Chain mail.

Four Legs Good of Plush Life (and owner of the magnificent Lion Kitty Maxx) has tagged me with the following:

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, go down to the fifth sentence.
3. Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog.
4. Name of the book and the author.
5. Tag three people.

Okay, okay.  I'll go for four out of five.

    There's nobody left at the back of the car. Everyone's moved to the front, saying, "It stinks! It stinks!" This was around the time we'd reached Roppongi.

Underground - The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche, by Haruki Murakami (translated from the Japanese by Alfred  Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel). Popular novelist Murakami interviewed sixty survivors of the sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway.

I'm not going to tag anyone because I've been in a contrarian mood lately.  Feel free to add your quotes in comments, if ya feel so motivated.   

Comments

[FastMovingCloud]

Women are always having babies in phone boxes, buses, lifts, etc. It's a well known fact. Franco's is run by an Italian bloke.

The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend

(My Grandson was over for a visit and left it laying nearby. I always liked poor, dear Adrian.)

[sfmike]

"Assbackwards as usual. You don't test when there's ships out, not even if it's one defenseless little cutter--"

"Defenseless! She was fully rigged up as an assult ship, sir."

--Against The Day, Thomas Pynchon

I am loving this book.

[Jesus X. Crutch]

At great personal risk, many Indian leaders attended the conference even after they knew that enfluenza was in Montreal. Dozens died. Among them was the Huron leader Kondiaronk, a famed orator who had, more than any other, convened the gathering as a last-ditch effort to avoid internecine conflict.
1491, by Charles C. Mann.

[Capital J]

"To return to the matter at hand, I wish to terminate my stay immediately."

"Very well," said the host. "I will book passage for you on the first tubetrain tomorrow morning."

--Tuf Voyaging, by George R.R. Martin

NOTE: This is not *my* book; it's just the one lying around closest to the computer. My son was reading it.

[The Goob]

My parents think I'm checking my e-mail when I'm reading online erotica.
I don't know what to say to God anymore.
I got a crush on a bad woman based on a news photo, 15 years later I still wonder about her.

--PostSecret Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives--
Compiled by Frank Warren.

Since it's kind of a picture book with often only one sentence per page, I followed the rules the best I could.

If you haven't encountered the PostSecret project yet:
http://www.postsecret.blogspot.com

[NTodd]

I did the Page 123 Meme a while back...

[emale_n7]

Ok you asked for it:

"The prohibition of attacks against non-defended localities is included in Article 3 of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, according to which the Tribunal is competent to prosecute violations of the laws and customs of war, including "attack, or bombardment, by whatever means, of undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings". This rule is also contained in military manuals which are applicable in or have been applied in non-international armed conflicts. Under the legislation of many States, it is an offence to attack non-defended localities in any armed conflict."

notes omitted-- Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck, "Customary international humanitarian law. Vol.I Rules" (2005)

Guess what I am working on...

e

[Stevie]

"3. a heavy cloth of felted wool, used for overcoats, etc. 4. [Slang] the female genitals: often considered vulgar - adj. [Slang] designating or of a film, photograph, etc. in which the female genitals are exposed."

Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, Victoria Neufeldt, editor in chief

Sorry, my computer is next to my desk, and the only book I normally keep on it (besides an address book) is a dictionary.
By the way, anyone care to take a guess as to what word is being defined above?

[Darryl Pearce]

"Consequently, my clothes and bedding were often drenched; a process by which the pains and aches in my cramped and stiffened limbs were greatly increased. I resolved various plans of escape in my mind, which I sometimes imparted to my grandmother, when she came to whisper with me at the trap-door. The kind-hearted old woman had an intense sympahty for runaways."

INcidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs

[fourlegsgood]

I was so lazy about this that I tagged you guys and didn't bother to tell you.

Ack!

[Thor Heyerdahl]

"According to the Fortune article, AT&T is emerging as a major player in this area."

Applied Statistics for Business & Economics 2nd Edition, Allen Webster.

[Thor Heyerdahl]

ah shit - forgot the other 2 sentences...

Much of the success AT& T has enjoyed is due to their ready access to the credit histories of 70 million long-distance customers. This credit information makes it possible for AT&T to more accurately appraise the likelihood that applicanst for the card will default on payements.

[spocko]

Note: This is NOT a bible, but a great book about the teachings of Jesus.

