too long to be a zing, but Whittaker Chambers's Atlas Shrugged review is probably the best/most brutal literary takedown "Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal….Therefore, resistance to the Message cannot be tolerated because disagreement can never be merely honest, prudent, or just humanly fallible. Dissent from revelation so final (because, the author would say, so reasonable) can only be willfully wicked. There are ways of dealing with such wickedness, and, in fact, right reason itself enjoins them. From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: “To a gas chamber — go!”"
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Sunday, 29 April 2012 04:46 (1 year ago) Permalink
lol that tom waits quote reminds me of casey kasem's 'these guys are from england and who gives a shit'
― balls, Sunday, 29 April 2012 04:59 (1 year ago) Permalink
not quite zings, perhaps, but vladimir nabokov was the king of offhand dismissals:
Ever since the days when such formidable mediocrities as Galsworthy, Dreiser, Tagore, Maxim Gorky, Romain Rolland and Thomas Mann were being accepted as geniuses, I have been perplexed and amused by fabricated notions about so-called "great books." That, for instance, Mann's asinine "Death in Venice," or Pasternak's melodramatic, vilely written "Dr. Zhivago," or Faulkner's corn-cobby chronicles can be considered "masterpieces" or at least what journalists term "great books," is to me the sort of absurd delusion as when a hypnotized person makes love to a chair.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Sunday, 29 April 2012 08:39 (1 year ago) Permalink
George Bernard Shaw, NSFW
― ILX uh-huh-uh uh-huh uh-huh BEEP BOOP BOOP BEEP (snoball), Sunday, 29 April 2012 08:50 (1 year ago) Permalink
(note 'epigram' was early 90's speak for 'zing')
― ILX uh-huh-uh uh-huh uh-huh BEEP BOOP BOOP BEEP (snoball), Sunday, 29 April 2012 08:51 (1 year ago) Permalink
early 1990s?
― the pinefox, Sunday, 29 April 2012 09:16 (1 year ago) Permalink
Martin Luther then attacked Henry VIII in print, calling him a “pig, dolt, and liar”. [9]:227 At the request of Henry VIII, More set about composing a rebuttal: the resulting Responsio ad Lutherum was published at the end of 1523. In the Responsio, More defended the supremacy of the papacy, the sacraments, and other church traditions. More’s language, like Luther’s, was virulent, and he branded Luther an “ape”, a “drunkard”, and a “lousy little friar” amongst other insults. [9]:230 While writing under the pseudonym of Rosseus, More mirrors Luther's own unscholarly use of language. At one point More offers to:
"throw back into your paternity's shitty mouth, truly the shit-pool of all shit, all the muck and shit which your damnable rottenness has vomited up". [16]
― Roberto Spiralli, Sunday, 29 April 2012 12:47 (1 year ago) Permalink
awesome thread
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, 29 April 2012 13:01 (1 year ago) Permalink
(xpost) I can't find it, but I've got a book of interviews with Nabokov somewhere, and his putdowns of other writers are pretty great.
Ditto Kael's back-to-back takedowns of Siegfried Kracauer and (of course) Sarris in I Lost It at the Movies, although both pieces tend to methodically build arguments rather than zing.
― clemenza, Sunday, 29 April 2012 13:09 (1 year ago) Permalink
(allegedly)
Somerset Maugham watching Spencer Tracy during filming of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: "Which one is he playing now?"
― seapunk run. run punk run! (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 29 April 2012 13:10 (1 year ago) Permalink
I'm with Nabokov on Pasternak and Faulkner, but Mann's asinine "Death in Venice"? ;_;
― emil.y, Sunday, 29 April 2012 13:16 (1 year ago) Permalink
Also, I've read a bit of Nabokov's literary criticism now, and for someone who can reach the heights he can (for which read: OMG Pale Fire is amazing) he's pretty buttoned up and conservative in his thinking...
