The omens are ... not clear.

[dira]

Because I saw this somewhere, looked it up, and was too entertained by the results not to recycle this meme: Pick up the book nearest to you and turn to page 45. The first sentence expains your love life.

"In the early 19th century an English convict named William Buckley escaped from a penal colony in Australia and for three decades lived happily with the Wathaurung aborigines."


(From Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, which I find fascinating even though I can only read it for about twenty minutes at a time before I get distracted or fall asleep. I'm really curious about what Steve Rogers would make of The Long Peace, and my opinion of Hydra's organizational efficacy is going down with every page I read--I mean, seriously, they've supposedly been agitating for all this time and we never had a World War III?)

Comments

[barometry]

That's kind of amazing. Maybe I should read this newest Steven Pinker book! It sounds like the kind of explanatory meander through history and science that I most enjoy in popular science writing. (Not being sarcastic. Occurred to me it might sound that way.)

I was amused enough to try the meme myself, but I'm kind of disappointed that I got something... kind of apt?

"Activities have successive stages and take time, and require energy to keep going."

Maybe not my love life, more just my life in general?

That was the first full sentence. The first partial sentence, traced back to the previous page, is maybe even better, though definitely considerably more grim:

"Such events have no goal, culmination, or natural final point: their termination is merely the cessation of activity."

(From The Parameter of Aspect by Carlotta Smith.)

[dira]

It's less meandering than, say, Bill Bryson, whose meanders I quite enjoy, and it dovetails nicely with my own optimistic prejudices about humanity, so I'm quite enjoying it!

And, man, yeah, you got the grimly practical omens. *g*

[lferion]

Well, it happens that the nearest book that is a printed book is The Return of the King, which starts with page 731 after the front matter. Counting 45 pages in & finding the first complete sentence: "Sometimes where the way was broader he had ridden at the king's side, not noticing that many of the Riders smiled to see the two together: the hobbit on his little shaggy grey pony, and the Lord of Rohan on his great white horse."

If I count 45 pages in the nearest book with words, I get: "Children of the Sun, that here do meet with puissant Princes, Western grace; the brilliant disk that shines at Noon is Witness to all honor done."

Not sure what either of those might mean!

[dira]

Hmm, something sunshiney and good, I think? :)

[vass]

If I got that sentence, I think I'd choose to believe it meant I'd be in a happy relationship for three decades.

My own omen was unambiguous: "Hence the isolation of Monseigneur Bienvenu." (Les Miserables.)

[dira]

Yes! Evidently I just need to escape some (hopefully strictly metaphorical) penal colony first... *g*

Oh, goodness, that is quite a straightforward omen. I hope it is not a distressing one?

[vass]

Not distressing, no. A little bit "if you're feeling sorry for yourself then you know what you can do about it" upside the head, maybe. Divination tools are like that.

[kinetikatrue]

I believe that metaphorical penal colony would be the ideology of 'normal', heterosexist society and the traditional indoctrination therein? So, clearly you're on the right track with the whole having a girlfriend, writing gay porn thing. *g*

[dira]

Well, I'm sadly girlfriendless these days, but otherwise true! :D

[kinetikatrue]

Sorry to hear it, but I think the metaphor still holds. 8D

[midori_marmotte]

"Volontiers," dit-elle, heureusement surprise.

("Gladly," did she answer, favourably surprised.

(Jean Failler, "Casa del Amor", a detective fiction set in Brittany)

Weeell... does it mean I'm doing it right? ^^; (I am a woman, so I suppose the sentence is what I say?)

[dira]

*grins* Only if you're favorably surprised, I think!

[reginagiraffe]

Er...

"That was followed by Carol II's corrupt and disasterous reign, which dominated the thirties prior to fascist and Communist rule."

I don't even *know* a Carol.

[dira]

Well clearly you should watch out for any Carols who do show up. o.O

[sassbandit]

O HAI WILLIAM BUCKLEY! Last place I expect to see him popping up.

He's from round my neck of the woods. There's interesting some interesting local idiom using his name actually... if something is a lost cause, people might say "You have Buckley's chance", or the rarer, "You have two chances: Buckley's and none." The latter is a complicated pun/in-joke because an old, now-defunct department store in Melbourne was called Buckley & Nunn.

Basically this is of interest to nobody under the age of 70 who isn't a local history nerd. Ahem. Shutting up now.

[vass]

It was of interest to me, because I didn't make the connection between "Buckley's chance" and that quotation until you commented.

[dira]

Ha, that's awesome! In context it's leading into a bit of Buckley's recollection about violence or warfare among the Wathaurung--but I'm guessing from his idiom things did not ultimately turn out well for Buckley?

[julad]

ROFL, I was thinking of the exact same idiom sassbandit says. To an Australian who grew up with this story, your quote means your love life has got Buckley's. (In my family they say you've "got Buckley's", or "between none and Buckley's"). But it can actually be a good omen for you - Buckley had only a very slender chance of making it, and was presumed to have died after escaping, but against all odds he did make it. :)

[dira]

Well... that could be apt. :)

[kinetikatrue]

And because I looked but forgot to post last night, you get two, because I couldn't decide which counted as closest:

'By their disobedience to God's commands, not least in their syncretism and sexual licence, they have forfeited his blessings and incurred his curse.' (Christian Attitudes to Marriage/Peter Coleman)

'The Muslim view of Jesus as a great and privileged prophet made far more sense, as did their policy of toleration to these long-suffering and puzzled Christians.' (Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today's World/ Karen Armstrong)

I rather prefer the second one, while thinking of the first as showing how 'normal' society might view things.

[dira]

Yeah, you get to choose how you read them!

[missmollyetc]

Well, clearly your destined to find happiness in the hinterlands! ::grins::

Pinker's book sounds interesting, if only from an academic standpoint. Is it the prose, the ideas, or the timing of your reading that keeps you from finishing? :p

I always felt like Hydra efficacy is a terrible case of 'tell' vs. show in the MCU, unless WWIII was supposed to be the Cold War in Marvel's way of thinking, and they wanted to stress the world out so much they welcomed HYDRA with open arms (and got impatient when the Cold War fizzled?)

ETA: The first actual sentence reads "It can't be done." (Rex Stout's Three at Wolf's Door pg. 45) Well, there you are, really.

[dira]

I just have to bust out of my penal colony first, apparently. g

The book is just, you know, dense? and work-y? It's fascinating and I applaud his conclusions, I just don't have the spoons to read a lot of it at once and there's 700 pages of it, so it's taking a while.

And. hugs