123 Meme via Mountain Runner
Mountain Runner has tagged me with the 123 Meme (first I’ve heard of it too). Here are the rules of the game:
- Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
- Open the book to page 123.
- Find the fifth sentence.
- Post the next three sentences.
- Tag five people.
The book is Men at War, Ernest Hemingway (ed.). 
Page 123 is from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane:
He had long despaired of witnessing a Greeklike struggle. Such would be no more, he had said. Men were better, or more timid. Secular and religious education had effaced the throat grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions.
Now tags, Abu Muqawama and Charlie at Abu Muqawama, Mark at Blog Them Out of the Stone Age, the good folks at our fellow academic blog Hoyapolitik from Georgetown University (who really need to update that blog more!), not a war blog but definitely on my daily read Samizdata, and, let’s see, Peter at My State Failure.
Tuesday, 5, February, 2008 at 3:46 pm
“One small to medium onion - peeled and finely chopped.”
Guess the book.
Wednesday, 6, February, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Ummm, you’re not exactly making it easy! The Big Book of Irish Cookery?
Wednesday, 6, February, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Ooohhh, I know…The Sex Diaries of John Maynard Keynes (http://moreintelligentlife.com/node/824). Pervert.
Wednesday, 6, February, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Wrong. Both of you. Clausewitz, On War, book 19 of the lost volumes. Gives a whole new interpretation of his trinity!
Wednesday, 6, February, 2008 at 2:44 pm
The book is One Soldier’s War (Akady Babchenko). The sentences are:
The column stops.
We don’t speak. Only once does Zyuzik silently nudge me with his rifle and motion toward a jutting cliff edge. Written there in big letters are the words: ALL LIFE IS CROWNED WITH DEATH.
Blue skies! — Dan Ford
(Oh, that’s four sentences, isn’t it? Well, never mind. I can’t bear to delete the fourth one. Anyhow, the first two are very short
Thursday, 7, February, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I think Hoyapolitik is dead. It was too much trouble to try to post there, because everything had to past muster by the guy that runs it, who’s too busy to give quick feedback.
RIP Hoyapolitik.
Friday, 8, February, 2008 at 6:17 am
[...] over at Registan.net tagged me on this little meme thingy that’s popped up everywhere. The idea? I. You have to look up page 123 in the nearest book around you. II. Look for the fifth [...]
Friday, 8, February, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I felt an admiration for the VC: it took a lot of dedication to live in a place like that where you could hardly see the sun, where the air was dense enough to cut and mosquitoes rose in clouds from the stagnant pools.
Philip Caputo, Rumor of War
like Piccadilly at 0300.
Saturday, 16, February, 2008 at 7:08 pm
[...] to Afganistanica: Mountain Tourism in Afghanistan linked to [My] State Failure Blog linked to Kings of War linked to MountainRunner linked to zenpundit.com linked to the glittering eye who gave a bad link [...]