123rd page meme

[twirlgrrl]

Artemis Rich, the famous blogger and pusher of wetsuits, tagged me! Because I'm up at 5am, everyone is out of my way and I can do this one.

Book, page 123, sentences 5-8

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of it and the next 3 sentences on your blog 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.
6. Tag three people

"First he tried cow-bells. He made a collection which filled five large salons, and comprehended all the different sorts of cow-bells that ever had been contrived, save one. That one--an antique, and the only specimen extant--was possessed by another collector."

This quote is funny to me because it's fiction, and I don't have time to luxuriate in fiction reading lately. I read the book years ago, and was in the process of rearranging the office so it happens to be on the top of the stack. If I'd reached in the other direction (yes, there are lots of books within reaching distance from my desk!) I would have been quoting from a parenting guide instead.

I'll put the book in my comments in case you want to guess before finding out what it was.

I want everyone to do this, but I'm tagging kathykat, hallsl and glooms. Let me know if you do this in your own LJ, or feel free to do it here too.

Comments

[ninjalie.livejournal.com]

I went ahead and did it in my LJ, thanks for tagging me:)
-nat

Best I could do...

[hallsl.livejournal.com]

The only book within arm's reach was the Zen of CSS Design... and while that does have a page 123, there aren't five sentences on it, so that wouldn't do. In the other direction, there are some almost grabbable books, but all either of the cancer research or web design type... too boring. So, hoping that this is in the spirit of the game, I walked over to my bookcase into a fairly random collection of books, many of them owned by Colin. I closed my eyes and reached in and grabbed. And this is what resulted:

Again comes the nod meaning yes and the answer no. That is the end of the fragment, but like the wall it one he thinks about many times.
The final strong fragment from that part of the world is of a compartment of a troopship. He is on his way home.

[artemis-rich.livejournal.com]

What's the source? I haven't a clue. And it's such a lovely fragment!

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

The Canvasser's Tale, by Mark Twain. I have this wonderful MT short story collection, in fact I've had it since childhood, and it's on a stack of books being rearranged in the office. Here's the whole story:

http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/561/

I just love him.

Re: Best I could do...

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

That's quite... odd! Is it sci fi?

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

Thanks for doing it! I knew yours would be interesting.

Re: Best I could do...

[hallsl.livejournal.com]

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Dunno if you've read it... the central figure has had shock therapy and has only residual memories of the time before it.

Re: Best I could do...

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes... I've at least started it more than once. Don't think I ever got all the way through it but I don't remember why now. Darn shock therapy. ;-)