Famous Last Words
I should finish up the press check I’m on tomorrow and have Thursday free, or maybe I’ll just proof the cover on Thursday morning. God, I hope so. I’m about to go mad trapped in this industrial park just, frustratingly, outside the lovely city of Bruges.
But those aren’t the “famous last words” I meant by the post title. I was referring to my web page of that name, which made StumpleUpon’s “buzz” page, bringing a bunch of visitors. So this is a place where people can leave suggestions for more “deathbed bon mots and strangled prose,” or make comments à son gout.
Lately 75 percent of my non-search engine traffic has been coming from StumbleUpon. I’m not sure what to make of that, other than to say thanks to the stumblers who have bookmarked my pages.
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Posted: December 19th, 2006 under blogging, community, webwork.
Comments: 8
Comments
Comment from annexensen
Time: December 19, 2006, 11:55 am
I hope you can get out and trek about Bruge. From your photos it looks really gorgeous there. I will check out StumbleUpon-looks like a great site.
Comment from Lori
Time: January 7, 2007, 1:12 pm
thanks! these were great! i just stumbled upon : ) your site, while looked for more info to validate who spenta productions is & their making of the “Cyrus the Great.” it sounds wonderful & wondered if i could find another source who knew about them more and could vouch for their sincerity. loved the clip & am contributing, so quick stop me if i shouldn’t .
: ) lori
Pingback from blog.rightreading.com » More about StumbleUpon — a plea for friends
Time: January 9, 2007, 7:43 pm
[...] Earlier I mentioned that I was getting a lot of incoming traffic from StumbleUpon (about 1500 visits each of the past few weeks, to be numeric). So I’ve been doing a bit of stumbling myself, and I like the diversity of topics and sites that are represented (compared, for example, to something like digg, which has an exceedingly narrow focus and is ruled with an iron first by a ruthless cabal of YTMs (young tech males). As a next step I’d like to add a few stumbling friends and see how that goes. Any takers? I’m called xensen. [...]
Comment from gregory
Time: January 10, 2007, 6:00 am
Salaam
“I’ve had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that’s the record.”
— Dylan Thomas, poet, 1914-1953
This is actually just a humorous rumor. These are not his last words.
Comment from xensen
Time: January 10, 2007, 10:51 pm
Thanks, Gregory. I don’t have time to check it out right now but later on I’ll check some DT bios and qualify the statement
Comment from Katie
Time: May 6, 2009, 12:56 pm
Hey, that quote you have attributed to Emily Brontë is actually the final sentence of Wuthering Heights.
Comment from xensen
Time: May 6, 2009, 2:31 pm
A foolish (and funny) mistake! Removed. Thanks for the correction, Katie.
Comment from Mr. Spooty
Time: January 20, 2010, 3:36 pm
I agree with Gregory about Dylan Thomas.
From Wiki: October 27 was his thirty-ninth birthday. In the evening, he went to a party in his honour but was so unwell that he returned to his hotel. A turning point came on 2 November, when air pollution rose to levels that were a threat to those with chest problems. By the end of the month, over two hundred New Yorkers had died from the smog.
Thomas had an appointment to visit a clam-house in New Jersey on 4 November, but when telephoned at the Chelsea that morning he said that he was feeling awful and asked to take a “rain-check”. He did however accompany Liz to the White Horse for a few beers. Feeling sick he again returned to the hotel.
Feltenstein came to see him three times that day, on the third call prescribing morphine. This seriously affected Dylan’s breathing. At midnight on 5 November, his breathing became more difficult and his face turned blue. Liz Reitell unsuccessfully tried to get hold of Feltenstein. The night porter at the hotel then called the police who summoned an ambulance.
By 01:58 Thomas had been admitted to the emergency ward at nearby St Vincent’s, by which time he was profoundly comatose. The doctors on duty found bronchitis in all parts of his bronchial tree, both left and right sides. An X-ray showed pneumonia, and a raised white cell count confirmed the presence of an infection. The hospital let the pneumonia run its course and Thomas died on 9 November.
At the post-mortem, the pathologist found that the immediate cause of death was swelling of the brain, caused by the pneumonia reducing the supply of oxygen. Despite his heavy drinking his liver showed little sign of cirrhosis. However there was pressure on the brain from a build-up of cerebro-spinal fluid, caused by alcohol poisoning.
It appears that Thomas did utter his famous words on just a day before his terminal crash began. According to another article, “During an incident on 3 November 1953, Thomas returned to the Chelsea Hotel in New York, from the White Horse Tavern and exclaimed, “I’ve had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that is a record.” However, the barman and the owner of the pub who served Thomas at the time, later told Ruthven Todd, that Thomas couldn’t have imbibed more than half that amount, after Todd decided to find out.
So, while they may not have been his last words, he said them just prior to his death.
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