THE DAILY BEAT: 31st sentence of the 31st book

Sunday, March 31, 2019

31st sentence of the 31st book

The 31st book on my Kerouac bookshelf is Jack Kerouac's Book of Dreams (City Lights, 1981), and the 31st sentence (in honor of today being the 31st day of the month) is:

I run-- (p. 10)

Not much of a sentence, but it has a subject and a predicate. It's also arguably the 31st sentence. Once again I ran into making difficult judgment calls about when an em dash acted like a period, when a proper noun constituted a sentence beginning, and so on. A lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-you's. And a lotta strands to keep in my head. Lotta strands in old Rick's head.*

I'll leave it to you to read Book of Dreams in order to get context for today's sentence. Fair warning: tomorrow is the penultimate post of the project since we started it on March 2 and once we do an entry for the first of the month tomorrow, it's all over but the final collation of all 31 sentences in one post (that should happen Tuesday).

* Name the movie reference and you win Beat brownie points for the day.

2 comments:

Eufrey Domingo said...: I believe the movie reference is The Big Lebowski.; April 4, 2019 at 11:36 AM
Rick Dale, author of The Beat Handbook said...: Congrats, Eufrey. You win Beat brownie points!; April 5, 2019 at 11:59 AM

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Reviews of The Beat Handbook

Gerald Nicosia, author of the acclaimed Kerouac biography Memory Babe, said The Beat Handbook is "full of Jack's heart."

Jared Randall, author of the excellent book of poetry, Apocryphal Road Code, said this about The Beat Handbook: "Sometimes a book comes along at just the right time. In my wandering pack of experiences, I find they often do. Enter The Beat Handbook by Rick Dale."

Kenneth Morris, Kerouacian extraordinaire, said this:
"I just finished reading Rick Dale's beautiful utterance and call to action of Kerouac mind-set and zen sensibilities. It made me laugh and reflect on my own life and road I have naturally grooved into after absorbing the Kerouac canon. The road less traveled always had my name on it. And that has made all the difference. The Beat Handbook 100 Days of Kerouactions reaffirms the attitudes and ideology that made the Beats and Kerouac the important men of ideas that America (and the world) thirsted for, needed, and swallowed whole. Beautiful, absorbing, Top Ten whipsmart from my articulate, tender-hearted friend and fellow traveler. Highly recommended."