Ganked from a Tasmanian blog (among the many bazillion blogs I read)

From the blog, Loz and Dinny: Go to the closest book to you, not necessarily the book you have just read, or your favourite, but the closest. Turn to page 56 and copy out the 5th line, followed by the next 2 to 5 lines.

"At low volume, one can take enormous strides, a mile long and fifty feet high at the peak, or float gently through valleys and over the tops of trees without rush or noise. At high volume and dressed in a space suit, one can soar into outer space or travel easily at three hundred miles an hour at four thousand feet. Needless to say, every such outfit is equipped with a radar device that brings one to a hovering half the moment there is any danger of collision."

From the entry "The Future of Ecstasy" in Cloud-Hidden Whereabouts Unknown by Alan Watts. I just began reading it this afternoon and am about 1/3 of the way through. Amazingly, this book was assigned to us as sophomores in high school and I don't even think I made it past the introduction. I was so burned out on The Secular City by Harvey Cox that I think I just ran screaming into the night when the same teacher assigned another book for us to read for religion class. And, yes, dear reader, this is the only class I failed in high school. And, when one fails religion in a Catholic high school, one has to pay a visit to the principal. So I had to try to explain to Fr. Kelly why I had this big, fat "F" on my report card. I was honest - I told him I didn't have a clue what our teacher was talking about - he was talking to us as though we were college students and that was so far over my head that the air was probably thinner up there. So, a few (cough, cough) years later, and I can appreciate Watts and thank Ded for introducing me to him...even after my earlier traumatization. I would probably, however, run and hide in a dark closet if someone confronted me with a copy of The Secular City. (Note to kids - Don't even THINK about it)

Back to the passage from the book, though, it makes me wish I didn't have to get in the car to take Mary to Loganville this evening.

Currently reading: Alan Watts (noted above), Dante for Beginners, half-way finished with Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.