Google/ Gogol Finalists
Autonomous readers! If you love democracy, now is your chance to prove it by voting on your favorite Google/ Gogol pun by Friday the 9th.
Google/ Gogol Pun Contest
- “Gogol documents,” which publishes your early works, but sets the later manuscripts on fire! (44%, 55 Votes)
- “Gogol Maps,” which only tells you how to get to places you’re already at. (44%, 54 Votes)
- A “Gogolplex,” which is that many souls. (12%, 15 Votes)
Total Voters: 124
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Many many thanks to everyone who participated! Honorable mention goes regretfully to Lev Blumenfeld for pointing out that the real winner was, as usual, Google, because on April 1, 2009 (Gogol’s 200th birthday), they replaced the Google logo with a Gogol logo. (The same BBC article includes a poll in which readers voted on whether Gogol is Russian, Ukrainian, or belongs to the whole world. Read it and weep, nationalists.) I’m not considering them eligible for prizes, though, because they already have too many books for their own good.
A belated shout-out is also due to all the San Franciscans who tore themselves away from the Dyke March long enough to attend the Believer All-Acoustic Summer Festival of Language and Thinking last Saturday. I had a great time representing the world’s non-Jewish peoples, in a fantastic billing with Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Justin Taylor, Damion Searls (whose wife brought a vuvuzela), and a wonderful musical group identified as “the Jews of Citay” (a subset of the musical group Citay).
I leave you now with some amazing images, courtesy of esteemed reader/ contest finalist Kate Romatowski, depicting “The Possessed bravely tracking some of Yellowstone Park’s more fearsome wildlife, as well as touring Strasbourg’s monuments to those great French literary heroes, Goethe and Gutenberg.”
Happy Fourth of July to all my democratic readers!
Tags: animals, civic duty, contest, events, German literary culture, outsourcing, photographs of THE POSSESSED in exotic locations, puns, Russian literature, THE POSSESSED
July 4th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Hey, is the poll working for you guys? I can’t get it to work. Webman, can you do anything about this?
Otherwise, dear readers, if you try the poll and it isn’t working, then please vote for option (1), (2), or (3) using the comments section. Thank you!!
July 4th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
In the spirit of transparent elections – I double voted. (I couldn’t tell if it was working.)
Sincerely,
SORE LOSER
or
grateful just to be participating in any Gogol-related contest
July 4th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Thank you, Webman, the poll is so beautiful and functional now!! You really know how to combine aesthetics and utility. Not like some $30K hookers I can think of (ladies, you know who you are).
July 4th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
thank you bibliomosquito, both for your transparency and for the great entry. you are all winners to me!!
July 5th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
The person who wrote pun number one is a communist sympathiser who says means things about every minority.
July 6th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Oboy… I just realized I am a communist sympathizer who says mean things about every minority.
July 6th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Dear Elif,
I don’t know if this is the right place for this inquiry, but, oh well. I took your advice and spent a good chunk of my summer so far reading Anna Karenina. It was mostly great, but I’d love to get some help on thinking about its complications. I searched online, but there are so many guides, and the Oprah one has subtitles like “Kitty Comes Into Her Own” and “There’s Something About Anna” (which I thought you might appreciate but which don’t seem…helpful). Is there a reading guide you would recommend?
Thanks.
July 6th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Dear Charlotte,
I’m so happy you enjoyed AK, by my competitor Leo Tolstoy (even though he was kind of a commie and also said mean things about some minorities).
Some of my favorite critical essays (plus letters and biographical materials) are excerpted in the Norton Critical Edition—it’s nice because you can sample a few different critics, and then follow up on the ones that appeal to you. (My personal favorite is probably Boris Eikhenbaum, Tolstoy in the Seventies.)
Good luck and have fun! And don’t forget to vote in the pun contest!
Elif
July 10th, 2010 at 5:09 am
Recount! Recount!