Two Book Memes

Laurie at Not Just About Cancer posted two memes about books.

Here are the rules:

Part 1: Nearest Book Meme

"The rules are as follows:

Open the nearest book to page 56. Write out the fifth sentence on that page, and also the next two to five sentences. The CLOSEST BOOK, NOT YOUR FAVORITE, OR MOST INTELLECTUAL!'

Here's mine:

"Kwaw caught it in his hands and it rested there. Ma'kat'da thought that Kwaw could not possibly know what to do with Mist, so he grabbed for it. There was a struggle. In the conflict, Kwaw dropped the mist. Ma'kat'da and Kwaw wrestled over the possession of Mist for eons."

These sentences were from page 60 of the book "Surviving Through the Days: A California Indian Reader. Translations of Native California Stories. Page 56 was blank as it occurred between two sections of the book. Page 54 only had three sentences (they were footnotes) and page 58 was blank. This book was honestly the closest book as I had it on the table waiting to bring it to work. I bought it at the OSU bookstore sale the other night - it was on sale for only $4 and I got an additional 30% off of that. I have a library of books related to Native Americans and especially Native American folklore. It seemed a good deal.

Part 2: Seven Weird Book Facts About Me

Here are my seven weird book facts:

1. A couple of months ago, I wrote object descriptions for two ivory carvings that are in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian. They are for an exhibit that is set to open in 2010. The weird fact is that in doing the background research for the carvings, I opened a book (A Legacy of Arctic Art) for the first time since I bought it - in 1998!! I have a lot of books like that in my office and at home.

2. When I worked as an intern at the Arctic Studies Center at the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian) in 1992, I decided to browse through the gift store during my lunch break with a coworker. As I perused the shelves in the Arctic section, I decided to pull of a book on birch bark canoes and kayaks because I knew that King Island kayaks had been researched. I looked at the back for book content and, sure enough, there was an article on King Island kayaks. I then flipped open the book, read the caption under a photo of an Eskimo man on the left-hand page, and exclaimed to my friend, "Look! There's a picture of my grandfather, Stanislaus Muktoyuk!" She didn't believe me, but it really was my maternal grandfather.

3. Just yesterday, I flipped through the pages of another book I got at the bookstore sale the other day. It was called Spirit Capture and it has articles and prints of the photos in the collection at the National Museum of the American Indian. On the page opposite the title page, there was a print of three Eskimo women from the Bering Strait region - and one looked just like our tribal coordinator! I swear it was her twin.

4. I think I have read the Lord of the Rings trilogy at least 11 or 12 times. The last time was when I underwent intravenous chemo 6 years ago.

5. Not only do I have bookshelves both at home and in my office, my tables and desks have piles of books on them and generally each pile (which may have 5 or 6 books) relate to different writing or research projects I'd like to work on.

6. I love bookstores - and I'm fortunate that I live near one of the largest new and used bookstores in the nation - Powell's Books in Portland. There are several levels over a city block.

7. It's been a few months since I read a book cover to cover; I've read bits and pieces of quite a few books, mostly related to articles that I've been writing.

Have fun! I won't tag anyone this time ...