Wednesday, April 30, 2008

What, more tags?

Yes. This one from Charles Lambert. And it has the virtue of being easy:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

Or at least it is apparently easy. As it happens, I'm rearranging things right now, and have stacks of books to both sides of my keyboard. It's hard to say what's "nearest."

One possibility is Jonathan Carroll's novel Outside the Dog Museum, which gives us:

I saw him almost as soon as I stepped out of the elevator into the lobby. Sitting near the reception desk smoking a cigarette, he looked more like a fifteen-year-old skateboarder from Laguna Beach than the Crown Prince of Saru. In his late twenties, wearing faded jeans, a black Purdue Boilermaker's sweatshirt, and high-top basketball sneakers that were a cartoon of color, flashy arrows, lines, and zigzags.

Another possibility is Tim Weiner's history of the CIA, Legacy of Ashes:

At the end of 1955, President Eisenhower changed the CIA's marching orders. Recognizing that covert action could not undermine the Kremlin, he revised the rules written at the start of the Cold War. The new order, labeled NSC 5412/2 and dates December 28, 1955, remained in effect for fifteen years.

Or it could be Rosenkrantz and Satran's The Last Word on First Names:

This onetime poetic name* of Celtic origin, the name of the angel who governs the month of June, is now showing signs of age, relegated to playing grandma's on TV sitcoms.

MURPHY. One of the boldest, brightest, and breeziest of the Irish surname names, thanks to the character played so convincingly by Candice Bergen on Murphy Brown--and to then-Vice-President Dan Quayle for keeping it in the headlines so long.

(*that entry was for MURIEL, by the way.)

Or it could be Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words:

malnola n. a vague feeling of mental discomfort

malversation n. corruption in office (politics)

mamamouchi n. 1. A pompous-sounding, though bogus, Turkish title.

Or--oh, that's enough.

If you've read this far and feel like responding, consider yourself tagged.

8 comments:

Janet said...

I thought I was the one who came late to all the parties. This time you've beaten even me.

And I thought this was going to be a discussion of dialogue tags...

Charles Lambert said...

I'm impressed, and chastened. And, if you don't mind, I'll be using your sign-off line every single time I'm tagged from this post on.

David Isaak said...

Hi, Janet--

Oddly enough, out of four books, nary a dialogue tag in sight. But, then, most of the things stacked on my desk aren't novels...

David Isaak said...

Hi, Charles--

Impressed at what a mess my desk is? Me, too!

(There were 19 books on my desktop when you tagged me. I'm trying to straighten up a bit...)

Jen Ster said...

Hey, my desk is in the living room, and for some reason all the items on the shelf above are DVDs. Lessee here, "Winged Migration," "Monsters, Inc.", "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," "Legend," "Once Upon A Time in Mexico..."

Oh, wait, here's one. "Beauty" by Robin McKinley. Huh. Nice try, but Page 123 is one long paragraph. There's only four sentences. How annoying. Well, this from the back of "Tombstone" then: "Gripping performances and explosive action fill the screen in this legendary Western." Or I could pick up the first season of "Son of the Beach..."

David Isaak said...

Hi, Jen--

Nice selection of movies. Except maybe "Legend." I'm still not sure how a feel about that one.

Jen Ster said...

Ah, well, I can safely say that "Legend" belongs to Joan and I, myself, have only seen it once. "Son of the Beach," on the other hand...

David Isaak said...

Much as I admire Ridley Scott, once is how many times I've seen "Legend," too.