response 113 of 215:

May 12 18:14 UTC 2001

(if no one minds, I'd like to post the next quote.)

response 115 of 215:

May 12 18:23 UTC 2001

   The next morning he almost didn't get up at the sound of the pickup.
He could feel, even before he came fully awake, how tired he still was.
But May Belle was grinning at him, propped up on one elbow.  "Ain't 'cha
gonna run?" she asked.
   "No," he said, shoving the sheet away.  "I'm gonna fly."
   Because he was more tired than usual, he had to push himself harder.
He pretended that Wayne Pettis was there, just ahead of him, and he had to
keep up.  His feet pounded the uneven ground, and he thrashed his arms
harder and harder.  He'd catch him.  "Watch out, Wayne Pettis," he said
between his teeth.  "I'll get you.  You can't beat me."
   "If you're so afraid of the cow," the voice said, "why don't you just
climb the fence?"
   He paused in midair like a stop-action TV shot and turned, almost
losing his balance, to face the questioner, who was sitting on the fence
nearest the old Perkins place, dangling bare brown legs.  The person had
jaggedy brown hair cut close to its face and wore one of those blue
undershirtlike tops with faded jeans cut off above the knees.  He couldn't
honestly tell whether it was a girl or a boy.
   "Hi," he or she said, jerking his or her head toward the Perkins place.
"We just moved in."

---

(have at it.)

response 117 of 215:

May 13 18:36 UTC 2001

(uh oh.)  :^)

response 119 of 215:

May 14 15:37 UTC 2001

(not Zenna Henderson.  the author is fairly prolific, but this is an
excerpt from one of the author's better-known works.  I'll work up
another passage from the book tomorrow if no one has guessed by then.)

response 121 of 215:

May 15 03:52 UTC 2001

(you are right, Rebecca!  you're up!)

response 123 of 215:

May 15 12:28 UTC 2001

(Why are we whispering?)

response 125 of 215:

May 15 13:20 UTC 2001

(124 - No, Perry Como)

response 127 of 215:

May 15 14:30 UTC 2001

damn!  that book actually occurred to me.  no idea why i didn't guess.

response 129 of 215:

May 15 17:41 UTC 2001

(Yeah, I meant Douglas Adams.)

Okay, new quote:

6. The Piazza Navona Flooded

What you have to remember when looking at a painting is this: nothing is
accidental.  Maybe that seems obvious, and maybe it seems trivial, but it
isn't either one.  If something is emphasized, the artist wanted it
emphasized.  If something is played down, the artist wanted it played down.
Even more, if there is a wisp of bird off in one corner of he landscape, that
bird is there for a reason.
        If the artist was Rossetti, the bird symbolizes freedom.  If it was
Monet, he needed the splash of color.  If it was Gericault, he wanted movement
in a an otherwise still scene.  If it was Audubon, that's the subject of the
painting.  If it was Thoma, he happened to see a bird there when he looked.
        It takes an effort, an act of will, and physical movement of a physical
brush with paint on it, to put in that bird, whether you're James Whistler
and you spend six years on a wing, or you're Van Gogh and suggest "bird" with
one plunge if brush to canvas.  It's there because the artist wanted it.
        I don't always know exactly *why* I want something to be in the
painting, or why I want it a certain way.  Sometimes I do, but sometimes it
just feels right.  Then I have the pleasure of figuring out why just as you
do, after it's done.
        Sometimes it isn't a pleasure -- I decide it was a mistake.  But
usually, by that time, it's too late to change it.  I could spnd my life
repainting mistakes I made that are so small I can't describe them but so big
I can't miss them.
        Sometimes the whole piece is a mistake from the beginning, but I can't
know that, either, until it's done, and then, as before, it's too late.
        Timing, that's what it is.
        Bones?

response 131 of 215:

May 16 03:19 UTC 2001

Thanks.  One of my favorites, in fact.

response 133 of 215:

May 16 14:58 UTC 2001

Steven Brust, "The Sun, the Moon and the Stars".  If you haven't read 
it, go get it; it's very good.

response 135 of 215:

May 16 17:32 UTC 2001

Here we go:

Everyone agreed to this and that was how the adventures began.  It was 
the sort of house that you never seem to come to the end of, and it was 
full of unexpected places.  The first few doors they tried led only into 
spare bedrooms, as everyone had expected that they would; but soon they 
came to a very long room full of pictures, and there they found a suit 
of armour; and after that was a room all hung with green, with a harp in 
one corner; and then came three steps down and five steps up, and then a 
kind of little upstairs hall and a door that led out on to a balcony, 
and then a whole series of rooms that led into each other and were lined 
with books - most of them very old books and some bigger than a Bible in 
a church.  And shortly after that they looked into a room that was quite 
empty except for one big wardrobe; the sort that has a looking-glass in 
the door.  There was nothing else in the room at all except a dead 
bluebottle on the window-sill.

response 137 of 215:

May 16 18:25 UTC 2001

Yep.  I was afraid that would be too easy.  Oh, well.

You're up!