horse latitudes horse latitudes horse latitudes
January 29, 2019 1:33 PM   Subscribe

Stop calling your books "Horse Latitudes"! With a sigh, Katherine Coldiron sat down to read and review 12 different books called "Horse Latitudes."
posted by moonmilk (62 comments total) 30 users marked this as a favorite
 
Perhaps some of the authors are fans of a Particularly Overwrought Poem of Jim Morrison's.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:42 PM on January 29, 2019 [6 favorites]


One of those was written by my old college journalism professor. :-)
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:45 PM on January 29, 2019 [5 favorites]


Would you like the opportunity to read all of these books, or to foist reading them on someone else? Of course you would! Between now and the end of February, if you sign up for my newsletter, I’ll enter you into a random drawing to win all twelve of the books I read and summarized above, shipped directly to you. Yes! I bought them all and now I want to give them away. Desperately.

It's almost at the point where there needs to be a Library of Congress call number just for "books with 'horse latitudes' in the title."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:52 PM on January 29, 2019 [5 favorites]


Good title for a really boring sailing novel.

(no wind in the horse latitudes so very uneventful sailing, good area to be floating during hurricane season)
posted by sammyo at 1:52 PM on January 29, 2019


The linked poem The Tay Bridge Disaster is fantastic! But not in a good way. But in a good way. The last stanza (spoilers) takes it from the ridiculous to the sublimely ridiculous.
posted by Sparx at 1:55 PM on January 29, 2019 [16 favorites]


having already decided one of my memoirs shall be titled Gorge Blaspheme Fornicate, perhaps my motivational self-help books will be Hoarse Platitudes
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:56 PM on January 29, 2019 [50 favorites]


I'm gonna call my next book of poetry Hoarse Platitudes.
posted by moonmilk at 1:57 PM on January 29, 2019 [28 favorites]


DAMMIT TWISTY MAN

you win this round
posted by moonmilk at 1:57 PM on January 29, 2019 [25 favorites]


Books are out, but presumably albums are still ok?
posted by namewithoutwords at 2:02 PM on January 29, 2019


The linked poem The Tay Bridge Disaster is fantastic!

I cring'd to death reading it.
posted by fleacircus at 2:08 PM on January 29, 2019 [3 favorites]


But what about my rather epicene debut novel Coarse Attitudes?
posted by jamjam at 2:08 PM on January 29, 2019 [8 favorites]


This phrase was completely unknown to me and sounds so odd that I thought this was a surrealist joke article for a little bit.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 2:09 PM on January 29, 2019 [5 favorites]


The linked poem The Tay Bridge Disaster is fantastic! But not in a good way. But in a good way. The last stanza (spoilers) takes it from the ridiculous to the sublimely ridiculous.

This poem would make vogons' ears bleed.
posted by duffell at 2:12 PM on January 29, 2019 [6 favorites]


A botantist's memoir (or that of a prickly person) could be entitled Gorse Attitudes.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:13 PM on January 29, 2019 [5 favorites]


Metafilter: Breed tiny monsters!
posted by Oyéah at 2:17 PM on January 29, 2019


They have to find something nice to say about these books, right?

Even if it’s only... Forced platitudes?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 2:22 PM on January 29, 2019 [39 favorites]


I once stumbled across a biography of a Scandinavian mountaineer entitled Norse Altitudes
posted by nickmark at 2:26 PM on January 29, 2019 [16 favorites]


Breed tiny monsters!

And feed them borscht finger-foods.
posted by klausman at 2:27 PM on January 29, 2019 [2 favorites]


I enjoyed this article, so

- .... .- -. -.- ...

Those are Morse gratitudes.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:29 PM on January 29, 2019 [57 favorites]


Given the nature of this enterprise, I expected a lot of snark and pithy dismissal of most of the books, but she genuinely liked the majority. I guess what I mean to say is the source attitudes towards their course aptitudes contained, of course, multitudes.
posted by gwint at 2:29 PM on January 29, 2019 [13 favorites]


I was planning on calling my novel either The Girl on the Train or The ___’s Daughter.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:39 PM on January 29, 2019 [7 favorites]


Really? Nobody?

