OMGWTFBOOKBEAR

I am propped up in bed, unable to sit fully straight up due to back pain, in a Flexeril haze. About all I can do is write short LJ entries--brain is not shining through for real writing--or read. Knitting is right out, and I find it uncomfortable to watch anything onscreen these days without fiber arts in my hands.

So I'm reading, or trying to read, The Logic of Millenial Thought in Eighteenth-Century New England, and get my Cotton Mathers on. I get through the introduction. The line reads:

I assume all responsibiility for errors, sins of omission or commission, or any other faults the book bears.

I read:

I assume all responsibility for errors, sins of omission and commission, any others are the fault of the book bears.

And I'm like OMG THE BOOK BEARS ARE WHAT MAKE TYPOS IN FINAL MANUSCRIPTS AND ORPHANS AND WIDOWS AND MISSING PAGES AND BAD TYPESETTING AND THEY CLAW OUT YOUR BEST INTENTIONS AND NOM YOUR BEAUTIFUL PROSE UNTIL ALL THAT'S LEFT IS A PITABLE, PUBLISHABLE SHELL OF THE THING THAT WAS ONCE IN YOUR HEAD.

BOOK BEARS OH MY GOD.

And then I noticed my mistake, and mourned briefly for the loss of a world where all other sins could be blamed on book bears, (who in my head look like the Alot), took some more anti-inflammatories, and scrunched down further into bed.

59 comments — :

( 59 comments — Write On My Skin )

swan_tower

2010-09-25 08:24 pm (UTC)

I will forever more blame the book bears for these problems.

Thank you, Cat's drug haze!

magenta_girl

2010-09-25 08:33 pm (UTC)

The book bears deserve to be the subject of a children's book, I think. Maybe they know the ghost pigs.

Edited at 2010-09-25 08:33 pm (UTC)

yellowblackhaze

2010-09-26 07:44 am (UTC)

They may be related to plot bunnies and I did once write a story about the plot bunny that is jointly owned by my wife and I.

rymenhild

2010-09-25 08:49 pm (UTC)

I blame the book bears for the problems in my chapter!

Feel better soon, Cat.

Also, to my amusement and bemusement, a porn spammer has joined

immigrant_punks. Welcome to Palimpsest, I guess!

cathshaffer

2010-09-25 08:50 pm (UTC)

Oh, I do this with words all the time. It just happened yesterday, but I can't remember the sentence that I rearranged...no, wait, I got it. I saw a newpaper headline that said "Allan Appointed Superintendant," but read, "Alien Appointed Superintendant."

Thank you for the Alot. I am going to share my feelings with it from now on.

lancre_witch

2010-09-25 08:59 pm (UTC)

Of course, the woolly-bears only infest gardening books.

(Er, do you have whoolly bear catapillers in the US?)

justbeast

2010-09-25 09:01 pm (UTC)

We do have them in the US, and

catvalente is terrified of them :)
Please to be not post.

OOC —

lancre_witch — Expand

pocketnaomi

You hadn't met the book bears before? I found them first when I started reading to my kids; why do you suppose there are so many children's books with anthropomorphic ursine characters? It's their way of giving the children a case of the book bears, which is a bit like head lice or bedbugs; not dramatically unpleasant but a bit squicky and very difficult to cure. If a child doesn't grow up to write much, it isn't very relevant and they can survive just fine for a lifetime with book bears, but if they become writers, or go into another profession which requires producing reports or whatever, the book bears will get into everything they write and produce at least a few errors which get past the copy-editors (who of course mostly have their own cases of book bears to deal with).

The greatest gift an author can have is an editor who never acquired a case of the book bears, or who managed to get theirs cured. They're awfully rare, though.

Sorry to hear about the pain. I identify greatly; I'm curled up in bed on hydromorphone, asking my partner to bring me lunch because when I try to walk my legs stab me from toes clear up to the hip joints. When I'm in bed, they just ahe, as does everything else.

Here's to quick improvement for both of us, and an effective treatment for the book bears.

mishamish

2010-09-25 09:05 pm (UTC)

You know what *I* think about Book Bears?

Alot Like Book Bears.