― emil.y, Sunday, 29 April 2012 13:18 (1 year ago) Permalink
GB Shaw once wrote in a book review, "Once you put it down, you can't pick it up"
― Iago Galdston, Sunday, 29 April 2012 13:18 (1 year ago) Permalink
Ravel has refused the Legion d'honneur, but all his music accepts it
(satie)
― Ms Tum-Bla-Wi-Tee (nakhchivan), Sunday, 29 April 2012 13:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
I often laugh at well crafted (or just outrageously funny) putdowns independent of whether I agree with them or not. (Re Nabokov.)
― clemenza, Sunday, 29 April 2012 13:30 (1 year ago) Permalink
Nabokov loved Cheever's "The Country Husband" so.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 29 April 2012 13:41 (1 year ago) Permalink
Gore Vee-dal: "Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little."
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 29 April 2012 13:49 (1 year ago) Permalink
William F. Buckley's famous rebuttal to John Lindsay during a '65 mayoral race sort of fits: "I am satisfied to sit back and contemplate my own former eloquence."
― clemenza, Sunday, 29 April 2012 13:59 (1 year ago) Permalink
― clemenza, Sunday, April 29, 2012 1:30 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
cf v much hitchens
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, 29 April 2012 14:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
Bide my shiny metal, ass -- Bender
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Sunday, 29 April 2012 14:27 (1 year ago) Permalink
in bender's ass, we abide
― jesus christ (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Sunday, 29 April 2012 14:28 (1 year ago) Permalink
mart & hitch
The year was 1981. We were in a tiny Italian restaurant in west London, where we would soon be joined by our future first wives. Two elegant young men in waisted suits were unignorably and interminably fussing with the staff about rearranging the tables, to accommodate the large party they expected. It was an intensely class-conscious era (because the class system was dying); Christopher and I were candidly lower-middle bohemian, and the two young men were raffishly minor-gentry (they had the air of those who await, with epic stoicism, the deaths of elderly relatives). At length, one of them approached our table, and sank smoothly to his haunches, seeming to pout out through the fine strands of his fringe. The crouch, the fringe, the pout: these had clearly enjoyed many successes in the matter of bending others to his will. After a flirtatious pause he said, “You’re going to hate us for this.”
And Christopher said, “We hate you already.”
― (REAL NAME) (m coleman), Sunday, 29 April 2012 14:32 (1 year ago) Permalink
Nabokov's widely spread disdain can be amusing but I don't see put-downs from him in the fabulous way cited from Parker and others upthread -- the kind of compressed wit that shows you a little of the quality that human consciousness has added to the universe
(though I do remember VN saying something about Bellow that amused me, whatever it was.)
― the pinefox, Sunday, 29 April 2012 14:33 (1 year ago) Permalink
I can precisely imagine Hitchens saying that, but I don't feel any sympathy or solidarity with him saying it - cos it's him and the way he would say it
― the pinefox, Sunday, 29 April 2012 14:34 (1 year ago) Permalink
whereas if it were Morrissey I would dig it.
I don't see put-downs from him in the fabulous way cited from Parker and others upthread -- the kind of compressed wit that shows you a little of the quality that human consciousness has added to the universe
Agree that brevity is the trickiest part--most one-liners come off as smarmy, or clumsily sarcastic, or obvious, and aren't funny at all. That's why I gravitate to things like Kael's "Circles and Squares," which is more like careful dismantling than zinging. But if you can get it right--Capote's line on Kerouac is the greatest example for me--perfection.
― clemenza, Sunday, 29 April 2012 14:59 (1 year ago) Permalink
I like Capote's line but have never been totally sure what it means
― the pinefox, Sunday, 29 April 2012 15:02 (1 year ago) Permalink
See, I get Capote's thing, but I think he's totally wrong, and in fact it reflects more on him than on Kerouac, and therefore the zing kind of falls flat to me. The idea that 'it just isn't art' smacks of snobbery and narrow-mindedness, not things that I really want from my artists.