Horse Longitudes.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:39 PM on January 29, 2019 [17 favorites]


I read each of the quotes out loud... hoarse platitudes.
posted by straw at 2:42 PM on January 29, 2019 [4 favorites]


goddamn it nickmark I just spent 5 minutes trying to set up that pun and failed, A++ my dude

Whelp I have the book of poetry by Paul Muldoon, which I bought in Dublin and took up precious book cargo space in my suitcase, just because of this phrase. I am apparently the target market for this title and it worked. Although I expected more poems about horses/sailing/calm seas / oceanography and/or deserts - a lot of deserts are in the horse latitudes - so was kind of disappointed in that regard, the poetry was good enough I didn't care.

Anyway, the horse latitudes are also often called "Calms of Cancer" which might make a good book title. (Calms of Capricorn, not so much)
posted by barchan at 2:43 PM on January 29, 2019 [5 favorites]


Awkward instant, and the first novel is jettisoned...
posted by AJaffe at 2:50 PM on January 29, 2019 [3 favorites]


this title happens so much
posted by moonmilk at 2:53 PM on January 29, 2019 [1 favorite]


The ___’s Daughter.

Sub-category of a severely overused title construction referred to as ‘Occupations & Relations’ in the publishing trade.
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 3:01 PM on January 29, 2019 [7 favorites]


I read the article on mobile and was careful not to scroll too far ahead and accidentally see the title of the next book. I wanted to process through the list unspoiled. The I realized that they were all going to be called Horse Latitude so proceeded on without care. Imagine the whiplash I felt when I ran into the first book titled blah-blah-blah Horse Latitudes.

Title Relevance: 7 / 12. Title should be in the form of [The] Horse Latitude[s]. Subtitles will be grudgingly accepted. It's about standards.
posted by flyingfox at 3:06 PM on January 29, 2019 [2 favorites]


hors d'oeuvre platters, dudes

when the spilled sea salt conspires against the armour
hot dog pigs in a blanket, and your suddenly abhorrent
currants breed tiny monster fruit fly colonies:
true saving is bread!

awesome instant
and the first sourdough ball is fermented
gas furiously bubbling
pray to Lactobacillus Mother
the crust pops up
baked
delicate
rest
consume
in pure nostril ecstasy
your grilled bruschetta
and meal over
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:21 PM on January 29, 2019 [13 favorites]


Perhaps some of the authors are fans of a Particularly Overwrought Poem of Jim Morrison's.

It always sorta cracks me up that this poem is literally about throwing horses off a ship.

Real imaginative, Jim.
posted by atoxyl at 3:21 PM on January 29, 2019 [1 favorite]


Norse fat etudes? No?
posted by phooky at 3:32 PM on January 29, 2019 [4 favorites]


I called my self-published Star Wars story about a redeemed Sith fighting from within the system Force Baditude.
posted by curious nu at 3:45 PM on January 29, 2019 [2 favorites]


One needs to careful about Norse-Tatted Dudes.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:52 PM on January 29, 2019 [7 favorites]


I'm not one to force gratitudes, but it seems like we should all be thankful she read them all so we don't have to.
posted by OHenryPacey at 3:57 PM on January 29, 2019 [6 favorites]


These books would be nicely accompanied by a selection of coarse battered foods.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:14 PM on January 29, 2019 [6 favorites]


'Horse Latitudes' (TV Movie 1975) written & directed by Peter Rowe, starring Gordon Pinset, based on a true story about existential crisis on a solo around the world yacht race. An interesting movie, kinda disturbing.
posted by ovvl at 4:30 PM on January 29, 2019


I have at least three books in my library called The Changeling. Two of them are very good, but well known enough that I have to preface with like, "LaValle's The Changeling" or "Joy Williams' The Changeling" when I'm talking about them.

Also, three books called Arcadia (though one is technically a script).

I went through my library and, leaving aside the previously mentioned, ______'s Daughter here a few other title constructions you might want to avoid (numbers just in my personal library):

American_____ (7), All The ___ , (6) Book of____ (7), Cat's___ (3), City of ____ (5), Confessions of ___(5), Empire of ____(5), The Great____ (9), House of _____(5), Invisible_____(5), Memoirs of ____(3, and notable because all are novels, not actually memoirs), Portrait of a/the___(5), Under/Under the (7), White____(9, most of which recent-ish), The Woman Who___(3).
posted by thivaia at 5:31 PM on January 29, 2019 [16 favorites]


Oh, Mad Libs! Sweet!


