/2022\/noahs-blog-fifteen-minute-intermission\/","title":{"rendered":"Noah\u2019s Blog \u2013 Fifteen-Minute Intermission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Noah\u2019s Blog \u2013 Fifteen-Minute Intermission\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n\n\n

By Noah Bendzsa<\/a>
The Department of English Language and Literature<\/a> Student Blogger for 2021\/2022<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like ballets and operas, many long old movies have intermissions, partway through, when viewers can get another popcorn or soda, or go to the washroom, or leave gracefully. There is an intermission in 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em> (1968), Ben-Hur<\/em> (1959), Giant <\/em>(1956), Lawrence of Arabia<\/em> (1962), and My Fair Lady<\/em> (1964). Gone with the Wind <\/em>(1939), which is almost four hours long (and almost four hours too long), has a twenty-minute intermission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this intermission, I would like to pose two challenges for my readers. Both of them come from a very literary new film, The French Dispatch<\/em> (2021), which is about the composition of three articles in the life of an editor-in-chief (Bill Murray) and his literary journal\u2014The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun<\/em>\u2014headquartered in the fictional Ennui-sur-Blas\u00e9, France, from 1925 to 1975.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first challenge concerns a comment, made by a proofreader, about an article written by J. K. L. Berensen (Tilda Swinton) about the artist Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio del Toro). The proofreader deadpans: \u201cThree dangling participles, two split infinitives, and nine spelling errors in the first sentence alone\u201d (Anderson 7). My challenge for you is to write that sentence and send it to me (noahbendzsa@cmail.carleton.ca<\/a>). The best three sentences I receive will be appended to my next blog post. They need not be about the fictional Rosenthaler, but they should be in the form of the first sentence of an article about some artist or creator\u2014writer, moviemaker, singer, songwriter, actor, painter, sculptor, showrunner\u2014fictional or not, living or dead. For the spelling mistakes, take inspiration from the days of pre-standardized spelling (from, for instance, Spenser and Chaucer). In order to make it all hold together, you will probably need a semicolon or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Moss, Elisabeth, performer. The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun. Directed by Wes Anderson, Indian Paintbrush and American Empirical Pictures, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The second challenge is to identify, or at least speculate about, what the chart drawn up by the copy editor played by Elisabeth Moss is meant to reveal about the sentence, \u201cThey will fail to notice, under the corner of a threadbare rug, the torn ticket stub for an unclaimed hat which sits alone on the upper shelf of a cloakroom in a bus depot on the outskirts of the work-a-day town where Nickerson and his accomplices were apprehended\u201d (3\u20134). And what\u2019s with that sentence? Wouldn\u2019t \u201cThey will fail to notice, under the corner of a threadbare rug, the torn ticket stub for the <\/em>unclaimed hat that <\/em>sits alone on the upper shelf of a cloakroom in a bus depot\u2026\u201d be better, or at least more conventional?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless, try not to join Joseph Grand<\/a> in your compositions and speculations. Sometimes, says Nickerson, a work-a-day sentence will do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exeunt moviegoers<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below are a two marvellous submitted sentences\u2014one by Vivian Astroff, a fourth-year student studying the History and Theory of Architecture, and one by Professor Jody Mason, of the English Department\u2014and one sentence I\u2019ve written.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Having put all his egs into one baskit so to speek, the show q-rated by Dudel Thomson displayed a range of werk to clearly dazzle the eye\u2019s, to totally overcom the brain and even stimulate a debate, hanging in the new gallry; it was certainly contraversial, being a carear highlight.<\/p>V.A.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Traking Henry Jamze, after the fayled Guy Domville<\/em> in London, to vividlie portray his secluzion in Rye, Jamze maykes masterpieces in T\u00f3b\u00edn\u2019s The Master<\/em>, to carefully corral words to controll that which terrifyes.<\/p>J.M.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Broddly speeking, David Duchovny\u2019s Fox Mulder is woden compaired to Gillian Anderson\u2019s Dana Scully\u2014although a Yale-educated acter and x-pected to fanatically x-cel, Mulder has a perticular yen for the cerebral monologue\u2014and to gently put it, he overextendes and lures in the fans with his paranoia.<\/p>N.B.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Works Cited<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n