Chiaroscuro

A meme from Caterina:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

I cheated a little bit, because I've got a stack of books on the table at my left elbow and a bookshelf at my right, so "the nearest book" could be any of several. I'm going with my Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens:

"Fill your black hull / With white moonlight."

Update, 4/21: and an even cooler variation, via Languagehat:

1. Take the nearest six to ten books from your shelf.
2. Open them to page 23, and find the fifth sentence.
3. Write down those sentences and arrange them to form a short story.
4. Post the text in your journal along with these instructions.

I'm going to do this with every bookshelf in the apartment now.

Comments

[Tim Hulsey]

From where I'm sitting, the "nearest book" to me is a dictionary. Thesaurus next to it.