Sometimes the New York Times is like breakfast cereal: You’re pouring yourself some boring, high-fiber, colon-cleansing all-bran and then . . . a plastic secret decoder ring plops into your bowl. You have no idea how it sneaked out of the box of Super Sugar Surge and got mixed in with your old people’s food, but your pleasantly surprised and wonder why this type of thing doesn’t happen more often.
That’s how I felt when reading this story ( For Those Near, the Miserable Hum of Clean Energy ) on how noisy it is to live near clean-energy producing windmills. You’re thinking you’re reading a dull energy story and then—bam—right there at the end you get this from Maine resident (and apparent aspiring poet/novelist) Cheryl Lindgren:
“I remember the sound of silence so palpable, so merciless in its depths, that you could almost feel your heart stop in sympathy,” she said. “Now we are prisoners of sonic effluence. I grieve for the past.”
Now that is either a preplanned quote, in which case it is kinda cheesy but still pretty cool, or a it’s an off-the-cuff response, in which case it is totally awesome.
Either way, this type of thing needs to become a trend. The next time you are quoted in the NYT (and they’ll eventually get around to you too), please come up with some ridiculous, overwrought, faux-literary flourish like Mrs. Lindgren’s. By doing this we can all make the NYT worth reading again.
(Via: Best Week Ever )
