Tag, You're It!

I just got tagged with this, and found it pretty entertaining, so I'm passing it along. I am now tagging Charlie Anders, Jill Nagle, and Carol Queen. Play if you think it'd be fun, don't if you don't. This is not a chain letter, bad luck will not follow you if you break the chain of this silly game. (And if any of the rest of you think it'd be fun to play, please do!)

It's a blog game. I'm supposed to pick three bloggers I know and ask them to:

1) Pick up the book that you are nearest to with 123 or more pages. (According to early versions: Don't search around and look for the "coolest" book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.)
2) Turn to page 123.
3) Locate the fifth full sentence in that page.
4) Copy that and the next two sentences that follow.
5) Tag three more bloggers to do the same.

I got tagged by Iamcuriousblue, and got this result:

The closest book to me was a graphic novel, and page 123 did not have five full sentences. So I started counting with the first full sentence on that page and went to the fifth sentence after that, which took me to Page 125.

"And if eroticism needs the extraordinary, the new, then your innovations are a threat... some day all the variations will have been played out!"

"Your fears are vain, my friend, since eroticism is not inherited... it's a personal adventure!"

"At this point you are seeing the second law of erotica... the need for asymmetry!"

It's from the graphic novel "Emmanuelle, Bianca, and Venus in Furs," by Guido Crepax. The really entertaining part: I was at work when I got tagged. This book really was the closest to me on my desk. Sometimes I love my job.

Comments

[Jenine]

From 'House Made of Dawn' by Momaday that's been on my desk at work next to the phone books for ages:

"And every day before dawn he went to the fields without hope, and I watched him, sometimes saw him at sunrise, turning to stone even as he moved up and down the rows.[paragraph]Daddy loved me; it wasn't anything that he could put into words or deeds beyond the simple act of turning each day against the land, but I knew it. It was a deep, desperate kind of love; there was no laughter to it at all."

I haven't read the book yet but I've read something else by Momaday long long ago. I like having it on the desk, just in case.

[Jon Berger]

Ok, you did say not to look for the coolest book. From "Civil Procedure Before Trial" by Robert Weil and Ira Brown:

"To show that no triable issue exists, the order must specifically refer to both the supporting evidence, and, if applicable, to any evidence proffered in opposition to the motion. If there is opposition evidence, the court's order should state why such evidence fails to create a triable issue of fact (e.g. because irrelevant, because objections to admissibility upheld, etc.) The court's statement that it was 'relying on all of the evidence' has been held sufficient where it is clear from the record that the court must have resolved the disputed facts in a particular way, and the appellate court's independent review establishes the judgment's validity."

I left out the case citations, just to prove that there actually is a limit to my geekiness.

[Hayley]

You are have much cooler and interesting jobs than I (staff analyst, health, LA County DHS, at your service). But for what it's orth, I am a stickler for the rules and just picked the closest book to me. "1. Perform a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis of the administrative and governance problems encountered in this case, and identify the three problems you consider to be the most significant." That is from "Ambulatory Health Care: Case Studies for the Health Services Executive" ed Austin Ross and Mary Richardson. Long overdue from the Public Health library. (To satisfy your curiosity, I know it's burning a hole in you, that's Case 7: Organization Conflict: Department Heads vs. Central Administration). Not to give away the end, but of course, as always, the butler did it.

[Jane Shaffer]

From "Anansi Boys," by Neil Gaiman, which was laying next to the monitor:

"There was a fireplace large enough to roast a pair of oxen, upon which three burning logs crackled and spat. There was a hammock in one corner, along with a perfectly white sofa and a four-poster bed. Near the fireplace was something that Fat Charlie, who had only ever seen them in magazines, suspected was probably some kind of Jacuzzi. There was a zebra-skin rug, and a bear pelt hanging on one wall, and there was the kind of advanced audio equipment that mostly consists of a black piece of polished plastic that you wave at. On one wall hung a flat television screen that was the width of the room that should have been there."

The next nearest book is "Gregg Shorthand Manual Simplified." Whew.

[Laura Deal]

My computer is actually right next to one of my bookshelves so I closed my eyes and grabbed the first book I could reach.

