Friday, March 24, 2006

Adventures in proofreading

My new job is strictly dullsville, daddy-o's, but sometimes I read funny things in the books I proofread. Today, for example, I stumbled upon a treasure chest of comical amusements, arcana, and madcap nuttery. Bust a move:
1) See if you can guess the subject of this book by a random sampling of items in the index. Win a kick in the crotch! Here are the random items:
Pacific Rim
AIDS
glam rock
gambling
funk
Battle of the Beers
Ben Affleck
air fresheners
apartheid
laundry detergent
beef
dissatisfaction
Amstel Light
2) A rare moment of poetic, concise insight from the same index (these two items actually followed each other):
2004 presidential election
Tylenol
3) In a book about a painter in Taos, New Mexico who started a society of fellow Taos artists to promote their work in the early 20th Century, these phrases come from a flyer advertising a fundraising dance for the society:
"Don't forget the evening Wednesday July 27th. Make no other engagement."
"Delicious refreshments will be served at popular prices."
4) The art book is old and is being reprinted, word for word. It's being scanned. During the scanning process, odd typos can occur. Example: A sentence that should have read, "He lived in the house," instead reads, "He lived tit the house." Doesn't that seem like a phrase that should have been used in the 1970s to describe hanging out? I wish I had access to a time machine, so I could go to a small town or suburban neighborhood ca. 1976 and become a burnout. I would listen to Little Feat and Foghat and sit on the hood of my car in the parking lot of the Conoco station. High school kids would eventually pull in, chat me up, and ask me to buy them beer. I would buy the beer, then drink it with them in an abandoned trailer in the country. When the high school kids see me on the street, they say, "Hey, man, what's happening?" I reply," Just livin' tit, my man. Just livin' tit."

No comments: