AOL indiscreetly released the search records of hundreds of thousands of users. Luckily they were archived on sites like http://dontdelete.com/ , where you can click and see at random the search results of individual users. The site promises “HOURS of entertainment” and this has been verified. To spice things up we decided to give birth to The AOL Search Results Drinking Game. Developed by Matt, Margo, Roger and others, here are the rules:

TAKE TURNS CLICKING – ALL RULES ARE CUMULATIVE
1. Five results or less –> the clicker drinks

2. Boring results (consensus) –> the clicker drinks

3. Religion –> everyone except clicker drinks

4. Porn –> everyone except clicker drinks. Drink twice if you’ve ever searched for that term.

5. Latino porn or bestiality –> clicker is allowed to make a new rule i.e. one particular person must drink whenever agricultural issues are searched – or everyone must or whatever they want. They make the rule, after all.

6. Poetic (consensus) –> everyone drinks

7. Anything to do with prison, most wanted lists, etc –> everyone drinks.

8. Comic spelling mistakes (consensus) –> first person to catch it gets to make someone else drink

9. Racism –> everybody drinks. Unless it’s talking about you in which case you don’t drink. Or drink twice. (Choose one option before playing).

10 . The mega-combo — > if rules 3-9 apply, finish the bottle / case.

FOR EXAMPLE:

everybody drinks twice (religion + porn) except clicker.
UPDATE:

Additionally, Roger proposes:

I propose : embarassing health issues – everyone drinks 2x – clicker drinks once
any person playing the game’s home city(ies) – that person and the clicker drink. If it is the clicker, they drink only once

rape – everyone drinks 2x – clicker included
infidelity – everyone except clicker drinks
your name (first or last and not allowed to be matched up with a celebrity such as “matt” damon or “roger” moore – the search would have to be just matt or roger – you finish your drink. Your actual name (first and last) and everyone else finishes their drink(s)

Any of these rules can be combined. Thus, if you click and get religion and kiddie porn and less than 5 results, you drink 3 (1x 5 results or less + 2x kiddie porn) and everyone else drinks 3 (1x religion + 2x kiddie porn)

UPDATE 8-22-06. (v.1.5)

In the spirit of back-to-school I’ve come up with a few optional rules.

11. Sports — > anytime a sports reference comes up, anybody can challenge the clicker to an arm-wrestle. Loser drinks.

12. Gamblin’ –> anytime a gambling reference shows up, anybody can challenge the clicker to a game of paper-rock-scissors or a coin toss. They bet a certain number of drinks beforehand, and loser drinks.

Ideas for rules created when stumbling upon latino porn / bestiality :

- Strip search –> anytime the word “clothing” or something related to clothing comes up, the first person to call it out is then entitled to tell someone to take off an article of clothing. Be careful. Like starting the game out by drinking straight vodka, playing like this means that things are probably going to go downhill, real fast. Good option in a two-player game.

BUGS FIXED in this version: Inability to act when faced with many sports references; Encumbering clothing.
Post your best results to comments. Enjoy!

Medieval Period

La Chanson de Roland or Raoul de Cambrai or La Chanson de Guillaume

Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier au lion or Le Chevalier de la charrette

Béroul et Thomas, Tristan et Yseut (useful edition: J.-C. Payen, “Classiques Garnier,” 1974) Guillaume de Lorris, Le Roman de la rose

Four poems each by Conon de Béthune, Gace Brulé, le Châtelain de Couci, and Thibaut de Champagne; two pastourelles and two aubes, 5 ballades and 10 rondeaux by Charles d’Orléans

Villon, Le Testament

Le Roman de Renart

Branche II Renart et Chantecler

Renart et la mésange

Renart et Tibert

Renart et Tiécelin

Renart et Hersent

Branche Va (ou Branche I, suivant les familles des manuscrits)

Le Jugement de Renart

SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Rabelais, Pantagruel and Gargantua

Du Bellay, Regrets, numbers IV, IX, XXIX, XXXI, LIX, LXVIII, LXXII, LXXXV, CIX,

CXXX

Agrippa d’Aubigné, Les Tragiques, Livres I, VII

Marot, L’Adolescence clémentine

Epîtres

“Epître à la dampiselle négligente de venir voir ses amis”

“Petite épîtref au roi”

“Epître à son ami Lion”

Epitaphes

“De Guion le roi qui s’attendait d’être pape avant que mourir”

“De feu maître Pierre de Villiers”

“De Jehan Serre excellent joueur de farces”

“D’un qu’on appelait Frère Lubin”

“A un créancier”

“A un poète ignorant”

Chanson

XXXII: “Changeons propos, c’est trop chanté d’amours”

Ronsard, Odes, Amours de Cassandre, Amours de Marie, Sonnets pour Hélène

(Note: Verify the date of each poem in the edition which you use!)

