Monday, April 19, 2004

Page 23, fifth sentence: till I get a good one

When I first read about it, the only books nearby were a dictionary, some procedures manuals, and a book of poetry by Shelly (Percy, not Winters) on page 23 of which was a biographical sketch in non-sentence form.  I had to wait till now to sit at an normal (non-employment-related) computer to:

* Find the nearest book,
* Open it to page 23,
* Locate the fifth sentence, and
* Post it here: “As already remarked, it frequently happens at the very beginning of a treatment that a dream reveals to the doctor, in a wide perspective, the general direction in which the unconscious is moving.”

Let’s hear it for C.G.Jung and his rockin’ hit, Modern Man in Search of a Soul.  Eh, screw that.  Right under the Jung was another book, effectively equally near to me; let’s see what it has to say instead:

“I took out a card and gave it to her.” Oh great, Mr. Raymond Chandler, is that the best you can do with a story like Farewell My Lovely from which to glean?  This sucks, I’m getting reamed on the cool sentences. 

BUT WAIT.  Wait.  Wait.  It gets better, indeed it does.  Page 23, sentence number five, in the third book in the stack just inside the closet right next to this very chair on which I am presently seated, reads as follows: “Lots of satellite dishes and rotating radar emitters are great things to have on your roof.” Finally, a sentence worth reading.  For this one, I had to visit a charming volume called, The TICK: Mighty Blue Justice! by Greg Hyland. 

For purposes of completeness, I will also explore page 23, sentence number five of the fourth of six books in the stack, all of which were naturally equally near to me (the last two are volumes of cartoons and don’t have a fifth sentence on page 23).  Thus: “It was in January 1877 that the Sutter Street Wire Cable Railroad was formally opened.” Let’s hear it for Edgar M. Kahn and his classic revised edition of Cable Car Days in San Francisco, a humorless and encyclopedic survey of all matters relating to public transportation in a certain west coast hamlet prior to the promulgation of internal combustion (a form of combution with which I am sadly only too familiar).  I’ll have to say that the quoted sentence is about as entertaining as the book gets. 

Oooh!  As I typed that last paragraph the phone rang and I had to run to the bedroom to answer it, and right next to the phone I found what must be the El Dorado of good fifth sentences on page 23.  I haven’t checked yet.  Let’s try this one then: “Together they put the leash and cape on Sandy.” Oh yeah.  Now that’s a fifth sentence worth re-reading.  Thank you, Rita Balducci, author of Girl’s Best Friend, one of the most heartwarming volumes in the Barbie and Friends Book Club.  What, you think I’m kidding?  This is a kid’s book about training guide dogs.  Come on, I don’t whip out the cape and leash for everybody, you know.