4x4: The meme

My fellow award-winning blogger J. Kingston Pierce has tagged me with a meme tailor-made for Detectives Beyond Borders. The meme is built around questions involving the number four, and I especially liked the ones that involved travel and places where one has lived.

Since Jeff expanded the list of questions from eight to ten, I don't feel too badly about making my own adjustments. And you can do the same.


Four places I'd like to go or things I'd like to do:

1) Visit the Angkor temple complex in Cambodia

2) Visit the Ajanta caves in India

3) Hike the length of Hadrian's Wall

4) Complete a short walk I began a few years ago, along the West Kennet Avenue from Avebury to the Sanctuary


Four places I've lived:

1) Montreal

2) Rome

3) Philadelphia

4) The Boston area, which leads to my own category of ...


Four places I've lived in the Boston area:

1) Waltham

2) Brookline, whose no-overnight-parking regulations seemed intended to keep out the folks from ...

3) Brighton

4) Somerville


Four places I've been on vacation:

1) Split, Croatia. By the shimmering blue Adriatic Sea, in a hotel within the precincts of Diocletian's Palace. One of the places that has inspired me with a desire to live there.

2) 桂林 (Guilin, China.) Sweaty, hot, amid spotty air-conditioning and other trappings of a section of China making the uncertain transition to Western-style consumer capitalism. Also home of the near-hallucinogenic beauty of the sandstone natural spires, and the only place I have seen anyone playing a guitar while passenger on a bicycle.

3) Israel/Palestinian territories. Alas, it's not as easy as it once was to visit the Tomb of the Patriarchs to see blind old Muslim sage-like men praying at a site so fundamental to our sense of our own culture.

4) Istanbul, in particular Hagia Sophia, quite possibly the most influential building in the history of the world, and certainly one of the most beautiful. One can see the gallery mosaics up close, and there is something special about seeing and touching the rough, unfinished stone that lines the spiral stairways to the upper levels.


Four foods or drinks I have liked:

1) A nice, medium-rare steak

2) A good Brunello da Montalcino

3) Fresh raspberries

4) Deviled eggs


Four (with ties) books or movies I could read or watch again:

1) Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility

2) Roughing It

3) Any of books 7 through 16 of Bill James' Harpur and Iles novels

4) Seven Samurai, Stray Dog and, appropriately for repeated viewing, Rashomon


Four works of art before which I have stood (or sat) either in deep relaxation, as close as I get to a meditative state, or with a profound sense of receptiveness:

1) Piero della Francesca's Resurrection and Montefeltro Altarpiece (Scan by Mark Harden)

2) Velázquez's Las Meninas

3) Rembrandt's Bathsheba at Her Bath

4) Trajan's Column


Four literary, scientific, artistic or political figures from the past whom I'd like to watch at work or meet for dinner and drinks:

1) Giotto

2) Jane Austen

3) Mark Twain

3a) Charles Darwin

4) Jawaharlal Nehru. Anyone who can write a book of world history from memory and addressed as a series of letters to his daughter is a man to be reckoned with. Anyone who can write a book about his own country and call it The Discovery of India has a passionate intellect that's worth anyone's interest. And the man had a few practical accomplishments as well, I think.


Answers have begun to arrive from four people I think might take it upon themselves to answer these questions:

1) Sucharita Sarkar (yet another evocative post from one of my favorite writers in blogland.)

2) Seana Graham (good reading!)

3) Adrian McKinty (good reading about bridges and food!)

4) Maxine Clarke

and

5) Kerrie, who stepped in graciously for Maxine and talks about her journey from Paradise to Hell and back. Thanks!

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

From a whisper to a meme

Just when I thought memes had gone the way of non-Blu-Ray discs, here comes a new one that is easy, fun and almost painless: Brian Lindenmuth, of the you-should-read-it Observations from the Balcony blog, tagged me with one that asks readers to:

1) List the authors that were new to you this year, regardless of year of publication.
2) Bold-face the ones that were debuts (first novel, published in 2008).
3) Impose these conditions on others.

I like that. It's simple, and it brings back memories of some of the year's exciting crime-fiction discoveries. I'm not sure which were published in 2008, but here's the list of authors I've read for the first time this year:

Matt Rees
Giles Blunt
Steve Hockensmith
Jasper Fforde
Michael Pearce
Arthur Morrison
Michael Gilbert
Scott Phillips
Duane Swierczynski
Christa Faust
Vicki Hendricks
Leighton Gage
Timothy Hallinan
Sandra Ruttan
Robert Bloch
Mehmet Murat Somer
Megan Abbott
Brian McGilloway
Frank Gruber
Ian Sansom
J.F. Englert
Howard Engel
John McFetridge
Adrian McKinty
E.W. Hornung
Garbhan Downey
Flann O'Brien
Linda L. Richards
Henry Chang
John Lawton
Jason Aaron
Alan Moore
Deon Meyer
Amara Lakhous
Carlo Emilio Gadda
Jacques Chessex

I'll tag Whose role is it anyway?, Linda L. Richards, Past Continuous, Crime Scraps, and the polyblogal seanag, all of whose blogs you ought to read. If you're not on that list, feel free to reply anyway and let me know which authors you have read for the first time this year.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

Things aren't always what they meme, Part II

Oh, all right: Peter Lovesey. Declan Burke. John McFetridge. Megan Abbott. Scott Phillips. Christa Faust.

As before, how about you? Who would you miss the most if they stopped writing?

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

Things aren't always what they meme

Even the simplest, most seemingly painless of these tagging games can be fraught with questions.

