“You’re a classic case of Horney’s: the man who comforts himself not with what he achieves, but with what he dreams of achieving.” ― Luke Rhinehart, The Dice Man
Decatur, Texas
A Dice Morning
“Alexa, please turn off the alarm.”
The harsh electric squealing fell to sudden silence.
“Thank you Alexa.”
Frank always thanked his electronic assistant while knowing full well how ridiculous it was. Frank lay as still as possible, relishing an unexpected almost comfortable position. His long night of tossing and turning, feeling hurt in his various spots of arthritis, inflamed shoulder, twisted ankle, and the other bits of injury left from decades of slow decomposition. This resulted, finally, in a position where the relative lack of pain washed over him like a warm flood of soft water.
After a few minutes Frank looked to his side. On a small nightstand was a pad of paper, a pair of white dice, and a shallow ceramic plate. He was in the habit, every evening, to make a numbered list, from two to twelve, of eleven things he might want to do the next day. In the center of the list, say, five, six, seven, eight… the most common rolled numbers, he would list ordinary tasks or amusements- a trip to the library or grocery store, for example. But at the ends he would put more more adventuresome and difficult items, and by the number two and the number twelve (the least likely numbers) he would always list things that shook him to his core.
Today’s list:
2 write and send email, quitting my job (which I hate anyway) 3 post a nasty, threatening, anonymous comment on work electronic bulletin board 4 go out and buy new television at Wal-Mart (they are on sale) 5 go for a long walk 6 vacuum living room 7 make coffee and breakfast 8 buy 25 bucks worth of tools at Harbor Freight (get free gift) 9 Start watching Netflix series about the Parkway Serial Killer 10 Pick one Item off my Amazon Wish List and buy it 11 Buy everything on my Amazon Wish List 12 drive to Springfield and murder my boss
With a grimace and a light quick groan, Frank moved out of his painless cold lethargy, forced his legs over the edge and winced his feet onto the cold floor, feeling the thick dry calluses on his soles against the tile. He reached out, cupped the dice, shook them in his closed fist, and rolled them into the plate.
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” ― Oscar Wilde
(click to enlarge) Book With Wings, Anselm Kiefer, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
As I said the other day after I finished La Terre I wanted to evaluate my reading – set up a reading plan. I watched some YouTube videos on setting up a Reading Journal and on reading plans – and did some general web searches on the subject.
What I decided to do was to make some lists of books to read in several categories (I decided to stick, for now, to what’s on my Kindle – there are more books there than I could read in the few years still allocated to me) and then go from there. I chose six fiction novels that looked like the next six I wanted to read. I also started on lists for Self-Help (don’t judge) and for Writing categories. Next, I want to do lists of short story collections and general non-fiction. That should be a good start – I plan on having at least one current book from each category and I can pick and choose depending on my mood.
There is a reason I picked six fiction novels. I have been experimenting with dice... and I wanted to choose the order by roll of the die (six is better than eleven, the numbers from two die, because the odds of each number are the same and I didn’t want to mess around with ranking the books… maybe next time). So I went through my Kindle, listed out six that jumped out at me, and started to roll.
And, here we go:
1st book – Desperate Characters – Paula Fox – 152 pages
2nd book – Mobius Dick – Andrew Crummy – 320 pages
6th book – Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World – Donald Antrim – 192 pages
You will notice a plethora of short, modern books on this list. I wanted a change from Zola… though The Debacle is on the list (almost done with the series).
And yesterday, I started in on Desperate Characters – reading a third of it in one day. It is a jump from the grand scope (in space and time) of Zola’s naturalistic social prose to the focused crystalline details of the more modern novel. It is so compressed, so focused on seemingly random details and thoughts of the characters. Very modern, very New York.
Fun.
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” ― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
“But we must come to realise that every word is perfect, including those we scratch out. As my pen moves across this page the whole world writes. All of human history combines at this mere moment now to produce in the flow of this hand a single dot: Who are you and I, dear friends, to contradict the whole past of the universe? Let us then in our wisdom say yes to the flow of the pen.”
― Luke Rhinehart, The Dice Man
Decatur, Texas
Legend has it that a local, Will Cooper, was credited with the phrase, “Eighter From Decatur.” Will played dice with his sweetheart Ada by his side. He would roll the dice and yell “Ada from Decatur, county seat of Wise,” for luck. The expression was spread by the travelling home guard and Army regulars. The phrase eventually turned into “Eighter From Decatur,” when a hard eight roll of the dice was needed.
Decatur, Texas
Hard Eight…. That reminds me of one of my favorite movies – I’ll bet you haven’t even seen it – I’ll make that bet – it’s better odds than a hard eight.
“ Give up all hope, all illusion, all desire..I’ve tried. I’ve tried and still I desire, I still desire not to desire and hope to be without hope and have the illusion I can be without illusions..Give up, I say. Give up everything, including the desire to be saved.”
― Luke Rhinehart, The Dice Man
Bill Chance 