I write like...
Jul. 30th, 2010 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrThis is bizarre:
I tested this website with an excerpt from one of the saddest things I've ever written, from the epilogue of The Wild Swans.
It had not rained for many days. The grass was all dead, baked to straw, and the air hot and dry. Everything is desiccated, ready to blow away on the wind. Just like me. The dust swirling around them made him double over, racked with hoarse, hacking coughs, and they had to halt several times to allow him to get his breath back. People streamed past them, all heading in the same direction. When the two of them finally came out from the shelter of the trees, Elias paused and gasped, squeezing Tim's arm tightly.
"Oh, man," Tim breathed.
The Quuilt lay spread out majestically before them on the Great Lawn, arranged in blocks surrounded by a white plastic walkway. It was spectacularly varied in style and materials, bewildering the eye with a hodgepodge of colors and textures. At the same time, it was a formal unity, pulled together by the repeating pattern of the squares of fabric and bound by the walkway, like a white frame. People gathered around it on all sides, clustered along the edges. The scale of the Quilt made them look tiny in comparison. Some of the squares were still empty; the unfolding ceremony was still going on.
"It's so huge," Elias whispered. He was not prepared for that. He had seen many of the panels already while working on Sean's at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, but knowing how many there were still did not ready him for the visual impact of the Quilt being displayed, lying under the scorching sky. And the panels here today represented only a small portion of the Quilt as a whole.
"Everyone's so quiet," Tim said, his voice hushed, too.
The unfolding teams, groups of people dressed in white, continued to work their way down the Great Lawn toward the Southern end of the Quilt. Slowly, reverently, each team circled a square bundle of fabric placed on the ground. They stopped and stood still for a moment, holding hands around their bundle. Then, they stooped and pulled back the folds from the center and laid them on the grass, making a larger square. They stepped to the side and pulled back the second set of folds from the center, stepped to the side again and pulled back the third set of folds. Then they lifted the Quilt block high like an offering to the heavens, and the cloth billowed up as if inhaling. They paced a few steps around to the left in a circle to align the Quilt block with the others and gently placed it on the ground, completing another portion of the pattern.
All in utter silence.
And this is what the computer analysis decided:
I tested this website with an excerpt from one of the saddest things I've ever written, from the epilogue of The Wild Swans.
It had not rained for many days. The grass was all dead, baked to straw, and the air hot and dry. Everything is desiccated, ready to blow away on the wind. Just like me. The dust swirling around them made him double over, racked with hoarse, hacking coughs, and they had to halt several times to allow him to get his breath back. People streamed past them, all heading in the same direction. When the two of them finally came out from the shelter of the trees, Elias paused and gasped, squeezing Tim's arm tightly.
"Oh, man," Tim breathed.
The Quuilt lay spread out majestically before them on the Great Lawn, arranged in blocks surrounded by a white plastic walkway. It was spectacularly varied in style and materials, bewildering the eye with a hodgepodge of colors and textures. At the same time, it was a formal unity, pulled together by the repeating pattern of the squares of fabric and bound by the walkway, like a white frame. People gathered around it on all sides, clustered along the edges. The scale of the Quilt made them look tiny in comparison. Some of the squares were still empty; the unfolding ceremony was still going on.
"It's so huge," Elias whispered. He was not prepared for that. He had seen many of the panels already while working on Sean's at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, but knowing how many there were still did not ready him for the visual impact of the Quilt being displayed, lying under the scorching sky. And the panels here today represented only a small portion of the Quilt as a whole.
"Everyone's so quiet," Tim said, his voice hushed, too.
The unfolding teams, groups of people dressed in white, continued to work their way down the Great Lawn toward the Southern end of the Quilt. Slowly, reverently, each team circled a square bundle of fabric placed on the ground. They stopped and stood still for a moment, holding hands around their bundle. Then, they stooped and pulled back the folds from the center and laid them on the grass, making a larger square. They stepped to the side and pulled back the second set of folds from the center, stepped to the side again and pulled back the third set of folds. Then they lifted the Quilt block high like an offering to the heavens, and the cloth billowed up as if inhaling. They paced a few steps around to the left in a circle to align the Quilt block with the others and gently placed it on the ground, completing another portion of the pattern.
All in utter silence.
And this is what the computer analysis decided:
