Sunday, October 23, 2005

Book Randomness Tag!

"Our profound sympathy to Jack." -- Lobscouse and Spotted Dog, p. 123, fifth sentence

Ha! You've been tagged to bring a little more book randomness into the world! Right now you must:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence and the title of the book in the comments or your blog (along with these instructions, if the latter).
5. Don't search around for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

[I'm sitting in my wing chair (a.k.a. my work chair, because I'm supposed to be writing an editorial letter), so my Patrick O'Brian collection provides the most proximate books at the moment. Men-of-War: Life in Nelson's Navy was actually closer than Lobscouse, but it has only ninety-four pages. The sentence above is from a recipe for terrible wine called "Under False Colors."

FWIW, I have my hair pinned up with a binder clip right now, so I look all editorial even if I'm not acting like it.]

18 comments:

  1. "You get a stack of three pancackes with the warm blueberry compote and creme fraiche swirled together melting onto the plate."

    From The Chowhound's Guide to the New York Tristate Area, p.123, fifth sentence.

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  2. oops. I meant to write 'three pancakes.' Haste makes waste.

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  3. HEY! That's MY Patrick O'Brian collection, woman!

    "Alcuin wrote to Charlemagne that in Aachen 'the Temple of the most wise Solomon is constructed by God's art,' but this need not be more than a reference to the grandeur of the project."

    From _The Sepulchre of Christ and the Medieval West_ by Colin Morris, p. 123, sentence 5.

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  4. "We initiated the minicourse to fit the unstretched attention span, and grade inflation to flatter those we couldn't control."

    "From Love and Death at the Mall," by Richard Peck


    My copy of "The Synonym Finder" was closer, so I guess I could have gone with "blunt, adj. 1. dull, rounded, not sharp, unpointed, edgeless, unsharpened, thick."

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  5. Presence can be conferred by size or by the look of non-art.

    [what???]

    Michael Fried, "Art and Objecthood," Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology, ed. Gregory Battcock (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1968), 123.

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  6. Um. The closest book to me is by Jose Saramago, and there's only three and a half sentences on page 123, because he uses commas to break up dialogue... So, the fifth kinda-sentence is:

    Well, I hope it's nothing very bad.
    Jose Saramago, the Double.

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  7. "A man apt to promise is apt to forget."

    -- A Treasury of Essential Proverbs, p.123, fifth sentence.

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  8. "The plastic mat may be lifted off of the surface, the map placed on the tablet, and the mat placed back down into position."

    GIS Fundamentals: A First Text on Geographic Information Systems, second edition, by Paul Bolstad.

    An example of the predilection of my professor (who wrote the book) for mind-numbingly extraneous detail, not to mention his overuse of commas and the word "may".

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  9. my result was so very long that it merited it's own post elsewhere...

    I'm really only commenting here in order to say the following:

    a BINDER clip, Cheryl?! isn't that a wee bit...overkill in the domain of being "editorial"?

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  10. We used to make fun of his laugh, which amused him greatly, touching off antoher round of "Heeerrrrrr! Heeerrrrrr!" from him, prompting further outraged giggles from us.

    From The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride

    (Cheryl's blog is my new favorite website)

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  11. Sharks are ovoviviparous -- that is, they bring forth living young instead of eggs.

    From Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts. Page 123, sentence 5. And yes, ovoviviparous is the word.

    the last minute mystery man

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  12. "Our employers wouldn't want us to go home without seeing the actual operations," I said.

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  13. My quote is from The Reflecting Sky by
    S. J. Rozan

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  14. "It was Miss Nettie who thought of the new theatre curtains, to be made out of the length of old gold plush that had been discarded from Lucinda's own parlor."

    From ROLLER SKATES by Ruth Sawyer, p. 123, sentence #5

    p.s. binder clips, paper clips to hold back bangs... editing pencils used like chopsticks to secure a bun... :) i like 'em all.

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  15. It was a rumbling, gurgling, growly sound,a little like thunder but wetter.

    "Harry the Poisionous Centipede" A story to make you squirm. by Lynne Reid Banks
    I am substitiute teaching in a 4th grade classroom,but I think that is a prety good sentence

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  16. FYI--in your Harry potter talk--isn't a privet a hedge and a privy a toilet?

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  17. Miscellaneous: Infections, bone pain, headache, hernia, cyst, specified catarct, diabetes mellitus.

    (2004 Edition PDR Nurse's Drug Handbook)

    [captivating reading let me tell you!]
    Holly Klein

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  18. "I could turn the car--and my life--in any direction I chose."

    Unrooted Childhoods: Memoirs of Growing Up Global -- anthology edited by Faith Eidse & Nina Sichel

    This book's been sitting on top of my computer for the last week.

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