a contest (32)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Thu, 26 Jan 89 19:25:47 EST


Humanist Mailing List, Vol. 2, No. 536. Thursday, 26 Jan 1989.

Date: 24 January 1989
From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: a contest

Steve DeRose, who has been coordinating efforts to put Humanist's
biographies into shape, tells me that the first version will soon be
ready. For several reasons we need a sample biography, but I'd rather
not have one of us contribute his or her own. I have cherished the
notion that a fake biography, say of that redoubtable academic Morris
Zapp (a character in some novels by David Lodge), would be far more
suitable. I have tried to write one but have discovered that I lack the
necessary talent to make it sufficiently humorous -- and true to Lodge's
character. So, I would like to propose a contest, to which all Humanists
are invited to submit one or more entries.

If you have not read Lodge's books, esp. _Changing Places_ and _Small
World_, this contest may give you the incentive to do so. Know that the
character of Zapp is based on a very well known professor of English,
who teachrs in the U.S.; I am told that the resemblance is uncomfortably
close, but I do not know the victim in question.


Willard McCarty