I read about this meme awhile back at Maria's place - Just Eat Your Cupcake. The story of how her blog got its name is particularly hilarious and worth reading, especially for those of you with young children. Here's the deal:
You are supposed to look up from your computer, look around the room where you are sitting, and pick up the closest book. Open the book, turn to page 123, count down to the 5th sentence on that page and then post the next three sentences. Easy enough.
Well, the book I have been reading for the past two weeks or so is Sexus by Henry Miller. I finally finished it while driving home from Utah, but it's still sitting here on the floor by my bed, waiting to be shelved on a bookshelf I'm afraid will topple over and kill me in the middle of the night, loaded down as it is. Here's what Mr. Miller has to say on p. 123. At the moment, he is driving out to Long Island with some interesting characters when he realizes that Walt Whitman was born somewhere nearby and mentions going to visit his birthplace.
"Do you know where?" shouted MacGregor.
"No, but we could ask someone."
"Oh, the hell with that!"
Sorry it wasn't one of the more sexy or philosophical bits! But in its own way, I think perhaps it is. Sometimes it is better to go somewhere, to just drive or travel, without directions......you never know where you will end up.......... or with whom. :-)
Consider yourself tagged. I look forward to reading about your page 123's..... or just put them in the comments if you'd rather.
P.S. I wish I would have read this book when I was 20.
8 comments:
Under the Cover of Darkness:
"Meg lifted her brows to keep from scowling. Rich, bossy matrons needed love, too.
'A pergola would be lovely.' she sighed."
I read Sexus the summer of my 21st year. It was the kind of summer when $20 bills fell from the sky like autumn leaves. I literally found money everywhere. And adventure. Henry Miller teaches us how to live, despite the ugly absurdity of life on this planet.
Page 123 of The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard (the greatest storyteller of all time): "But I choked my ire and held my peace, and the judge squalled that I had shown contempt for the court, and that I should be hurled into a dungeon to rot until I betrayed my friend. So then, seeing they were all mad, I drew my sword and cleft the judge's skull; then I cut my way out of the court, and seeing the high constable's stallion tied near by, I rode for the wharfs, where I thought to find a ship bound for foreign parts." (From the classic Conan tale "Queen of the Black Coast")
It's a bit grim, I'm afriaid. The book is The Encyclopedia of Kidnappings (work, not personal reading) and page 123 falls in 'G' - yes, it's arranged alphabetically.
Glatman's first victim was 19-year-old Judy Ann Dull, a model whom he hired to pose for bondage photos on August 1, 1957. Once Dull was tied up, Glatman proceeded to strip and rape her, afterward driving her into the desert of neighboring Riverside County, where he strangled her and dug a shallow grave. On March 7, 1958, he kidnapped 24-year-old Shirley Briegeford, raping her and snapping bondage photographs before he strangled her and left her corpse in San Diego County.
currently reading Erich Fromm's "The Sane Society"
The same phenomenon exists in the worshiping submission to a political leader, or to the state. The leader and the state actually are what they are by the consent of the governed. But they become idols when the individual projects all his powers into them and worships them, hoping to regain some of his powers by submission and worship.
I like the idea so I went to my current book-The Saffron Kitchen- by Yasmin Crowther.
"Maryam could taste the blood in her mouth. The ewe lay where it fell with its neck flipped back, the wound like a new mouth steaming blood into a puddle on the brown earth, hard with frost. Hassan's elder son, Reza, threw a bucket of waater to wash it away, and it ran in pink rivulets to the children's feet."
Wow......bossy matrons, cleft skulls, bondage, worshipful submission, sheep's blood....... what more could I ask for!? This has been most fun....... More, more more!!!!!
Scott Russell Sanders -Writing From The Center-
Not their hides as the native people of this territory, the Ojibwa, or the old French voyageurs might have wanted; not their souls or meat. I did not even want their photograph, although I found them surpassingly beautiful. I wanted their company.
"Brownell would close the debate by saying, 'We can't publish everything. Let someone else make a failure of it.'
"Brownell was always considerate of the authors he turned down."
From "Max Perkins: Editor of Genius," by A. Scott Berg
Excellent game. Thanks for the post.
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