Yelping with Cormac

November 7, 2011 3:00 PM

How would Cormac McCarthy review products and services for Yelp? Yelping with Cormac, a Tumblr blog, rises to the challenge and shows us how.

The Apple Store review is a good place to start.

posted by killdevil (17 comments total)

A rider wearing an elaborate mustache and carrying a Winchester onehanded nudged his quarterhorse toward the sheriff. Hell he’s right there sheriff.

I know it. Im lookin at him same as you.


This right here was a missed opportunity to include the phrase "levered a shell"... for shame.
posted by nathancaswell at 3:18 PM on November 7, 2011

also the fact that none of the taco bell reviews include some form of "ate the beans and then wiped the plate clean with the tortilla and ate the tortilla" is really sloppy
posted by nathancaswell at 3:21 PM on November 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

also needs more random spanish sentences that can be understood by non-spanish speakers by the surrounding context
posted by nathancaswell at 3:30 PM on November 7, 2011

Too much punctuation.
posted by The Deej at 3:31 PM on November 7, 2011

ok i'm going to stop now but I searched on all 3 pages for "selfsame" and it didn't show up once
posted by nathancaswell at 3:33 PM on November 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

I got through as much of the 2nd Taco Bell review as I did Suttree. :(
posted by mullacc at 3:45 PM on November 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Apple store review was a missed opportunity to use 'silicate' as a past participle.
posted by tigrefacile at 3:51 PM on November 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's pretty funny, and I like the contrast between the hickoid Cormac in the parody and McCarthy's status as trustee of the Santa Fe Institute and resident artist, at the invitation of Murray Gell-Mann.
posted by ardgedee at 4:00 PM on November 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

I met Mr. McCarthy once at SFI, back in the 90s, when he wasn't yet a trustee and was just hanging out. Like an idiot I barely knew who he was. He was very nice, and quite interested, and I remember being confused why some Western novelist would be interested in a complex systems research institute. I get it now, the guy's just very smart and engaged. Also there's not a lot of options for intelligentsia in Santa Fe.

The parody site is by EDW Lynch.
posted by Nelson at 4:14 PM on November 7, 2011

He looked down the list of reviews and he sighed and threw it to the ground. Aint nothin but McSweenys he said.

What do you mean he asked him.

Boy tryin to take the selfsame shot he saw a better man take. Even when the lead finds a mark its luck.

He spat.
posted by sonic meat machine at 6:13 PM on November 7, 2011 [11 favorites]

Open Cormac McCarthy thread just a few doors down.
posted by hermitosis at 6:34 PM on November 7, 2011

oh fuck metafilter's own michael foody is going to be really pissed. he does an awesome joke about what if mccarthy did a GPS voice. THIS SITE IS A RIP OFF.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:04 PM on November 7, 2011

also it's pretty funny
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:26 PM on November 7, 2011

This reminds me of an idea for a McSweeney's story I've had for a while now: 13 Fortune Cookie Fortunes As Written By Friedrich Nietzsche.
posted by slogger at 7:27 PM on November 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

Cooking with Cormac McCarthy:

The man lay a pot across the flame and coated it with oil. He paused and then studied the filmed surface, as if he expected of it some revelation, until the oil, rippled and coruscant with heat, began to crackle around a fragment of onion burned against the iron of the pan. This was the remnant of a meal previous, prepared by other men according to other methods now unanswerable to any recipe, this brief pyre its last imposition on the world of men before being scraped aside by some spatulate blade. The man then gathered into his hand half an onion, pale and coarsely hewn, and scattered it into the vessel. He stirred the hissing mass, prodding it into pellucid fragments, tender and larval.
All right, these onions is about as sauteed as they liable to get, he said and turned the burner off.

posted by kenko at 7:29 PM on November 7, 2011 [13 favorites]

He looked down the list of reviews and he sighed and threw it to the ground. Aint nothin but McSweenys he said.

These men are patriots, says The Coach.

I reckon.

Do you know their soul?

Reckon not.

A hoarse laugh echoes through the heat. It singes the cragged escarpments of the red canyon.

You won’t be the first, says The Coach.

I ain’t scared of you.

Tengo otros cuerpos. Quiero el tuyo.
-- Famous Authors predict the Winner of Super Bowl XLII
posted by benzenedream at 8:15 PM on November 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

"I met Mr. McCarthy once at SFI, back in the 90s, when he wasn't yet a trustee and was just hanging out. Like an idiot I barely knew who he was. He was very nice, and quite interested, and I remember being confused why some Western novelist would be interested in a complex systems research institute. I get it now, the guy's just very smart and engaged. Also there's not a lot of options for intelligentsia in Santa Fe."

Well, it's a small town, after all. (Okay, maybe a "very small city".)

I have mixed feelings about SFI, and McCarthy's association with it kinda sorta is an example of why this is the case. Right at the end of the 80s I became very interested in complex systems research and SFI. Then, independently, I found myself at St. John's (SF campus). I had an interview lined up for a co-op position at SFI my freshman year at SJC, but decided that my school workload precluded anything else. Incidentally, this was during the period before SFI built their new facilities and still had an association with SJC, particularly for lectures and conferences. I saw one of Gell-Mann's memorable lectures during that period.

And I've kept an eye on SFI over the years, sort of. I can't help but feel that while Gell-Mann's prestige was crucial for getting SFI off-the-ground, as time went by it suffered for his involvement. That's just my impression. But I have an intuition that groundbreaking programs like Michigan's CSCS in more traditional academic environments are now more important to the field. I don't know, I could be totally wrong.

At any rate, I thought some of these were really good. In particular, the Cafe Gratitude, Ikea, and Whole Foods entries.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:16 PM on November 7, 2011