― emil.y, Sunday, 29 April 2012 15:04 (1 year ago) Permalink
"hey how about instead you eat my ass you clueless cum bubble"
- churchill
― J0rdan S., Sunday, 29 April 2012 15:05 (1 year ago) Permalink
not certain why 'typing' wouldn't be 'art' - though I guess the line is tending that way, somehow
I'm sure Kerouac is art, but I'm not always sure it's very good art
― the pinefox, Sunday, 29 April 2012 15:07 (1 year ago) Permalink
Well, that's fair enough - I've only read On the Road and one other that I can't remember the name of now, so I'd not make a very good defence for Kerouac. It's more the principle of the attack I dislike - that there somehow has to be a distancing between creator and work, that there must be some objective artistic principle adhered to, and worst of all to me, I feel there is an implication that phenomenological accounts are artistically void.
― emil.y, Sunday, 29 April 2012 15:13 (1 year ago) Permalink
Kerouac influenced me when I read On the Road in university, but it was the kind of influence that was short-lived--doubt I could get through very much of the novel today. Conceding that there's some snobbery at work there--the Beats were new, Capote had been around for a few years--the meaning of his line seems as clear as could be to me: this guy's just banging it out, and he badly needs an editor. I probably first came across the line when I was discovering Kerouac, and I even found it funny then.
― clemenza, Sunday, 29 April 2012 15:15 (1 year ago) Permalink
DEBUTANTE: I've made a bet with a friend that I can get you to say three words to me.
CALVIN COOLIDGE: Fuck you, cunt.
― pplains, Sunday, 29 April 2012 15:26 (1 year ago) Permalink
--- that there somehow has to be a distancing between creator and work, that there must be some objective artistic principle adhered to, and worst of all to me, I feel there is an implication that phenomenological accounts are artistically void.
I don't think I can see these things in Capote's line.If anything the 'banging it out' sounds more like what he was saying. But then, I am not quite sure what he was saying.
I once wanted to reuse this line, in a different context, namely re the late alcoholic BRENDAN BEHAN -- cos he didn't write the work, just dictated it and someone else typed it. I think I was going to say that in print until PJ MILLER told me not to cos it was not nice to alcoholics.
― the pinefox, Sunday, 29 April 2012 15:30 (1 year ago) Permalink
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, April 29, 2012 9:49 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― i love the large auns pictures! (Phil D.), Sunday, 29 April 2012 15:41 (1 year ago) Permalink
"hey how about instead you eat my ass you clueless cum bubble"- churchill― J0rdan S., Sunday, April 29, 2012 11:05 AM
― J0rdan S., Sunday, April 29, 2012 11:05 AM
needs context - the reply to his wife asking him to pass the salt
― am0n, Sunday, 29 April 2012 15:48 (1 year ago) Permalink
auto-zing:
Bob Monkhouse: "When I said I was going to become a comedian, they all laughed. Well, they're not laughing now."
― estela, Sunday, 29 April 2012 15:50 (1 year ago) Permalink
lot of amazing zing scholarship itt... not
― lag∞n, Sunday, 29 April 2012 15:50 (1 year ago) Permalink
That one hurts.
― clemenza, Sunday, 29 April 2012 15:57 (1 year ago) Permalink
PWN
― lag∞n, Sunday, 29 April 2012 16:02 (1 year ago) Permalink
One last (promise) thought on the Capote line: it's funnier when you hear it in his voice.
― clemenza, Sunday, 29 April 2012 16:07 (1 year ago) Permalink
having made it to page 2 of On the Road, I'm with him.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 29 April 2012 16:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
From a letter from Groucho Marx to S. J. Perelman: "From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it."
― flopson, Sunday, 29 April 2012 16:33 (1 year ago) Permalink
literary zings are usually a lil too on the nose almost as if some lonely person fuming w/professional jealousy puzzled over them in a room until they got it just right
― lag∞n, Sunday, 29 April 2012 16:50 (1 year ago) Permalink
paraphrasing wilde ^
― diafiyhm (darraghmac), Sunday, 29 April 2012 16:59 (1 year ago) Permalink
i have nothing to declare but my klout score
― lag∞n, Sunday, 29 April 2012 17:02 (1 year ago) Permalink
in one of the late marx bros. movie there's a bit where chico is taking a photo and says to groucho 'just look at me and pretend to laugh'
'i've been doing that for thirty years'
― thomp, Sunday, 29 April 2012 17:07 (1 year ago) Permalink
which i presume was scripted but i like to believe it wasn't, you know.
