Why meme?

I like memes, and not just because the word meme means breast in Turkish. Peter Nellhaus at Coffee, Coffee, and More Coffee, one of the great blogs out there, posted one recently, which piqued my interest. The rules are simple:

1) Pick up the nearest book.
2) Open to page 123.
3) Locate the fifth sentence.
4) Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing…
5) Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

The nearest book around me is Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass, the final part of the His Dark Materials trilogy. I read it about six months ago, but it’s just been sitting here on my desk, waiting to be returned to its owner (thanks, JC – ironic that the person who lent me this atheistic fable shares his initials with Hay-zeus). I am a fan of the book’s ideas – the parallel evolution angle has been justly celebrated, and the story is a fine latter-day homage to Paradise Lost. But I find the final book lacking in drama, which is usurped, instead, by the subtext. I see what Pullman’s getting at, I appreciate the world(s) he’s created, but I just don’t feel any immediacy to the two main characters. Pullman’s affinity for dangling modifiers, and needlessly complicated imagery of the locales (his descriptions of the Citagazze seafront in the second book are all over the place) don’t help matters, either.

But enough of my yakkin’ – let’s boogie:

“So each side was aware that the other was also making its way towards the cave in the mountains. And they both knew that whoever got there first would have the advantage, but there wasn’t much in it: Lord Asriel’s gyropters were faster than the zeppelins of the Consistorial Court, but they had further to fly, and they were limited by the speed of their own zeppelin tanker.

And there was another consideration: whoever seized Lyra first would have to fight their way out against the other force.”

Steampunktastic.

And, finally, tag you very much:

Jonathan Lapper’s CinemaStyles
Dennis Cozzalio’s Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule
Kevin J Olson’s Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies
Girish
Zach Campbell’s Elusive Lucidity