“Mignonne, allons voir si la rose” (1553)

“O fontaine Bellerie” (1578)

“J’ai l’esprit tout ennuyé” (1554)

“Je voudrais bien, richement jaunissant” (1552)

“Bel aubepin fleurissant” (1552)

“Marie, levez-vous, ma jeune paresseuse” (1587)

“Si quelque amoureux passe en Anjou par Borgueil” (1556)

“Comme on voit sur la branche au mois de mai la rose” (1578)

“Te regardant assise auprès de ta cousine” (1578)

“Quand vous serez bien vieille au soir à la chandelle” (1578)

Montaigne, Essais, III

Marguerite de Navarre, L’Heptaméron

Première journée

Troisième journée

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Descartes, Discours de la méthode

Pascal, Les Pensées

La Rochefoucauld, Les Maximes

Mme de La Fayette, La Princesse de Clèves

La Bruyère, Les Caractères

Corneille, Le Cid

Molière, L’Ecole des femmes

Racine, Phèdre

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Voltaire, Candide

Diderot, Le Rêve de d’Alembert

Prévost, Manon Lescaut

Rousseau, Les Confessions, livres I-IV

Laclos, Les Liaisons dangereuses

Montesquieu, Les Lettres persanes

Beaumarchais, Le Mariage de Figaro

Marivaux, Le Paysan parvenu

NINETEENTH CENTURY

Balzac, Le Père Goriot

Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Stendhal, Le Rouge et le noir

Maupassant, Bel ami

Musset, Lorenzaccio

Nerval, Sylvie

Sand, Indiana

Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, L’Eve future

Zola, L’Assommoir

Poèmes:

Baudelaire 15 poèmes, Les Fleurs du mal

Hugo “Rêveri, “Les Orientales

“Tristesse d’Olympio, “Les Rayons et les ombres

“Expiation, “Les Châtiments

“Booz endormi, “La Légende des siècles

“Le Satyre, “La Légende des siècles

Lamartine “Le Lac, “Premières Méditations poétiques

Mallarmé “Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd’hui…”

“Le Tombeau d’Edgar Poe”

“Toast funèbre, à Théophile Gautier”

“Sainte”

“Le Pitre châtié”

Nerval “Fantaisie”

“El Desdichado, “Les Chimères

“Delfica, “Les Chimères

Rimbaud “Le Bateau ivre”

Verlaine “Art Poètique, “Jadis et naguère

Vigny “Moïse, “Poèmes antiques et modernes

“La Mort du loup, “Les Destinées

“La Bouteille à la mer, “Les Destinées

TWENTIETH CENTURY

Proust Un amour de Swann

Gide L’Immoraliste

Malraux La Condition humaine

Yourcenar Mémoires d’Hadrien

Céline Voyage au bout de la nuit

Sartre La Nausée

Camus L’Etranger

Sarraute “L’Ere du soupcon” (l’essai)

Duran Moderato cantabile

Butor La Modificaton

Birago Diop “Les Mamelles” (conte tiré de Léopold Sédar Senghor,

Anthologie de la Nouvelle Poésie nègre et malgache de langue française)

Cheikh Hamidou Kane L’Aventure ambiguë

Assia Djebar “Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement, “Nostalgie de la horde,” “Regard interdit, son coupé” (extraits) Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement

Maryse Condé La Traversée de la Mangrove

Beckett En attendant Godot

Césaire La Tragédie du Roi Christophe

Poèmes: a) 15 poems selected among works by the following poets (at least one poem by each poet): Valéry, Apollinaire, Péguy, Eluard, Aragon, Saint-John Perse, Char, Prévert, Jouve, and Bonnefoy;

b) 5 poems from L. S. Senghor’s Anthologie…: L.G. Damas, “Le Hoquet,” A. Césaire, “Chaier d’un retour au pays natal” (fragment), Paul Niger, “Je n’aime pas l’Afrique, “Jacques Roumain, “Bois d’ébène” (fragment), L. S. Senghor, Femme noire.”

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

Maurice Grevisse, Le Bon Usage 12^th edition

Préliminaires Ch. I, Le Langage et son étude (pp. 1-26).

Première Partie Ch. III, Les Mots, pp. 189-289

Deuxième Partie Ch. VIII, L’Accord, pp. 686-743

Ch. IX, Mise en relief, pp. 744-746

Quatrième Partie Ch. I, La Proposition relative, pp. 1606-1617

Ch. II, La Proposition conjonctive, pp. 1618-1692

Jean Casagrande The Sound System of French

Read any TWO of the following:

W. von Wartburg Evolution et structure de la langue française

OR

J. Chaurand Histoire de la langue française

OR

M. Cohen, Histoire d’une langue: le française

OR

Ch. Bruneau Petite Histoire de la langue française

This is an online notebook that I am keeping as I explore a reading list in French literature. Comments and discussion are welcome.