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Big Ol' Smitty

Grab the nearest book

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Since I totally skipped over the "go down to the 5th sentence" part—my bad!—I'm going to make up for it by doing this little exercise with all four of Updike's Rabbit Angstrom novels. Here goes:

 

Rabbit, Run (1960)

She brushed one with a backsweep of her arm, awoke, and squatted smiling in the water; her arms waved bonelessly to keep her balance in the nervous tides of the crowded pool. The air sparkled with the scent of chlorine. Clean, clean: it came to him what clean was.

 

Rabbit Redux (1971)

From behind she seems a boy's slim back wedged into the upside-down valentine of a woman's satin rear. He yearns to touch her, to touch the satin symmetry, and does. It stings his fingertips like glass we don't expect is there.

 

Rabbit is Rich (1981)

At night they play three-handed pinochle by the harsh light of bridge lamps, the light feeling harsh because when he had first come to this place they had lit kerosene lamps, with fragile interior cones of glowing ash, and went to bed soon after dark, the crickets throbbing. He does not like to fish, nor he does much like playing tennis with Janice against one of the other couples that have access to the lake community's shared court, an old rectangle of clay in the pines, the edges coated with brown needles and the chicken-wire fencing drooping like wet wash. Janice plays every day at the Flying Eagle, and beside her efficient grace he feels cumbersome and out of it.

 

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

He must manage these. Untended, the boat has drifted into the wind. What was Cindy's phrase for that?

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1667: A pioneer attempt at a blood transfusion is made as members of the Royal Society in England, unaware that blood-type compatability is important, gather to witness the transfusion of twelve ounces of sheep's blood into the unfourtunate Reverend Arthur Coga. Samuel Pepys, still sore from his encounter with Thomas Hollier (see above), records from his diary: "The patient speaks well, saying that he finds himself much better, as a new man... but he is cracked a little in the head." Reverend Coga dies soon afterward.

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A History of Modern Europe Volume Two: From the French Revolution to the Present, John Merriman

 

I have this book! I got a B in the class.

 

I'm currently teaching the class.

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"Bad call!" the stripper adds in a sultry voice. There's only one problem: Arcuri had already proven that the phone sex allegation wasn't true. His coworker had used his hotel room phone and indadvertently dialed a 1-800 prefix instead of a 212 prefix when trying to reach the state's Department of Criminal Justice Services.

 

:ph34r:

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Hubble, the dog in Good Boy! teaches that dogs will be pulled of Earth and returned to their home planet in a "global recall." I've told you all you reall need to know about the movie's plut. Owen Baker (Liam Aiken), the young hero, adopts a terrier who turns out to have arrived in a flying saucer to investigate why dogs on Earth are our pets and not the other way around.This will be a no-brainer for anyone who has watched a dog operating a pooper scooper, nor do dogs look like the master race when they go after your pant leg.

 

 

Roger Ebert's Your Movie Sucks

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For by the power of unfamiliarity

I may be made unhappy even when someone

Whose name once frightened me is not around.

 

A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life

 

(Please do not construe this book being near me as evidence that I'm some meditating, enlightenment seeking fag)

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In the early days of genetics, a gene could be 'dominant' or 'recessive', and that was about all there was to it; but gradually more and more terms had to be added to the vocabulary: repressors, apo-repressors, co-repressors, inducers, modifier genes, switch genes, operator genes which activate other genes, and even genes which regulate the rate of mutations in genes. Thus the action of the gene-complex was originally conceived as the unfolding of a simple linear sequence like that on a tape-recorder or the Behavourist's conditioned-reflex chain; whereas it is now gradually becoming apparent that the genetic controls operate as a self-regulating micro-hierarchy, equipped with feedback devices which guide their flexible strategies. This not only protects the growing embryo against the hazards of ontogeny; it would also protect it against the evolutionary hazards of phylogeny, or random mutations in its own hereditary materials - the blind antics of the monkey at the typewriter.

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Like I had the last time I was in Japan, I propped up my perfumed Pink Panther on the dresser and wrote long, sappy letters home.

 

I became Tom's drinking buddy, often protecting him from himself. Without me around he grew lonely, dangerous and occasionally cruel.

 

 

Yeah...me too.

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"Bad call!" the stripper adds in a sultry voice. There's only one problem: Arcuri had already proven that the phone sex allegation wasn't true. His coworker had used his hotel room phone and indadvertently dialed a 1-800 prefix instead of a 212 prefix when trying to reach the state's Department of Criminal Justice Services.

 

:ph34r:

 

this has to be a joke.

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It didn't take Jeremy Roenick long to earn a smaller number with the Chicago Blackhawks. After starting his first season in 1988-1989 wearing 51, Roenick soon switched to 27, which he would wear for eight seasons in Chicago. The outspoken Roenick stands just five goals shy of 500 after the 2006-07 season and had he reached that plateau, he would have become just the third American player, behind Mike Modano and Joe Mullen, to do it.

 

Behind The Numbers by Scott Morrison.

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So why do we pick Johnson? Because he was so versatile, so intelligent, so unselfish, was such a great passer and had such great court sense and leadership abilities. Among all that, it is even understandable to forget for a moment that no player in NBA history has more assists.

 

 

The Complete Handbook of Pro Basketball: 1995 Edition

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Guest Tzar Lysergic

The classic mimosa is equal parts orange juice and Champagne. In this recipe, pineapple juice and grenadine add a twist of flavor and color. 2 Cups orange juice (not from concrentrate.)