A current meme, for which Karen "AustCrime" Chisholm has tagged me, bears the headline "Three Authors You Couldn't Live Without." Simple, yes? Except that the accompanying text asks a different question: "Who are the three authors whose work you would miss the most if they stopped writing?" What if the authors you couldn't live without have already stopped writing because, say, they've stopped living? I choose to answer the first of the meme's questions.

My first author is also one of Karen's:

1) Peter Temple. The man writes such beautiful, graceful prose, full of sensitivity and wit, that it would be a shame for him to stop.

2) Bill James. His Harpur and Iles series lost a bit of its social-comic edge once the great Panicking Ralph Ember attained his goal of becoming a fairly big-time drug dealer. But the middle books of the series remain gorgeously written, deliciously dark, sometimes hysterically funny looks at British life.

3) Po Chü-I. T'ang Dynasty poet, lived 772-846. The writer whose work to have with you should you plan to become stranded on a desert island and probably the closest thing to a writer whose work I could not live without.

Last year, when I lay sick,
I vowed
I'd never touch a drop again
As long as I should live.

But who could know
Last year
What this year's spring would bring?

And here I am,
Coming home from old Liu's house
As drunk as I can be!

Incidentally, Karen's choices make entertaining reading. Here's what she had to say about Reginald Hill, author of the literate, clever and funny Dalziel and Pascoe mysteries: "I live in fear of his health. If I lived any closer I'd be making chicken soup and offering to knit warm, comfortable socks."

And now, readers, how about you? Who are your three indispensable authors?

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

The taking of Meme 123

I've just received a visit from an old friend, the Page 123 meme. You know that one. It's the one that asks you to:

1) Pick up the nearest book.
2) Open it to page 123.
3) Find the fifth sentence.
4) Post the next three sentences.
5) Pass the meme on to five more people, and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

This meme first came my way April 22 , and my reply gave rise to a stimulating interview with Megan Abbott, whose novel Queenpin I happened to be reading at the time. So I have fond feelings toward Page 123, and I thank Sidhubaba, from the city formerly known as Calcutta, for sending it my way again.

The meme has been around awhile, though, and I may be unable to come up with five people who have not been tagged already. But I am happy to fulfill the rest of the assignment, and shortly thereafter, I will add the book in question to the roster of Forgotten Books that deserve to be better remembered.

The book is The Etruscan Bull by Frank Gruber. Happily, Page 123 begins with a new sentence, which means no worrying over whether a sentence that spills over onto a second page is the last sentence of Page 122 or the first sentence of Page 123.

Sentences 6, 7, 8, Page 123 of this enjoyable, humorous, action- and history-packed thriller are:

"A gun in Carmela's fist roared and a bullet kicked some splinters from the wall only inches from Logan.

"Logan fired once at the car itself, shifted to cover Rocco again. `Stop him, Rocco, or you get it — "

Shooting is usually good for a dose of excitement, and the sentence's ending in a dash, breaking off before any of you find out what happens, is a nice touch. If only the Carmela in question were a woman! That might have nudged the passage into the Page 123 Hall of Fame.

And now, readers, let's blow this meme to the stars. I invite all of you to take the Page 123 challenge with your current book. Let me know what happens!

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

Technorati tags:
Frank Gruber

The interpretation of memes

I have been tagged separately by Uriah Robinson at Crime Scraps and by Julia Buckley for a meme that asks participants to share six random facts about themselves, then invite six more bloggers to do the same. Even though I've been invited twice, you'll get six facts, not twelve. No two-for-one specials here.

The facts:

1) When I was a young jackass in the 1970s, my friend Jeff and I leapt from the left-field bleachers at Jarry Park and onto the field during the ninth inning of a Montreal Expos baseball game. I zigged close to Expos centerfielder Willie Davis and zagged enough to leave several overweight security guards sprawled on the grass in my wake, to the cheers of thousands. My entire life since then has been an appendix to that moment.

2) When playing God in a summer-camp play, swathed in white bed sheets, my head covered in a white pillow case to lend an aura of purity and majesty, I fell off the stage and landed flat on my back. But I bounced right back on stage, doffed my pillow case, and resumed the play, to the cheers of hundreds. My entire life since then has been an appendix to that moment.

3) I have, at separate times, made Susan Sontag and Fran Lebowitz laugh.

4) At 18 months old, I fell off a lawn chair and knocked out my two front teeth. At 15 years old, I fell off a bicycle and knocked out my two front teeth. I hope not to repeat the experience.

5) Since beginning Detectives Beyond Borders in September 2006, I have blogged from six countries.

6) Through no fault of my own, I once flooded six floors of a hotel in Guilin, China.

And now, the lucky six, with apologies to those who may have been tagged already as well as to those who have not.

Australians say g'day; I say D. Gay and tag Damien Gay of Crime Down Under. Still in Australia, Karen Chisholm of the Aust Crime family of fine Web sites, Kerrie of Mysteries in Paradise and Matilda's Perry Middlemiss are my next three victims. Closer to home, the unsuspecting Frank Wilson, the much beloved former books editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the keeper of the Books Inq. blog, gets meme-whacked, as does Simona of the delicious briciole blog.

And thanks!

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

Meme me up, Scottie

I have been tagged by Declan "Dad" Burke at Crime Always Pays with the following meme:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

My answers:
1) The book is Queenpin by Megan Abbott.
2) I have just opened it to page 123.
3) Ignoring the sentence that carries over from page 122, I have counted off the first five sentences, which got me to:
4) "Through everything. The dress I'd finally peeled off at 3 A.M., shivering and shaken to the core. She'd asked me to hand it to her through the partially open bathroom door."
4a) Wow!
5) I tag, with apologies, Patti Abbott, Sandra Ruttan, "Linkmeister," Juri Nummelin, and Adrian Hyland.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008