From.... (actually I won't need to tell you: 123 turns out to be a rather important page in this book and the eventh sentence should give it away)

"Help me and I will help you."

"What must I do?" asked the girl.

"Kill the wicked Witch of the West," answered Oz.

[Lise Dyckman]

I figured it would be cheating to do this at work (work being a library, and the pile of books on my desk likely to be donations / candidates for withdrawal), so - fudging a little, since that page is mostly illustration - here's results from the Home Version of this game:

[about the artist Wenceslaus Hollar:] Hollar adored the complexities of women's dress, accessories and hairstyles; he was 'really the most indifatigable man that ever liv'd, his workes being neat & laborious'*. His etching for _A Group of Muffs, Kerchiefs, Fans, Gloves, and a Mask_ of 1647 shows how 'indifatigable' he was, obsessive almost, in his attention to the tactility of these objects. We feel the softness and warmth of the fur, the way the gloves curl up slightly as though they retain the imprint of the wearer's hands, how the lace-edged linen neckerchiefs slide among the muffs, and the intense blackness of the velvet mask with the strings that hed it in place.

* Robert Burton, _Anatomie of Melancholie_ [1660 edition?] From
Aileen Ribeiro, _Fashion and fiction: dress in art and literature in Stuart England_. Yale University Press, 2005.
Hurrah for interlibrary loan!

[Tim Walters]

Saraswattee: A Novel Of India, by Kit Puran Singh. Chosen at random from my unread-book pile this morning (and I mean literally at (pseudo-)random--I use a perl script to parse my LibraryThing export file and select one marked with the right tag).

[Susie Bright]

"Mayor Bloomberg said, 'I understand where you're coming from— I lost my father too.' At the right moment I turned around and flipped a switch. Everybody was pointing up at the lights."

*Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents,

edited by Allison Gilbert, with Roseanne Cash, Hope Edelman, Barbara Echenreich, Geraldine Ferraro, Dennis Franz, Yogi Berra, Ice-T.

I feel very lucky that I was only inches away from THIS book, because it's been the most important book I've read this year. I saw the list of "famous people" and thought it would be a celebrity stupid-fest, but it is exactly the opposite. The depth of feeling and intelligence is remarkable. Those lines above are from the youngest writer, a teenager whose cop dad died on 9/11, shortly after losing her mother to cancer. Out of all the "famous people" in it, the two people who made me cry the most... were Geraldine Ferraro, of all people, who I haven't given a second thought to in years... and Ice-T, who turns out to have earned his nickname precisely because of the nature of his parents' young deaths and their effect on him.

[Carol Queen]

Practice Tantra in front of your camera; then watch the tape to improve your technique. You will absolutely thrill at your inner exhibitionist. [new paragraph:] I'd like you to invite yourself out on a real date

[Carol Queen]

PS -- That was from Barbara Carrellas' forthcoming Urban Tantra from Celestial Arts Press.

[Mark Galipeau]

As he was to begin his journey too early on the morrow to see any of the family, the ceremony of taking-leave was performed when the ladies moved for the night; and Mrs. Bennet, with great politness and cordiality, said how happy they should be to see him at Longbourne again, whenever his other engagments might allow him to visit them.

"My dear Madame," he replied, "this invitation is particularly gratifying, because it is what I have been hoping to recieve; and you may be very certain that I shall avail myself of it as soon as possible."

They were all astonished; and Mr. Bennet, who could by no means wish for so speedy a return, immediately said,- "But is there not danger of Lady Catherine's disapprobation here, my good sir?..."

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen.

[Jill]

Wow, I didn't know I'd been tagged! So I'll post here, then on my blog.

The closest book to me, which actually I had been partially sitting on, is Birds of Northern California. So now I'm officially out as a bird geek. Here are the three sentences:

"Am impressive male can mate with up to 75% of the nearby females. By late summer, Sage Grouse often migrate to higher elevations; some individuals have been sighted on both sides of the Sierran crest at over 10,000 ft. Unfortunately, road construction, off-road vehicle use and overgrazing have all contributed to the destruction of leks and prime Sage Grouse habitat throughout their northern California range."

I have to go back to my blog to see who I'm tagging.

[LeOgAhEr]

I Love you girls

Buy