meretricious_matchmaking epitome of incomprehensibility Merlin and Lady Vyvanse, the personification of Grown-Up Ritalin (see sporadic_drug_accuracy_and_Anne_Hathaway) James Joyce and Gertrude Stein (sadly, in reference to the above, not gay ENOUGH) Edward Scissorhands and Jack Pumpkinhead Franz Kafka, the Marquis de Sade, and a time machine Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno The Surrealist Manifesto and the proposed Charter of Quebec Values Bloomsday and Daisyworld Kim Jong-Un and Katniss Everdeen Katniss Everdeen and Anne of Green Gables Anne of Green Gables and Rosa Achmetowna Anne of Green Gables and Luna Lovegood Anne of Green Gables and Margaret Atwood Madonna and Justin Bieber Madonna and Jesus Freud and his mother Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman (http://the-toast.net/2013/09/17/oscar-wilde-and-walt-whitman-did-it/) Margaret Atwood and Leonard Cohen Leonard Cohen and Philip Glass Karlheinz Stockhausen and all of Kraftwerk The Song of Solomon and the Kama Sutra Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, and a pencil United States and Canada H. G. Wells and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in_search_of_belarus and how_to_hustle_like_a_communist (thanks unhinged!) Gertrude Stein and E. L. James (sorry Gertrude) Antarctica and the Arctic Bhutan and San Francisco The Who and The Doctor Arthur Dent and Elizabeth Bennett Stephen Harper and Sarah Palin Iggy Pop and Igor Stravinsky Josh Groban and Cannibal Corpse apples and oranges 131029 ... that should be looking_for_belarus and how_to_hustle_like_a_communist 131029 ... epitome of incomprehensibility more_things_learned_from_dreams suggests another 20th-century literary pairing: Madeleine L'Engle and Anthony Burgess, bi-curiously bi-continental. I mean, it's kind of a love_hate relationship because they keep arguing about which one of them wrote Flowers for Algernon (in real life it was Daniel Keyes) but I'll briefly list my arguments in favour of this pairing. 1) They both have cool author photos. 2) They both wear cool dangly earrings. Except for Burgess. 3) I noticed before that Madeleine L'Engle's The Young Unicorns (1968) has this plot point about teenage gang members being brainwashed ...in order to be recruited by a (literal) underground cult leader who's usurped the position of bishop at a local urban church, and there's these kids who get into the mystery-solving game, but other than that it's pretty much the same as A Clockwork Orange (1962). 4) A Severed Wasp (L'Engle, 1982) and Earthly Powers (Burgess, 1980) are also thematically similar. Elderly protagonists looking back on artistic careers. Christian clergy who are, who are for, or who are angrily against gay people. Characters with cool names: L'Engle especially, a happy call-over from her children's fiction; while not giving into the siren song of boxed-in yet bizarre plots (see point 3) she retains linguistic playfulness. Linguistic playfulness. Someone makes a pun about cunnilingus. No, that's probably Vladimir Nabokov. Same difference. Maddy and Anthony, are you two just knock-off Vladimir Nabokovs? Don't refuse to answer me just because you're dead. It's still rude, you know. 5) Which leads us to compatible time frames. Unlike such star-crossed potential lovers as Marquis de Sade and Franz Kafka (and you know I'm a hopeless SadKaf shipper), Maddy and Anthony's dates are quite similar: 1918-2007 for her and 1917-1993 for him. Even if they weren't, Maddy wrote quite a lot about time travel. 6) Now that I think of it, A Wrinkle in Time (1962) is probably set in the same universe as A Clockwork Orange. The UK keeps its citizens from knowing about the time and space travel going on in the States. "Pish posh," they say to all claims of time-turning tesseracts. 7) They both were quite knowledgeable about music, and I'm sure their tastes overlapped. In all seriousness, I highly recommend both Earthly Powers and A Severed Wasp. They're both rather long books, but on the plus side there's no overt time travel or metaphorical unicorns or retroactive puns on Apple Computer. Now I'm sad that the two never collaborated on anything. Except in bed. 140104 ... e_o_i Good globberstan am I silly sometimes. Nevertheless, Bilbo Baggins and Amelia Bedelia. Get ready for overly-literal adventures through Middle Earth! 140105 ... e_o_i Also, meaningless neologism with unnecessary hyphen. Their union will culminate in a flash of blue light. 140105 ... e_o_i Karl_Barth's_sister and me. 150312 ... e_o_i Giorgio_Agamben and Phoebe Gilman - not as a romantic couple, but narratively. Also, when I started this blathe I didn't actually know what "meretricious" meant. It means "based on pretense, deception, or insincerity" - should've known, it sounds like "tricky" - and I thought it meant something like "with no merit" or "not serious." Neither Giorgio Agamben and Phoebe Gilman, though, are insincere. So the title is rather unfair to them. 160212 ... e_o_i ...Well, I'm sure both of them are insincere sometimes. My point is that it might be a good idea to look up the meanings of words before I use them. :) 160212 ... amy in red this is totally politically incorrect. which is fine. 160213 ... e_o_i Fun_fact: when I wrote this, I didn't really know what "meretricious" meant. I was thinking it was more "unworkable in reality" than "tricking people into thinking it has merit when it doesn't." I wonder if "matchmaking" is linked, because I have an idea... 230411 ... e_o_i Auuugh, and I wrote a variation of this back in 2016. I don't need to *become* an person who tells the same stories. I already am one. 230411 ... tired e_o_i "an person" indeed. Get thee back to thy presentation text, Kirstendoodle. 230411 what's it to you? who go blather from