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 this approach 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.
Wonderful !..I know a Woman who while living on Vancouver Island would go on morning walks along a beautiful river. She would stop now and then to observe various plants - the patterns of leaves - their size and shape - what was growing around them - whether in shade or Sun. These observations translated into whatever was foremost in her life. After the death of a lifelong friend and mentor, I walked in a forested area near my home where the trees in their familiarity - in their long memory - remembered me - comforted me. Indeed this intelligence is everywhere, responding to us as we open to it.
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 this approach 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.
Wonderful !..I know a Woman who while living on Vancouver Island would go on morning walks along a beautiful river. She would stop now and then to observe various plants - the patterns of leaves - their size and shape - what was growing around them - whether in shade or Sun. These observations translated into whatever was foremost in her life. After the death of a lifelong friend and mentor, I walked in a forested area near my home where the trees in their familiarity - in their long memory - remembered me - comforted me. Indeed this intelligence is everywhere, responding to us as we open to it.