I’m a bit picky about memes, since I treat Mind on Fire as a topical blog, and not a personal one, but it’s hard for me to pass up this book-related blog meme from Zach (the coolest nontheist Quaker you’ll ever encounter, on line or off). Here are the rules;
- Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
- Find page 123
- Find the first 5 sentences
- Post the next 3 sentences
- Tag 5 people
Here’s my excerpt (I lucked out and got a super run-on sentence rich in description):
The smell is of our own flesh, an organic smell, sweat and a tinge of iron, fro the blood on the sheet, and another smell, more animal, that’s coming, it must be, from Janine: a smell of dens, of inhabited caves, the smell of the plaid blanket on the bed when the cat gave birth on it, once, before she was spayed. Smell of matrix.
“Breathe, breathe,” we chant, as we have been taught.
From Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which I’m reading for the Feminist SF segment of my graduate directed readings in Science Fiction and Religion.
I’m tagging bloggers who are likely to have an intriguing text on hand:
I look forward to reading your responses!
7 responses so far ↓
1 Elaine // Feb 23, 2008 at 11:40 am
That was fun, John.
Now that I’ve played, you can see what I’ve been reading over on my blog.
2 Zach Alexander // Feb 23, 2008 at 2:04 pm
No, YOU’RE the coolest nontheist Quaker!
Man, we should start the Mutual Admiration Society of Friends.
Yeah, I’m not a huge fan of memes either, but I liked this one, and I wanted to show appreciation for Jamie’s friendly gesture…
3 Bookish | UNCOUTH.NET // Feb 24, 2008 at 1:25 pm
[...] saw this idea over at Mind on Fire. Basically it’s about taking an excerpt out of a near book and [...]
4 xJane // Feb 24, 2008 at 5:22 pm
hehe, from the Art of the Handwritten Note: a Guide to Reclaiming Civilized Communication by Margaret Shepherd; from the chapter “Opportunities to Write the Note that Counts”, subchapter “I Love You, I Love You Not, I Like You”.
In an attempt to get motivated to write thank you notes from xmas & bday, I dove into my local stationer’s and stocked up: my bank account is lucky I didn’t come home with pens, only ink, paper, wax, and a book. This book, in fact, which is very fun, and is giving me some awesome ideas on how to use up that paper & ink.
5 chandelle // Feb 24, 2008 at 5:48 pm
just so you know, on your post xjane links to lessie’s blog.
6 John // Feb 24, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Thanks, chandelle, fixed that.
7 Lessie // Feb 25, 2008 at 8:57 am
Okay, it’s up. This really is a fun meme.
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