I dial a primrose, they give me a pro

[sovay]

A meme! Via matociquala:

Pick up the nearest book to you. Turn to page 45. The first sentence describes your sex life in 2012.

"I telephoned Ozanne's secretary and said that I needed to see the colonel on an urgent matter, that it would take about an hour and that I would be grateful if Colonel Pollock could be present."

—Leo Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941–1945 (1998)

(The follow-up sentence: "I also requested the use of a blackboard.")

Comments

[zdenka]

The nearest book to me was The Tragedies of Shakespeare, which was still on my desk from having written Macbeth fic during Yuletide. So I get:

My heart beats thicker than a fevrous pulse;
And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
Like vassalage at unawares encountering
The eye of majesty.

From Troilus and Cressida. Er. That . . . could be good or bad, depending?

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Nearest book to hand is Kelly Link's.

NO.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Diana Wynne Jones. The Spellcoats:

"We had gone that fast."

Nine

Is madness defined as trying the same thing again hoping for a different result?

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I've done this three times today.

Once I got:
"Bhí Hazlett ag treabhadh leis trí na hainmneacha agus gan a dhath ar a shon aige, nuair a tharla rud a chuir iontas agus lúcháir air san am chéanna." (Déirdre Ní Grianna; Eachtra (2005))

which I'd render (very roughly; I'm still not satisfied with it) as:
"Hazlett was ploughing through the names and without a single thing to show for it, when something happened that astonished and delighted him all at once."

Hazeltt's a nasty piece of work, so I decided to try again:
"When the figure-eight and stevedore stopper knots prove inadequate, enabling the rope in which they are tied to pull free, then use this chunky alternative." (John Shaw; The Directory of Knots (2003))

Not much improvement, so now I've got:
"Coincidentally, France gets a mention in that song as a centre of medical excellence:" (Con Ó Drisceoil; The Spoons Murder and other mysteries (2006))

I think I'd best give up now. Good night and happy meming!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

"I also requested the use of a blackboard."

I'll be in my bunk imagining why...

[sovay]

NO.

. . . Good call.

(Nice icon.)

[sovay]

That . . . could be good or bad, depending?

Divorced from context, it's very promising!

not as outlandish as yours with the blackboard

[awhyzip.livejournal.com]

I thought this was unlikely to yield many plausible sentences. Then I turned to my nearest book, Ghosts on the Red Line (Peter David Shapiro) and the first full sentence on pg 45 read:

"I love you too!" she exclaimed.

Yay! A promising sentence ...albeit directed to a springer spaniel.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

"A clear liquid matrix applied directly to her eyes enabled her to trigger functions inside the holotank with a mere glance."

-- David Mack, Star Trek: Destiny, Book I: Gods of Night

[sovay]

"We had gone that fast."

Well, at least it was memorable.

[sovay]

"Hazlett was ploughing through the names and without a single thing to show for it, when something happened that astonished and delighted him all at once."

That could in fact be the first sentence of a porn scene. No plot: straight to the action.

"When the figure-eight and stevedore stopper knots prove inadequate, enabling the rope in which they are tied to pull free, then use this chunky alternative."

Things are looking up!

"Coincidentally, France gets a mention in that song as a centre of medical excellence"

Oh, that's ominous. I'm sorry.

[sovay]

Yay! A promising sentence ...albeit directed to a springer spaniel.

Context begone!

Borderland - a Journey through the History of Ukraine

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Instead the country descends into chaos: the book's notorious final sentence reads "And hatred swelled in people's hearts and poisoned the blood of brothers".

[sovay]

"A clear liquid matrix applied directly to her eyes enabled her to trigger functions inside the holotank with a mere glance."

. . . That could go either way.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

"Her furs are a reference to the reversal of good into bad mother - a good mother's fur coat might be cuddled by a child, the Queen's furs are a narcissistic glorification of her cold beauty." (Margaret and Michael Rustin, Narratives of Love and Loss.)

Luckily, I'm just on my way to see my therapist...

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

Ezra Fleischer, Hebrew Poetry in Spain and Communities under its Influence.

The sentence begins on p. 44, and won't make sense without going back to the beginning of the paragraph.

I'll translate:

"We need to pause a moment to consider the epithet 'The Little' which Menaḥem uses in his [acrostic] signatures in these poems. This is the earliest appearance of this epithets in poetic signatures in Spain. As we know, it became very typical a bit later; Yosef ibn Abitur uses it dozens of times in his poems, and [p. 45] Solomon ibn Gabirol used it so much in his signatures that later generations called him 'Solomon the Little'. The earliest occurrence of the epithet in poetic signatures is in early tenth-century Italy, and the earliest poet to use it, as far as we know, is Amittai ben Shefatya, of Southern Italy. The fact that it appears in Menaḥem's signature seems to show that there is Italian influence on Spanish poetry at this time, and influence which we have already noted elsewhere regarding its traces in the work of Yosef ibn Abitur."

I just hope that "the Little" (Ha-qaṭan) doesn't mean "the impotent"....

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I tried this! The first book was a dictionary, with no page numbers. The second was in Hebrew.

Why yes, I am in the Lit & Phil. I'll wait till I get home.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

"he was listening to desert bands" (from a poetry collection by Francesca Lia Block)

Seems... relatively promising? I guess?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I'd give it a thumbs-up!

Re: Is madness defined as trying the same thing again hoping for a different result?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I don't know, that first one ends on a pretty good note. Astonished and delighted? I think that sounds quite satisfactory!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Also, as regards yours, "that it would take an hour and that I would be grateful if Colonel Pollock could be present" does seem to promise a VERY entertaining 2012.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

"Review the conference program carefully in advance."

Barbara Gastel, Health Writer's Handbook

OR

"Bioequivalence: The degree to which clinically important outcomes of treatment by a new preparation resemble those of a previously established preparation."

BS Everitt, The Cambridge Dictionary of Statistics

Take-home message: I have extremely boring books at my desk.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

See, that's what I should have said about Orson Scott Card's The Songmaster. And I knew that when I picked it up.

And am considering NOing retroactively, because what I got was "Death waited in his calm hands, behind his boyish face," and there's just nothing there I want any part of.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

An hour. In wartime! My my my my my.

Nothing wrong with it, I'd say. I should do this, but all I have on my desk are recidivism-reduction strategy books, and I'm not at all against recidivism in 2012 as applies to my wife's possible future plans to maul me in private.

[larryhammer]

I liked my result enough when I did it in matociquala's journal, I'm not going to mess with it by trying again.

---L.