And Jesus answered, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our god is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heat and all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first and greatest commandment. And there is a second one that is like it" You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Stephen Mitchell, The Gospel According to Jesus. A new Translation and Guide to Essential Teachings for Believers and Unbelievers.
By the Translator of Tao Te Ching and The Book of Job.

I love this book. It points out all the things that are said to come "from Jesus" were put in his mouth by the early Church. In my mind it rehabilitates Jesus from the fake "Jesus" that the Fundies want to be in charge. When you question them about stuff you find that often they are really believers in the angry vengeful God of the Old Testament and they selectively believe in the New Testament. Especially when it comes to war, punishment and enemies. That is why I was really happy to find this sentence.

"Love they neighbor." How does that fit into the "Nuke 'em till they glow" and "We need to KILL MORE IRAQIS" lines we get from people, supposed Christians who are our leaders?

[FuckDemRepubHypocracy]

Uhhh .. . . would that be "marmoset," or "quahog," Stevie?
-----------------------------------------------------
"The War Department telegram had supplanted, briefly, all my thoughts of Daisy Moore, but when Uncle Josh had instructed that town councilman to spread the word among Dad's colleagues, it had not displeased me to fancy, added to my friend's other feelings for me, her shocked pity for my bereavement. In the face of this adult tragedy there was of course no longer any urgency in my wish to apologize to her for my earlier inconsideration. Even so, I liked the idea of making that apology, perhaps sometime tomorrow; to do so in such circumstances would demonstrate all the more effectively my unselfish regard for her."
(John Barth "The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor")

[Uncle Smokes]

Since I'm at the computer, the closest book is a reference for the software synthesizer program I'm currently using:

"With the Velocity Lane Editor open, select the Pencil tool. Click and drag downwards on the velocity of the first MIDI event. Notice that as you drag down, which decreases the velocity, the color of the MIDI event changes from dark red to light pink (a darker color for higher velocities, a lighter color for lower velocities)."
-- Reason 3 Power!, Matt Piper amd Michael Prager

Now...that was terribly exciting. However, if I go to my nightstand, we get:

"But anarchism also opposes 'the dominion of man over man.' It insists that 'socialism will be free or it will not be at all.' In its recognition of this lies the genuine and profound justification for the existence of anarchism."
-- Chomsky On Anarchism, Noam Chomsky

Hmmm...not a real showstopper, either. Is my reading material dry or what?

[sravana]

The term unprepared or raw(sheng) is sometimes used instead of fresh (xian) in the ancient medical literature, as in this example from _Encountering the Sources of the Classic of Materia Medica_: "When the fresh root is harvested, it becomes sheng di huang."

from Bensky's _Materia Medica_ third edition - more than you ever wanted to know about Chinese herbs!

[sravana]

(I didn't want to post three sentences, they're pretty long!)

[Stevie]

"3. a heavy cloth of felted wool, used for overcoats, etc. 4. [Slang] the female genitals: often considered vulgar - adj. [Slang] designating or of a film, photograph, etc. in which the female genitals are exposed."

Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, Victoria Neufeldt, editor in chief

Sorry, my computer is next to my desk, and the only book I normally keep on it (besides an address book) is a dictionary.
By the way, anyone care to take a guess as to what word is being defined above?

____

Uhhh .. . . would that be "marmoset," or "quahog," Stevie?

*BUZZER*

Sorry, the correct answer is "beaver."

[piegrrrl]

"Under at least some conditions, both astrocytes that provide support to the neurons and the capillaries that supply blood may also be altered. The learning of specific tasks appears to alter the specific regions of the brain involved in the task. These findings suggest that the brain is a dynamic organ, shaped to a great extent by experience--by what a living being does and has done...yadda yadda yadda."
--How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School
(Sorry, I'm at work. Home reading would be much more entertaining, I'm sure, as I'm reading Amy Sedaris' I Like You)

[lowly grunt]

"The Protestants protested many problems in the Roman Catholic Church, especially confusion about how people are saved. Regarding the latter concern, as we discussed in preivous chapters, the meaning of salvation wasn't questioned; the means of salvation was the issue. By what means do people get to heaven?"

A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian D. McLaren

It was the book closest to me that had over 123 pages, other than my Hebrew testament, which I can no longer translate.

