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!

response 139 of 215:

May 16 22:17 UTC 2001

I would have gotten it if slynne hadn't.  The first sentence was a dead
giveaway.

response 141 of 215:

May 17 05:41 UTC 2001

(uh, no one's gotten it yet.)

(rumors and hunting, is it Joseph Conrad?)

response 143 of 215:

May 17 13:46 UTC 2001

I like blind stabs: King

response 145 of 215:

May 17 16:01 UTC 2001

It is not Joseph Conrad, King or Orson Scott Card. 

Here is a hint: This author is very well known but this quotation is not 
from his most well known work, a work that is mostly well known for 
political reasons. 

response 147 of 215:

May 17 17:07 UTC 2001

Ginsberg? >=}

response 149 of 215:

May 17 20:53 UTC 2001

Neil Gaiman?