I've done it for years myself! With bookshelves containing a mixture of types of writing. At the college I have an administrative assistant whom I've sometimes asked to do the honors in blindly picking a passage for the day. 😊
This sounds like fun and reminds me of the cut up method used by Burroughs, David Bowie, and the guy who invented it, whose name escapes me. Look forward to reading the end result.
I hadn't consciously noticed the similarity to the cut-up method, but you're right, it's definitely there. Apropos to nothing, my favorite thing anybody ever said about the cut-up method came from Tom Ligotti. An interviewer brought up his love for Burroughs and asked if he had ever used Burroughs's cut-up method. "No, I haven't," Tom said, "and I wish Burroughs hadn't either." Clearly, such approaches carry a YMMV value.
I do this all this time with poetry books!
I've done it for years myself! With bookshelves containing a mixture of types of writing. At the college I have an administrative assistant whom I've sometimes asked to do the honors in blindly picking a passage for the day. 😊
Better than a horoscope!
This sounds like fun and reminds me of the cut up method used by Burroughs, David Bowie, and the guy who invented it, whose name escapes me. Look forward to reading the end result.
I hadn't consciously noticed the similarity to the cut-up method, but you're right, it's definitely there. Apropos to nothing, my favorite thing anybody ever said about the cut-up method came from Tom Ligotti. An interviewer brought up his love for Burroughs and asked if he had ever used Burroughs's cut-up method. "No, I haven't," Tom said, "and I wish Burroughs hadn't either." Clearly, such approaches carry a YMMV value.
great idea. thanks
In the M. R..James story "The Ash Tree" two characters use a Bible this way to cull 3 quotes for guidance.
I had forgotten that! Thanks, Jay.