[dirk gently]

hey, the instructions said to on your blog

i'll take all the traffic i can get.

[ollie]

sorry, but "My Pet Goat" doesn't have 123 pages! ;-)

[underachiever]

"And move the plants to another room if you're having a party.

Marijuana flourishes through a wide range of relative humidity. It can grow in an atmosphere as dry as a desert or as moist as a jungle."

- Marijuana Grower's Guide by Mel Frank & Ed Rosenthal

[Fightin Irish]

The imperious restrictions we encounter inside the Library of Mendel may look like universal laws of nature from our myopic perspective, but from a different perspective they may appear to count as merely local conditions, with historical explanations. If so, then a restricted concept of biological possibility is the sort we want; the ideal of a universal concept of biological possibility will be misguided. But as I have already allowed, this does not rule out biological laws; it merely sets the burden of proof for those who want to propose any.

Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett

[katecontinued]

For the straying husband, she says, "his whole life turns into a horrendous nightmare." That sobered, but unscathed. In the end, the attraction is fatal only for the single woman.

Backlash, Susan Faludi

[mostly boring]

A recent investigation by Frerichs has led to the discovery of new optical glasses, which are transparent in the near infrared up to 12 microns. These are binary sulfide glasses, represented by arsenic trisulfide which forms a perfectly clear red glass of remarkable optical properties. The glass softens at 300C, distills without decomposition at 500C, and is non-hygroscopic.

Materials Technology for Electron Tubes
W. H. Kohl

-- that was wholly unsatisfying...one deeper:

I ran out from behind the bags and hugged Kim. "Good job baby. I knew he had one back there!"

The Jerusalem Syndrome
Marc Maron

-- much better.

[Rob_in_Hawaii]

"It was a very dignified letter except for the P.S., which went something like this: 'On second thought, you had better rent a safety deposit box for my jewelry at the Chase Manahttan Bank.. You're rather careless sometimes, and I really want to know where my things are when I need them.' I think she really intended to kill herself, though; she was still a Southern belle, and she didn't like her man doing anything wrong."

From "Capote: a Biography" by Gerald Clarke. It came in the mail yesterday from a friend and was sitting atop a stack of late 19th-century American utopian fiction and a Khmer language audio course book.

[Buckeye, Blue State]

"The floor of the firehouse's garage was stained with blood. Someone had spread out over it books and tattered newspapers, and the women and children sat down on them.
"Bring all of your money and gold here to this bench" one of Lukic's men ordered.
Blood and Vengeance by Chuck Sudetic.

[Interrobang]

Percy's club continued to flail away, now on one side of me, now on the other. Sooner or later, he was going to bring one down on me instead of his intended target, and then there was going to be a brawl right here in this corridor, no matter who his relations were. I wouldn't be able to help myself, and Brutal would be apt to join in.

-- The Green Mile, Stephen King

[Ruthie]

She told him, Yes, just that; and she was going to live on at Blawearie a while, not roup the gear out at once, could he see to that with the factor?
He stared at her with his mouth fallen open, But you can't live there alone!
She told him she'd no such intention, couldn't he get her some old woman to come live with her, some old bit body who'd be glad of a home?

--"A Scot's Quair" (Sunset Song) by Lewis grassic Gibbon

NOTE: "roup" = sell off (possessions) as in an estate sale.

[hokysmokes]

"Monsieur Bergeret told them the subject of the conversation: "We were talking of the man whom my mother one day caused to exist, and created gardener at Saint-Omer." [sic]

From Putois, a short story by Anatole France from
50 Great Short Stories edited by Milton Crane

[Larry Bertoia]

BLAM! SCRUNCH! Oh Archie you have really done it now, what are we gonna tell Veronica's dad?

ARCHIES COMIC DIGEST, JULY 2002.

[Molly Ivors]

Well, I answered at my blog.

We're not saying that visionary companies are cults.We're saying that they are more cult-like, without actually being cults. The terms "cultism" and "cult-like" can conjure up a variety of negative images and connotations; they are much stronger words than "culture".

Built to Last - Successful Habits of Visionary Companies : Jim Collins & Jerry Porras

(This has been on my desk for several months - haven't read it, except for the three sentences above.)

[Peter Waksman]

A dreary place: but it seemed a charming and cheerful garden after the close Forest.
- The Fellowship of the Ring
JRR Tolkein (you knew that)