i've been hit....

well, tagged actually. leave it to s-a to hit me with this when i'm not near a book. instead, i had the little man of the house grab one from the shelf. it is the book i use to teach academic writing 1 and let me tell you, it's a real scream...

here are the rules:
1. pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. open the book to page 123.
3. find the fifth sentence.
4. post the next three sentences.
5. tag five people.

while i won't be tagging anyone, i did play along :)

conspicuous consumption has replaced quiet repose. but many of the great styles of garden history have been practical, if not precisely in this way, for example, the ferme ornée or eighteenth-century ornamented working farm with fields, kitchen gardens, orchards, pastures placed beside the more decorative and formal elements of the garden. these were gardens that had their practical commercial aspects. but although the mall is a far more commercial place than the practical garden, the shift has not so much destroyed the garden -- for most of history a space set aside for the rich -- as adapted to its new social and economic realities, and it thus can be seen as the appropriate for a consumer-oriented culture. in the formal gardens of the past, where nature was rearranged to fit aesthetic taste of the period, one walked through the landscape contemplating vistas and approaching the beautiful.

as i said, this is from an academic text: the academic writing reader. the essay is entitled "the shopping mall and the formal garden." kind of interesting....