Skip to main content

You’re It!

For the first time ever I have been tagged in one of these internet games of catch 'n kiss. I'm not sure of the etiquette here, do I thank "Tara A. Rowe" of The Political Game, if I do, I'll say thank you Tara from Idaho. I really, really hope that you stumbled across my meagre little blog because I posted something on the wonderful potato a while back! I know that Idahoans must get awfully sick of hearing about potatoes, but as a Tasmanian, I say that we should be proud of the humble spud!

Apparently I am to do five things:

  1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
  2. Open the book to page 123.
  3. Find the fifth sentence.
  4. Post the next three sentences.
  5. Tag five people.

All right then, to the book!

"He is from a large local family of Sicilian policemen, and he and I have often passed words on street corners or chatted reticently over coffee at the Coffee Spot, though we've actually never "met." I have tried to talk him out of a half-dozen parking tickets (all unsuccessfully), and he once assisted me when I'd locked my keys in my car outside Town Liquors. He has also cited me for three moving violations, come into my house to investigate a burglary years ago when I was married, once stopped me for questioning and patted me down not long after my divorce, when I was given to long midnight rambles on my neighbourhood streets, during which I often admonished myself in a loud, desperate voice."

This snippet is from the terribly good Independence Day, by Richard Ford. This is the second in a trilogy and awfully impressive work. Very Updike (in the best way). I'll get around to posting a review sometime in 2009.

Now for my tags:

So if any of you guys actually read this, here you go.

Comments

jen said…
I know I'm supposed to post this on my blog, but it seems a bit out of place for a group knitting blog ;)

"And did you spend them all on crisps and mouldering Bounty bars during labour? Change machines, though a marvelous idea, wouldn't survive the night in most hospitals. Maybe there should be the maternity ward equivalent of ticket touts hanging around in trilbys, with unlit fags dangling from their thin lips, offering you change for a fiver at usurious rates."

From Marcus Berkmann's Fatherhood - The Truth
Kris McCracken said…
You are soft.

No wonder Henry walks all over you.
Tara A. Rowe said…
Whohooo! Thanks Kris! I don't usually do these things either, but it was fun.
As I'm sitting at work at the moment, p123 of the nearest book would begin "Bruce v Legal Aid Board ... " so I will wait till I'm near one anyone might want to read!
Kris McCracken said…
I don't know, I'm keen to know what might happen to poor old Bruce and his troubles with legal aid!

Popular posts from this blog

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...