"Be there bears i' the town?"

June 17, 2010 12:19 PM

Rosecrans Baldwin considers the literary place of the distant barking dog.
posted by Iridic (32 comments total)

Somewhere, in the back of the thread, a member snarked.
posted by The Whelk at 12:24 PM on June 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Spinnwebe, is that you?
posted by boo_radley at 12:25 PM on June 17, 2010

woof.
posted by philip-random at 12:27 PM on June 17, 2010

Huh, that's funny. Thinking over the last two days, I have heard no barking dogs. There are none in my first book nor in what's written in the second. Mebbee cause I live in the city.
posted by angrycat at 12:29 PM on June 17, 2010

I would read this but I have to go see why my husky is barking...brb
posted by HuronBob at 12:30 PM on June 17, 2010

It was a dark and stormy night when a dog barked in the distance...
posted by griphus at 12:31 PM on June 17, 2010

"It was a bright and calm day with no dogs in it whatsoever."
posted by The Whelk at 12:31 PM on June 17, 2010

Whelk, do you happen to have a goatee? We need to figure out which is the evil one, stat.
posted by griphus at 12:33 PM on June 17, 2010

I completely misread the FPP and ended up reading this in Jack Donaghy's voice.
posted by adamdschneider at 12:35 PM on June 17, 2010

Somewhere in the distance, a blog snarked.
posted by Ratio at 12:38 PM on June 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

File > Open...
novel.doc
Edit > Find/Replace...
Replace "dog barked" with "cat yowled"
Replace all
File > Save

posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 12:41 PM on June 17, 2010 [3 favorites]

Little did he know...
posted by Tavern at 12:41 PM on June 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

In the distance, Steven Chu is not considering a bomb.
posted by Splunge at 12:48 PM on June 17, 2010

So, Southern literature would have dead mules and dogs barking in the distance?
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 12:58 PM on June 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Brilliant. File under S/Z.
posted by xod at 1:29 PM on June 17, 2010

In my experience, dogs barking in the background do indicate residential problems. If it barks continuously, it's often an incompletely socialized yard dog, for security -- as opposed to a house dog. Perhaps people protecting their car parts in a field. Then there's the other neighbor, who can't stand the barking, and is having a feud with the dog's owner. Next they poison the dog, whose owner retaliates by shooting their cat. Kinda goes with the constant-barking territory.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:31 PM on June 17, 2010

Don't forget the use of the dog bark as an atmospheric effect in pop songs: the Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" and Beatles "Good Morning, Good Morning". (Dogs barking Christmas carols does not count.)
posted by Faze at 1:45 PM on June 17, 2010

bark! bark bark!
posted by a dog at 1:51 PM on June 17, 2010 [9 favorites]

At my place, here in sunny downtown Tucson, the background atmosphere animal noises are being provided by the neighbor's goats.

"Somewhere, off in the distance, a goat bleated."

I'm going to have to use that one...
posted by MrVisible at 2:17 PM on June 17, 2010

Somewhere, over the rainbow, a dog barked. Toto!
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:18 PM on June 17, 2010

I used a line like this once. It was a description of a prostitute servicing a cowboy. I threw in "Somewhere in the city, his horse wept in a jealous rage."

I guess it's just what I imagine horses doing.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:32 PM on June 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Somewhere in Darfur, a car bomb exploded.
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:31 PM on June 17, 2010

Somewhere, off in the distance, a goat bleated.

The past tense of bleated is "bloated". Unless you're using the past fricative. Then it's "bloat", as in "the sheep bleat in the in their fold, while goats bloat in the distance."
posted by Faze at 3:48 PM on June 17, 2010

Let me be the first to bark confirmation bias.
posted by arcticseal at 4:11 PM on June 17, 2010

.... or an old Michael Moorcock line that's always stuck with me (final sentence of some long misplaced short story).

Meanwhile, in the distance Rome was burning as it had been for the past two hundred years.
posted by philip-random at 4:35 PM on June 17, 2010

Isn't that the same Rosecrans Baldwin that's Mefi's own's Shadowkeeper's mother?
posted by spiderskull at 4:38 PM on June 17, 2010

Perhaps it's rooted in the Arabic proverb "The dog barks. But the caravan moves on."
posted by Smedleyman at 5:38 PM on June 17, 2010

Also, where novelists once adorned their prose with offhand French bon mots, Spanish now appears.

Now? Robert Benchley has an essay where he lampoons the Spanish "now" appearing in literary circles. Since Benchley died in 1945 this cannot be a new development.
posted by DU at 7:09 PM on June 17, 2010

Didn'tt Benchley also do the Cliche' Parade where he tried to fit as many as he could in a single article?


I re-created Benchley's stage act for my first book's promotion. I casually stripped while reciting publishing industry figures
posted by The Whelk at 7:13 PM on June 17, 2010

Didn'tt Benchley also do the Cliche' Parade where he tried to fit as many as he could in a single article?

Sounds like him, although I can't place a title.

I re-created Benchley's stage act for my first book's promotion. I casually stripped while reciting publishing industry figures

While that does sound like something Benchley would have done, I think you might be conflating with Monty Python.
posted by DU at 7:17 PM on June 17, 2010

No he had a thing when Parker got a bug up her butt to do a cabaret thing or kicks, his thing was being a boring accountant to took off his clothes. Not sure if he did it more then once. Anyway, that was the idea.

Best Benchley quote, Parker finally convinces the lifelong teetotaler to try an Orange Blossom Fizz at her favorite speakeasy. He took a sip and went "These should be illegal."
posted by The Whelk at 7:31 PM on June 17, 2010

We've got to be talking about different Robert Benchleys. Mine was an alcoholic.

Oh wait, he was a teetotaler, then an alcoholic. That would be funny if it weren't so sad.
posted by DU at 2:53 AM on June 18, 2010