Repping the (Massachusetts) Bay Area

"Lil" John Winthrop


Three popular song titles of relevance to Puritans
Black Magic Woman—Fleetwood Mac, Santana
Lady in Red—Chris De Burgh
Goodies—Ciara

Three popular songs title not of relevance to Puritans
Drive my car—Beatles
Safe European Home—The Clash
Cocaine—Eric Clapton

Week In Perspective

We're at the end of another stellar Monocles Galore week. We want to thank Eli for being this week's Friend of the Site, and all of you for reading and your contributions to the caption contests. Here are this week's co-winners "The quality of penthouse pets has really gone down lately. Look at this young lass here..." and "if i knew more about erotic gay literature, i would write a caption that made it seem as though that is what they were reading." Perhaps many of our readers come from British prep schools. [Sophie's note: Perhaps they were written BY ROBERT GRAVES, WHO DID GO TO BRITISH PREP SCHOOL, FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

A lot of people ask us how we come up with ideas for our posts. We get struck by inspiration in all kinds of places, the worst being the kidneys. This scene actually happened, and exemplifies the creative process behind Monocles Galore.

Scene: Editor's meeting at James's house

James's dad: So what is this?

James: It's like…you know…a website…with like…where we're funny, and we're like…writing, like, in the style of like….other writers.

Sophie: It's humor writing about literature and history

James's dad: So who provides the humor and who provides the literature?

Sophie and James: Blank stares.

James's dad: yeah…so, what, it's like George Washington crossing the Delaware and then you make fun of him because he had a leaky boat?

James: Haha no that's stupid

Sophie (whisper): James, write that down.

Have a great weekend.

Friend of the Site Thursday

Our Friend Eli wrote this piece.

The Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by Eli

The years 1870-1883 was not the most exciting era in U.S. history. The one exception, however, was the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. This bridge set the standard for bridge engineering and aesthetic around the world, and all under one of the most corrupt city governments this country has ever seen. One could barely build a sturdy dog-house in New York City without paying massive fees for permits and shoddy materials from corrupt contractors.[1] The story of the the Brooklyn Bridge is a beautiful, tragic and fascinating tale of individual heroism, popular resistance, and political intrigue. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to tell it tonight. So instead I’ll tell one little, amazing piece of the story: the sinking of the piers.

Even today, the piers are imposing structures, but in 1876 when both towers were completed, they dwarfed every structure around them. The second tallest building, the Trinity Chapel barely rose to half the height of the two towers.[2]

So how do you dig out 45 feet of riverbed while 70 feet underwater with neither electricity[3] nor steam shovel?!!![4] Construct an enormous box out of wood and steel (but mainly wood), pump it full of compressed air fill it full of men with shovels, and sink it to the bottom of the river, where men will dig and set small dynamite charges into bedrock so that slowly, inch by inch, the wood box sinks into the ground. When the box is at the requisite depth, you’ll get the men out (except for the 20 who died from the bends…they came out earlier) and fill it with concrete, and that will be the foundation to one your two towers.

This system of digging out river bottoms by submerging men with shovels in air-compressed boxes was not exactly new technology in 1873.[5] But it had never been done on this scale before and few believed it could be. Washington Roebling, head engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, and perhaps one of the most brilliant figures in U.S. history, believed different. Roebling commissioned a New York shipbuilder to build him two enormous boxes (known as caissons). They were to be 168 feet x 102 feet and 21 feet high. The walls were shaped like a V: nine feet thick where they met the ceiling and tapering down to an 8 inch digging wedge. The shipbuilder was so skeptical of the plan, that they he demanded to be paid in advance.[6]

On May 3, 1870, the first caisson took off from its dock and was pulled by eight tug boats into position near the Brooklyn shore. Layer upon layer of stone was added to the top of the caisson until it had settled into the bottom of the east river. Work in the caisson was hard, dangerous and dirty.[7] At one point, fire broke out in the Brooklyn caisson’s roof. Had this fire continued much longer, 35,000 tons of stone on top would have come crashing down.

So when you’re strolling with your date en route to your nouveau-yuppie condo in DUMBO, make sure you give workers some dap.

---

[1] This was unfortunate because most people lived in dog houses

[2] Upon completion of the piers, the builder of Trinity Chapel felt inadequate

[3] didn’t exist yet…well, it did, but wasn’t harnessed…you know what I mean.

[4] A new technology prone to exploding

[5] How do you think they built Atlantis?

[6] The modern usage of “Bling” originates from Roebling’s ability to pay the ship builders with cubic zirconium

[7] That’s what she said

Have you found Jesus?

Get the religious iconography here?

Whenever I read a novel, I try to figure out which character represents Jesus. I don’t know, someone I can’t remember said that maybe it was a good idea.

To be fair, I haven’t read the bible, so my knowledge about the Gospel has arrived in a circuitous route. (Everything I know about the New Testament I learned from The Waste Land) I get excited when I match a character to Jesus. An exchange in class today:

James: “I think Sebastian might be Jesus because at the end he grows a beard.”

Class laughs

James: under his breath “I don’t know; I’m Jewish.”

Professor: Well that doesn’t mean you can’t look for religious iconography.

