A Book Meme, Just As A Change Of Pace

[omorka]

It's the ol' Page 123 Meme again!

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

The book is Phule's Paradise:

If anything, Victor Phule looked more like a military commander than his son did - or the majority of active military officers, for that matter. His manner and bearing displayed what his heir potential might achieve in maturity. Where his son was slender, the elder Phule had the lean, fit look of a timber wolf. His features had the sharp, angular planes of a granite cliff, wheras his son's face still showed the softness of youth.

And for those of you who might be sighing in relief that this wasn't what you expected:

The second closest book -

"Guess what?" Ray said, poking his head down from the attic. Spengler and Venkman looked up from their meal of take-out chicken and light beer as Stantz lowered a small valence trap by its cord. "I just caught a ghost, a little one, right in our own attic."

"Aw, Ray, not while we're eating."

And the third -

"No survivors," seconded John O'Connor.

After a quick check of the crate containing Professor Hikita, they got out of the vehicle and walked around the space pod despite the warnings of the state trooper to stay back. Bigbooté, his murderous confidence growing, merely produced his Yoyodyne ID card.

"Yoyodyne, officer," he said jauntily, to gain the poor fellow's trust.

The curious thing is not so much that two of these are movie tie-in novels as that all three of the closest books - in fact, four of the closest five - are fiction. That's unusual, for me.

Comments

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

Without budging an inch, the tomes closest to my left elbow are "How Real is Real", "World Revolution" by Nesta Webster, and the Principia Discordia. A few inches beyond that periphery are the Illuminatus! Trilogy and Edith Starr Miller's "Occult Theocracy" then a bunch of photography books. Slightly behind me, the Monitor of Scottish Rite Masonry and the 2006 Fotofest catalog. Inches from my left foot, the INWO players guide, and a foot from my right, the Princeton guide to the GRE. My butt is 18 inches from "The Encyclopedia of Ancient and Forbidden Knowledge" and the complete fictions of Jorge Luis Borge.

But since it's only inches away...

At long last London grew suspicious, and when eventually three of the turned-around agents managed to escape from German custody and warn London, the Germans had no way of continuing the deception. Their last message to London read:

We are aware of the fact that for some time you have been doing business in Holland without our help. Since we have been your only representatives for a long time, we find this rather unfair...

from a chapter on deception in intelligence work, from "How Real is Real?" by Paul Watzlawick.

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

For grins, from the Scottish Rite Monitor

Reason, knowldege, and faith are the three sides of an equilateral triangle.

The Square, the Level and the Plumb symbolize the laws of equilibrium: in ideas, wisdom; in force, power; in the result, harmony—the three pillars of our Temple. This equilibrium is the will of God; in man, it is liberty. It alone produces stability and duration.

Nice bit of symbology.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

I have to be careful with memes like this. Within reach of my comp desk are three books at present (more than three, but I mean three particular ones): one I have a deep-seated emotional revulsion to reopening, having loved it once but had a near nervous breakdown involving a project related to it; one is a Christmas gift from my mom, the only member in the family who actually uses my Amazon wish list, which was DEEPLY disappointing; and one is a horrible, vile book I bought towards the end of my Libertarian Party days which I thought would be educational and which instead turned out to be lies.

I don't know what to do with the first two books, and the third book... well, it's softcover so it's useless for shimming up furniture, and I'm philosophically opposed to burning books, but I never want this piece of shit to fall into the hands of any other human ever...

... so yeah, have to be a -little- particular about which way I reach on these "nearest book" memes.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Does recycling count as "burning" to you? I've tossed a few seriously worthless tomes into the recycle bin.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

The middle one seems like it should only require a trip to a Half-Price to get it off your hands.

The last one could perhaps be used for animal bedding? Surely something that can't read could make use of it somehow.

[tenshihitomi.livejournal.com]

Hm... how did you make that little box you put your quote in?

[peoriapeoria.livejournal.com]

The improvement of the ground is the most natural obtaining of riches; for it is our great mother's blessing, the earth's; but it is slow; and yet, where men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly.

Author reveal later.

[peoriapeoria.livejournal.com]

Now, the second closest provides a picture of a ship's long boat and the crew so tossed in it with The South Sea. That being Manila Galleon by F. van Wyck Mason, which I realize I've not read and really must one of these days.

[peoriapeoria.livejournal.com]

Francis Bacon.

Everything is better with Bacon.

This is your brain on music, daniel levitin, in my backpack

[cheshirebast.livejournal.com]

Not all keys fit all locks; there are certain locks (receptors) that are designed to accept only certain neurotransmitters. Generally, neurotransmitters cause the receiving neuron to fire or prevent it from firing. The neurotransmitters are then absorbed through a process called reuptake; without reuptake, the neurotransmitters would continue to stimulate or inhibit the firing of a neuron. Some neurotransmitters are used throughout the nervous system, and some only in certain brain regions and by certain kinds of neurons.