Wednesday, January 11, 2012

By the book

There's a bibliomantic meme spreading around the internet (or at least Tumblr) that states the following: "Open the closest book to page 45. The first sentence will describe your sex life for the following year."

Naturally, I played along, opening The Wild Girl, Natural Man, and the Monster (thinking that with a title like that, there's got to be something good in store) to page 45, wherein I found the following sentence:
Once the girl is labeled an Eskimo (more precisely, a native of slightly less ferocious Labrador), her strangeness dissipates and her assimilation takes on greater value.
Seems like 2012 is going to be... hot? Weird? Both? ("... her assimilation takes on greater value.") Maybe I need more exciting bedside reading.

But some of the people I informed of the meme seem to be on their way to much less ambiguity (and, possibly in the case of the next quoted sentence, more profit) in their sexual future. For instance, the first sentence on page 45 of that classic culinary standby, Joy of Cooking, supplies one reader with the following:
Informal opportunities for comparisons abound: Walk-around tastings are increasingly popular, often as fund-raisers.
Another, er, culinary delight, which I was told of by one of our sales reps this morning, comes from Simonetta Agnello Hornby's novel, The Nun:
"Ah, how I love swordfish," Annuzza murmured, licking her wrinkled lips, certain she could already taste it.
As I was typing this, I explained the meme to a Green Apple employee shelving nearby. Perhaps unluckily, he was holding a India Calling, which informs him rather literally that:
The dependency scares you, as a needy lover's demands scare you, for it suggests a bottomless pit of giving that will devour you if you give in just slightly and allow yourself to care.
And, finally, another friend happened to have David Burns Feeling Good at hand, and was told unequivocally,
You are lonely and you decide to go to a social affair for singles.
I could do this forever. But now it's your turn.

10 comments:

npb said...

From The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre:
"He'd tried to get me to come with him."

Anonymous said...

I was really excited to see what Dr. Seuss had to say about my sex life, but unfortunately my edition of Yertle the Turtle falls short of 45 pages.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like NPB is going to have disappointing sex with another man this year. Hopefully he'll learn from it though. Everything's a hustle.

Spiros said...

"They like their brothers to be made bishops, and their sisters like the Wardrobe and the Bedchamber." - from PHINEAS REDUX, by Anthony Trollope.

Kelly Robinson said...

I also have a cookbook closest at hand --a Lebanese one. "Boil potatoes with skin on. Let cool."

Anonymous said...

A random poetry anthology states, "The door opened, the old man tumbled out like a wet bag of groceries."

(This doesn't strike me as an optimistic 2012.)

jenn said...

Phallic!

pg. 45 of the Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century World Architecture:

"Set within landscaped lawns, this four-storey tower is devoted to the collection, processing, storage and distribution of blood."

dan said...

"We'll provide a unique service, we'll pass on our skills and help people in need, and if we do a good job, then we get to make a living."

--boneshaker magazine

clarkclark said...

Pelletier, on the other hand, had read the divine Marquis when he was sixteen and at eighteen had participated in a menage a trois with two female fellow students, and his adolescent predilection for erotic comics had flowered into a reasonable, restrained adult collection of licentious literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

-2666

sfer said...

Me, and some others, have shared our erotic/literary predictions for 2012 here: http://librosfera.blogspot.com/2012/01/la-pagina-45-y-el-sexo.html. You will only be able to enjoy them if you understand Spanish, though...

I could also do this forever, and keep laughing all the way. Thanks for the ride :-)