 

Southern Living 2007 Recipes

 

Ha! Great thread.

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"Bad call!" the stripper adds in a sultry voice. There's only one problem: Arcuri had already proven that the phone sex allegation wasn't true. His coworker had used his hotel room phone and indadvertently dialed a 1-800 prefix instead of a 212 prefix when trying to reach the state's Department of Criminal Justice Services.

 

:ph34r:

 

this has to be a joke.

 

I've listened to Beck's radio program since '01, long before he got that cable show (haven't gotten past the first chapter, which was about enviro-wackos). It was a close call between that book and the Baldur's Gate II instruction manual. For those wondering, here's what it would have been had I not had Beck's book on my computer desk while I was typing in some Newseeek Global Cooling hysteria from the 1970s a few days ago.

 

This spell will also cancel the effects of the spell maze and return any characters trapped in the labyrinth of planes.

 

Gate (Conjuration/Summoning)

Range: Sight of caster

Casting Time: 9

Duration: 33 rounds

Saving Throw: None

Area of Effect: Special

 

By means of this spell, the caster calls an outer planar creature to attack her foes and herself if not careful. The creature summoned is a Pit Fiend, one of the most powerful demons.

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Nominations are concentrated within a small group. The average number of nominations is 3.6 for the Best Actresses, 3.2 for the Best Directors, and 2.8 for the Best Actors. The winners and nominees form a social community in other significant ways.

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Did it again for today (the European History book was sitting in the next room, so I had another book closer.)

 

At Rasseneur's, after having eaten his soup, Etienne went back into the small chamber beneath the roof and facing the Voreux, which he was to occupy, and fell on to his bed dressed as he was, overcome with fatigue. In two days he had not slept four hours. When he awoke in the twilight he was dazed for a moment, not recognizing his surroundings; and he felt such uneasiness and his head was so heavy that he rose, painfully, with the idea of getting some fresh air before having his dinner and going to bed for the night.

Germinal, Emile Zola

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Some Cardinals players had balked at playing the Boston Red Sox because the Red Sox had a black player in their lineup. Two or three threatened to boycott the World Series itself unless Robinson was removed or at least benched for the duration of the Series. When National League president Ford Frick got wind of their scheme, he told them that if they did so there would be dire consequences, including a suspension from the league.

 

The Little Red (Sox) Book, Bill Lee

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I smile to myself. I suppose this realization may be startling to some people, but it happens to be the basis of my own personal cosmology, so I am pleased. I'm perfectly at peace.

 

The Tetherballs of Bougainville, Mark Leyner

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"You must tell me how one ditches two pounds of coke when that one is on a jet plane. It would be handy information to have. It's like a locked room mystery."

 

The Drawing of the Three

 

I like that one.

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The phone rang, and Hammond went to answer it. Wu tried to think of another way to press his case. But the fact was that, after five long years, Jurassic Park was nearing completion, and John Hammond just wasn't listening to him any more.

 

(I think you can guess the book here, but that's just terrible sentence construction by Michael Crichton.)

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Whole lotta Dark Tower round here.

 

 

"They hate us because of our freedoms?

But really because they're evil.

I know they're evil. I was just thinking that maybe if we understood what specifically seemed to trigger the-

Why are you apologizing for the terrorists?"

 

from Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken.

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This won't make its way into Baron's signature. It's from Hate Mail from Cheerleaders, an xmas gift from my dad - all columns of Rick Reilly.

 

Look, your average Seahawk fan drives a Prius - Your average Steeler fan, a Ford Excursion, which has Priuses in its tire treads. Seahawk fans own poodles. Steeler fans eat them.

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And simultaneously there came from the Garden Suite the sudden, sharp cry of a strong man in pain. It was perhaps half an hour after he had left it that Lord Pongo Ickenham returned to the billiard-room. He found Pongo still there, but no longer alone.

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Jack's typewriter stopped, and she heard Danny's smack. "Night, Daddy."

"Goodnight, doc. How'd you do?"

 

Stephen King - "The Shining"

 

I kinda cheated with the 'how'd you do' but the line wouldn't be complete without it.

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Her dialogue overlaps her own dialogue. Her mouth is moving but I'm not hearing anything and I can't listen, I can't really concentrate, since my rabbit has been cut to look... just... like... a... star! Shoestring french fries surround it and chunky red salsa has been smeared across the top of the plate--which is white and porcelain and two feet wide--to give the appearance of a sunset but it looks like one big gunshot wound to me and shaking my head slowly in disbelief I press a finger into the meat, leaving the indentation of one finger, then another, and then I look for a napkin, not my own, to wipe my hand with.

 

Brent Easton Ellis - American Psycho

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Most of the people who post incomplete entries in this thread are content to simply leave out the title or author of the book they're quoting. Not ErnieRowe; he's truly a free spirit, so he provides the title without the quote.

 

 

 

He leaned close to me. His eyes were serious and bleak, but not hard. "Is there anything in Lavery's place, apart from the gun, that might indicate Crystal has been there lately?"

 

The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler

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All it is is 2 coats of airplane cement coated on my fingertips - quite unoticible & very efective.

3 my killing tools have been bought en through the mail order outfits before the ban went into efect. except one & it was bought out of the state.

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