Poop. Cheese. Dogs. In Space! Wombats. a Telephone Sanitizer. Goldfish. Lipschitz. Diapers. Oculists. Katherine Hepburn's Nephew. Lemur. Vomiting Moon. Chocolate Dreams. Stopped Eating Except on Tuesdays.
posted by Naberius at 5:59 PM on January 29, 2019 [32 favorites]


Way back in olden times, a good friend in high school and I used to recite the Jim Morrison poem at parties in call and response fashion to liven things up or something. In spite of this at least one of us was still quite popular with the ladies; it was not, however, me.

Someone should take an orthogonal approach and name their book Horse Longitudes.
posted by TedW at 6:19 PM on January 29, 2019 [1 favorite]


Tropic of Unicorn.
posted by moonmilk at 6:27 PM on January 29, 2019 [9 favorites]


Working on a manuscript about a crew that eats their captain and officers after they'd thrown hundreds of pounds of good meat overboard while becalmed. I call it Hoarse Lot 'o Foods. because the screaming
posted by rodlymight at 6:34 PM on January 29, 2019 [1 favorite]


Naberius, you have improved my whole night.
posted by thivaia at 6:37 PM on January 29, 2019


All the Cheese was written by Wordshore, wasn't it?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:15 PM on January 29, 2019 [6 favorites]


I totally agree with her review of Robert Ferrigno's book. It's not the worst thing I ever read, but at least half the enjoyment for me came from the cover. How much more 1990 could that cover be? None. None more 1990.
posted by MrBadExample at 7:38 PM on January 29, 2019 [6 favorites]


Horse Longitudes.

Horse Mare Ridden In.
posted by srboisvert at 8:02 PM on January 29, 2019 [4 favorites]


Horse Longitudes.

Hey, big fella.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:03 PM on January 29, 2019


(Calms of Capricorn, not so much)

Hey hey hey! As a too-close-to-Christmas baby... I encourage you to back off.

*breathing deep, being calm.. breathing deep, being calm*
posted by hippybear at 9:26 PM on January 29, 2019


We’re not so different, you and I,
posted by medusa at 10:00 PM on January 29, 2019


The thing about horse longitudes is they are all the same length.
posted by hippybear at 10:11 PM on January 29, 2019 [2 favorites]


Whores Lettin' Dudes...

Hey, big fella.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 11:41 PM on January 29, 2019


As long as they contain 'mute nostril agony' I'm good.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 1:13 AM on January 30, 2019


I'm glad the article bears out the deep truth that in any quasi-random collection of books, the self-published poetry will be by far the worst.
posted by Jeanne at 7:32 AM on January 30, 2019 [1 favorite]


There's also the book about those guys who install Venetian blinds on ponies. I think it's called the Horse Slat Dudes.
posted by mermaidcafe at 8:40 AM on January 30, 2019 [3 favorites]


Just the worst attitude.
posted by memebake at 9:08 AM on January 30, 2019 [1 favorite]


Clearly those poems weren’t written by a certain Roman master of lyricism. Horace! What a dude!
posted by mermaidcafe at 9:42 AM on January 30, 2019 [2 favorites]


Great puns, everyone. I'll take you all out for drinks. You can meet my bartender, he'll give you a single, a double, whatever you like. He pours at a cue.
posted by biogeo at 9:50 AM on January 30, 2019 [3 favorites]


Horse Longitudes...?

How do you get the clock mounted on the horse? Does the horse know how to tell time?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:23 AM on January 30, 2019 [2 favorites]


who offers rhyming lessons, and how do i sign MetaFilter up for them
posted by blue t-shirt at 2:48 PM on January 30, 2019 [1 favorite]


— No more horse latitudes now, I mean it!
— Any mefites in here want a peanut?
posted by moonmilk at 4:17 PM on January 30, 2019


I doubt the rhymes in here are folks' best work. I imagine a lot of people debated posting them at all, but then thought, "Hey, it's Metafilter. Of course that'll do."
posted by biogeo at 4:30 AM on January 31, 2019


Attempting to find out how one man could have achieved such terrible poetry within the span of a single lifetime, I came across this lovely Web 1.0 site describing how two Robert Dunns, both poets, passed away almost simultaneously in 2008. I feel some regrets. Worse, gratitudes.
posted by q*ben at 9:09 PM on January 31, 2019


> Poop. Cheese. Dogs. In Space! Wombats. a Telephone Sanitizer. Goldfish. Lipschitz. Diapers. Oculists. Katherine Hepburn's Nephew. Lemur.

True Facts: The Lemur
posted by homunculus at 10:37 PM on February 20, 2019


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