-
re: capote: the immediate context is kerouac's claim/lie that he wrote he wrote OTR in one three-day binge, i believe
― thomp, Sunday, 29 April 2012 17:08 (1 year ago) Permalink
of whom was it that gore vidal said: "a writer's writer, in much the same way a butler is sometimes called a gentleman's gentleman"? still laughing at that one tbh
― thomp, Sunday, 29 April 2012 17:09 (1 year ago) Permalink
Yeah Capote was basically saying, possibly inaccurately, that Kerouac just shat it out without putting much thought or craft into it.
― Homosexual Satan Wasp (Matt DC), Sunday, 29 April 2012 17:14 (1 year ago) Permalink
AH SAY HEY MON
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 30 April 2012 00:37 (1 year ago) Permalink
lol Startrekman
― am0n, Monday, 30 April 2012 00:47 (1 year ago) Permalink
sick burn
― balls, Sunday, 29 April 2012 04:59
p sure that was prof. wgw of this parish tho?
― Randy Carol (darraghmac), Sunday, 30 September 2012 00:57 (7 months ago) Permalink
This thread will belong to Mitt Romney come Wednesday.
Symmetry required it: 2012 american general election thread #2
― clemenza, Sunday, 30 September 2012 01:05 (7 months ago) Permalink
Noel Gallagher on Jack White“He looks like Zorro on doughnuts.”
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Sunday, 30 September 2012 02:32 (7 months ago) Permalink
"As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he's a great military man, I want you to know that."[21]
RIP big man
― things that are jokes pretty much (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Friday, 28 December 2012 03:17 (4 months ago) Permalink
was Rummy ever this zingy?
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 28 December 2012 03:18 (4 months ago) Permalink
no but he was a better epistemologist
― things that are jokes pretty much (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Friday, 28 December 2012 03:21 (4 months ago) Permalink
zinging saddam just seems too easy
― iatee, Friday, 28 December 2012 03:28 (4 months ago) Permalink
and i had the best present i was going to send you
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/G7199-Modern-Postcard-4x6-General-Norman-Schwarzkopf-/370526552767
― things that are jokes pretty much (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Friday, 28 December 2012 03:34 (4 months ago) Permalink
tbf a few other dudes with those qualifications were more successful than norm
― mookieproof, Friday, 28 December 2012 03:37 (4 months ago) Permalink
― 乒乓, Thursday, 21 March 2013 17:22 (2 months ago) Permalink
In 1958 Winston Churchill broke his spine in a fall and was required to sleep with a bedrest, which he hated. He and nurse Roy Howells got into a heated argument in which the two swore at one another.In making up afterward, Churchill said, “You were very rude to me, you know.”Howells said, “Yes, but you were rude too.”Churchill said, “Yes, but I am a great man.”“There was no answer to that,” Howells remembered later. “He knew, as I and the rest of the world knew, that he was right.”
In making up afterward, Churchill said, “You were very rude to me, you know.”
Howells said, “Yes, but you were rude too.”
Churchill said, “Yes, but I am a great man.”
“There was no answer to that,” Howells remembered later. “He knew, as I and the rest of the world knew, that he was right.”
http://www.futilitycloset.com/2013/03/22/detente/ (!)
― s.clover, Saturday, 23 March 2013 01:56 (2 months ago) Permalink
Those guys grew up in L.A. and they don't have cow-shit on their boots - they just got dog shit from Laurel Canyon. - Tom Waits
accidental self zing imo
― wk, Saturday, 23 March 2013 04:36 (2 months ago) Permalink
XP it doesn't really work so well as a zing if the person saying it seems like a d-bag who's hard to sympathize with
― Poliopolice, Saturday, 23 March 2013 05:41 (2 months ago) Permalink
yeah remember all those country rock albums tom waits made
― balls, Saturday, 23 March 2013 05:54 (2 months ago) Permalink