My professor had a good point. Just because you haven’t read something, doesn’t mean you can’t talk about it with authority. I kind of get the point; Immaculate Conception, miracles, carpenter, beard, betrayed, dies for the sins of humanity, and is reborn. So basically anything that has sacrifice and death and rebirth is Jesus. Here are some connections I have made.

Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain-Tom Sawyer.

He resurrects himself. Also, likes to lie down by the river.

Touchdown for Tommy by Matt Christopher: Orphan Tommy

He tries to get his foster father/coach to adopt him by playing well, thus carrying a burden, and making him Jesus. In never revealing the identity of Tommy’s biological father Christopher deftly leaves open the possibility that he could have been God.

Hamlet William Shakespeare: Hamlet

His father is a ghost. Oh, but his mother is not a virgin. And no beard. Nevermind.

The Bible: Moses

He doesn’t get to go into the promised land, thus making a sacrifice.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway: The Fish

Wait . . . the old man?

Caption Contest

Post your caption for your chance to feel like you belong to something bigger than yourself.




Here's Robert Graves and a friend looking at a book. I'm a writing tutor for a writing class, so here are some prompts:
Are they reading out loud?
Looking something up?
Think about it. Read up to page 20.

Using Rhetorical Devices: A Great Way to be a Baller

It goes without saying that to be an awesome writer you should also rock the slicked back side part and bamboo cane like TS Eliot.


If you read the site you are currently reading, you know that there are many writers we aspire to be like. Now obviously we can't all be Nabokov, unless you are Nabokov, in which case you can. Logic aside, there are a few things you can do to improve your writing and just generally be awesome. I would know, because I am a best selling author (true story). And look where I am now!!!!!

Rhetorical devices are an important way to be a cool writer. Let me elaborate. Rhetorical devices, as everyone knows, are an important way to be cool (as a writer). Do you think I became a best selling author by NOT using rhetorical devices?

But don’t worry. Take it from me, being a best selling author is a lot easier than it looks. Because the cool thing about rhetorical devices is that you’re already using them without even knowing it. Ever said, “Hey look at that guy. That guy is ugly!”? You just used anadiplosis. Let’s look at a few more, taken from the banter that goes on around the MG offices. And while you do that, I will be over here looking at my scrapbook about my book--the one filled with rhetorical devices and that was on the best seller list—and sucking Jack Daniels from the bottle like there’s no tomorrow. I might even vomit on your stuff, which you will then be able to sell on ebay (because I am a best selling author).

You’re welcome.

1. Asyndeton: Leaving out conjunctions between words or phrases.
“Hey, tampon face, this is my desk. Can you please clear all your old Us Weeklies, Boswell’s London Diary, old coffee cups, crumpled up pieces of paper?”—James
“Well at least I’m writing and doing stuff. All you do is play fantasy football, talk about how girls won’t hook up with you, instant message with Tony, email the rugby team.”--Sophie

2. Epistrophe: Repeating a word or words at the end of a series of phrases or sentences.
“Well all you do is work obsessively and talk about your foul ex friend Violet! ‘I hate my foul ex friend Violet.’ ‘My life was ruined by my foul ex friend Violet.’ ‘I want to write a piece about what Ben Franklin would think about my foul ex friend Violet'.”—James

3. Metanoia: Taking back a statement, then restating it more strongly, specifically, etc.
“I hate working with you. I picked the worst, laziest, most immature writing partner in the entire school, no wait, in the entire universe.”--Sophie

4. Anaphora: repeating the first word in a group of sentences, clauses, or phrases.
“And I hate working with you! And by the way I lied when I said I liked Notebook Girls. I think it was a stupid idea, a stupid book, and it gave you a stupid big egotistical head. I QUIT.”--James

5. Zeugma: using a verb literally and figuratively.
“Great. You just quit your job AND your friend.”—Sophie

6. Hyperbole: extreme exaggeration
“So…wanna go to the campus center? I’m so hungry I could eat like eight gajillion burritos.”--James

7. Alliteration: repeating the first consonant sound in a group of words.
“What a stupendous suggestion. And while we’re there, we can talk about that baller Ben Franklin piece I want to write: thirteen things that Ben Franklin would say…about my foul ex friend Violet…if he were high.”--Sophie

8. Diacope: Repeating a word or phrase but with a different word or phrase in the middle.
“Excellent idea, my friend, excellent idea.”--James


Damn right!
(Expletive)

Week in Perspective

(Jerry's mom voice) How could anybody not love him??!?!?!!?!?


This has been a weird week for all of us here at Monocles Galore. Well, mainly just James. He’s been living Ben Franklin’s thirteen resolutions, which hasn’t been easy for him, since it means he can't mack on girls at parties or shove food down his throat until he gets so full that he unbuttons the top button and wheezes until somebody brings him a glass of milk. Also, I told him that Walt Whitman called America “the greatest poem,” and now he’s filled with all these conflicting feelings: USA #1 versus Poetry is Sissy.

This week’s caption contest went better than last, since instead of zero responses we had two responses: “the greatest blowjob in all of history” and “Sophia Dumaine’s bat mitzvah.” I don’t know which is least appropriate—one that is about oral sex or one that is an inside joke about how waspy one of our friends is. Well, you know what our motto is around here: everybody wins!
(Except losers and my foul ex-friend Violet, who is a loser.)