I leave that for someone else to draw. :-P

marydell

2010-09-25 09:14 pm (UTC)

Clearly the book bears are real because they caused you to misread that sentence.

Long live the book bears!

lisa_marli

2010-09-25 09:19 pm (UTC)

I'm good at twisting sentences. Now when ever I mangle a sentence like that, I will remember the book bears.
It is because of them... :D

morbid_curious

2010-09-25 09:27 pm (UTC)

I'm now imagining what "this book bear's further scrutiny" might entail. Snuffling, sharp teeth and alot of fancy monocles, no doubt.

lee_in_limbo

2010-09-25 09:44 pm (UTC)

Book Bears: That idea is so awesome, it deserves to exist, even if only in the context of feverish fiction.

Get well soon.

elissa_carey

2010-09-25 09:50 pm (UTC)

LOL. I love the idea of book bears; I usually call them 'typo demons.'

(Deleted comment)

mdlbear

2010-09-25 11:14 pm (UTC)

Speaking as a Mandelbear, I must confess a certain feeling of kinship for the creatures. They mean well; they're just clumsy and clueless.

technoshaman

2010-09-26 07:47 pm (UTC)

Speaking as a Pooh Bear, I would cop to the clumsy, but I think we're just occasionally ~~oblivious~~ differently-clued.

(here via

slweippert.... but not surprised to find a Mdlbear nor a PocketNaomi or a Vixy... :)

2010-09-25 11:17 pm (UTC)

I need one of those book bears. What a great coverall.

pandarus

2010-09-25 11:45 pm (UTC)

This post is love.

saladinahmed

2010-09-25 11:58 pm (UTC)

Sadly -- or wonderfully -- I read the line, in its first version above, the same way...

Is the 18th c book research? Before I quit the Ph.D. grind I was doing 18th c. studies. Read Cotton and Increase Mather, as my dissertation was on magic, demons, ghosts, etc....

firynze

2010-09-26 01:44 am (UTC)

...I just have to say, as an ethnoarchaeologist with a specialty in magic (and a subspecialty in legal magic in classical Athens), I want to know more about your disseration. NOOOOOW.

Your Name Here —

saladinahmed — Expand

firynze — Expand

catvalente — Expand

persephone_20

2010-09-26 01:16 am (UTC)

Hyperbole and a Half!!! You just made me laugh about the Alot for two completely different reasons :D

2010-09-26 01:43 am (UTC)

...as a book designer and publisher, I desperately, DESPERATELY need a Book Bear icon now.

glamour_junkie

2010-09-26 01:46 am (UTC)

Yeah. I couldn't NOT use my dinner break to sketch you a book bear. You now haz a book bear.

niamh_sage

2010-09-26 11:15 am (UTC)

Oh my goodness, that's the most wonderful thing I've seen since someone drew me a velocirachnid. Nice one!

popelizbet — Expand

Your Name Here — (Anonymous) — Expand

miep

2010-09-26 01:59 am (UTC)

BOOKBEAR!!!

sorry. I love them. they are like the Alot. I love them, Alot!

dr_phil_physics

2010-09-26 02:15 am (UTC)

Flexeril is funny stuff, but it does work. Back in high school, when I first hurt my back, they didn't have Flexeril yet. Instead they gave me a megadose of Valium -- it was like 2 Valium-5's every four hours. That relaxes everything. I had to write an essay as to why I wanted to do an independent study project the next semester. The teacher showed it to me when I got back. It was clear, it was logical, it was five pages and it was one sentence.

Having a Flexeril weekend for my back, so I understand.

Dr. Phil

misslynx

2010-09-26 02:26 am (UTC)

That is awesome. I wonder if the book bears are also responsible for books that mysteriously go missing even though you know you didn't lend them to anyone...

deakat

2010-09-26 02:33 am (UTC)

Have you read

leahbobet's "Bears"? I <3 it madly.

rhapsody_98

Back when I was on pain killers, I couldn't even read one sentence and get anything meaningful out of it, do kudos there! I agree with all of the above people and after I finish laughing until I cry, I will being complaining about the book bears.

catvalente

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