Saturday, February 9, 2008

Get out of my dreams, pick up a damn book.

The game is tag, it appears I'm "it".

Boxer rebel tagged me with a book meme, and a nice and easy one at that (my favorite kind!)

The rules: Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!) Find Page 123. Find the first 5 sentences and read them. Post the next 3 sentences.

I actually had a stack of three books sitting near me. One was Vindication by Frances Sherwood, a book I've been meaning to re-read (for the 3rd or 4th time) for a while now. The second was Broken by William Cope Moyers (addiction memoir by Bill Moyer's son) that I've been trying to muster up the energy to finish- but it just isn't happening (a little heavy on the Jesus for me.)

The third is the one I picked up because I haven't read it yet. I picked it up used at Half-Price Books here in St. Paul a while back and then kind of forgot to read it.

It's called The Flesheaters by David Ireland.

I've never read anything by him before, but from paging through it and reading a bit about Mr. Ireland I'm guessing it will be interesting. I'm thinking Tom Robbins meets Dostoevsky meets Terry Gilliam meets Camus.

So here we go- page 123, sentences 6-8:

"The shopkeeper hardly saw the words. Papers were merchandise and carried news of merchandise: news of the world was a by-product. Absently the man picked up a packet of coloured balloons and put down 15 cents."

There you are.


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Random, totally unrelated question:

Would you rather...?

a) Be stuck in the car on the ride home after a lovely dinner having to pee really bad after 2 cocktails and 2 glasses of water?

or

b) Be stuck in the car on the ride home after a lovely dinner having to listen to your wife singing Billy Ocean's "Caribbean Queen" in a voice that's way, way, way too loud to be comfortable, adding in the fact that she knows all the ad-lib "uh-uh-uhs" and "mmm, mmm, mmm's" and is bobbing her head like that?




Tomorrow- my thesis:

"Billy Ocean, the awesomeness of Billy Ocean's music, and how Billy Ocean's music influenced U.S./Middle East diplomacy in the early 90's."

10 comments:

Nature Girl said...

I almost met Billy Ocean once in an elevator..my two best friends got in the elevator with him, I had been invited to go along with them, but they were being jerks to my other friend and I opted to stay with her...That's my brush with fame.

and I'd soooooo opt for option #2..being trapped in a car having to pee really really bad is NO fun..I'd rather hear the bad singing, ad libs and all.
Stacie

Kate said...

"I was the tiger she wanted to tame". AWESOME.

Lollie said...

I'm with Stacie - I don't want to be anywhere where I can't immediately have access to release the pee. Being knocked up and practically bladderless increases the amount of no fun to that equation.

Anonymous said...

Option B...my foot is tapping away right now listening to the video. I'd rather listen to bad singing for under four minutes than have to pee for Lord knows how long.

Patti

Boxer rebel said...

Thank you for your indulgence in this meme WM.

Now as to your second question, I am with the others I would rather listen to the singing than really have to pee.

Freida Bee, MD said...

I, also, would far rather listen to bad singing over having to pee any day. Of course, I would pee by the side of the road, but still, I'd rather listen to someone singing like me than that even, but it's not because I particularly like Billy Ocean, so I look forward to your argument.

Flenker said...

Billy Ocean might be kind of awesome. If only for the line "get out of my dreams and into my car." AWESOME!

CDP said...

Will there be any comparison/contrast with Mr. Luther Vandross? I look forward to seeing your research.

Aside to Lollie--congratulations, but if you're thinking that this gets better after you have the baby, then I'm sorry to tell you that it does not.

Stacey said...

Singing wins hands down.

As corny as Billy Ocean is to us all now , we all know we dug him back in the day.

dguzman said...

No way--I'll take having to pee over that Billy Ocean any day.

And my goodness, you academic types get a little grant money and BAM! it's off to the Billy Ocean races, isn't it? ISN'T IT?