SA4QE - The Slickman A4 Quotation Event 2013

SA4QE 2013 - Diana Slickman - Chicago Illinois, United States

A day late! (A day late and a dollar short, my 6th grade teacher would have said.) I realized in a panic yesterday evening that it was Russ's birthday and that I hadn't had, and wouldn't have, a chance to 4Qate. Despair!  This morning I grabbed, at random (as is my custom) a book from the Hoban stack. The Lion of Jachin-Boaz and Boaz-Jachin. Good.  I opened to a page that had a piece of paper (small, square, faded, yellow-ish) stuck in before it.  Read til I came to the passage that wanted to be quoted. Closed the book.  Went to work.  Worked.  Copied out this quote on a piece of bright yellow paper:

'Modern life,' said Jachin-Boaz [to the owner of the bookshop], 'particularly modern life in cities, creates great tensions in people, don't you think?'

'Modern life, ancient life,' said the owner. 'Where there's life there's tension.'

'Yes,' said Jachin-Boaz. 'Tension and nerves.  It's astonishing, really, what nerves can do."

'Well, they have a system, you see,' said the owner.  'When you suffer an attack of nerves you're being attacked by the nervous system.  What chance has a man got against a system?'

'Exactly,' said Jachin-Boaz.  'He could have delusions, hallucinations.'

'Happens every day of the week,' said the owner.  'Sometimes I, for example, have the delusion that this shop is a business.  Then I come back to reality and realize that it's just an expensive hobby.'

I added, as is my custom, "February 4th is Russell Hoban's birthday.  By finding this quote, and reading it, you are taking part in a world-wide celebration of the man and the day.  sa4qe.com"

I headed to The Book Cellar, a book store in Lincoln Square, that is not only a fine bookstore, but one that serves wine and beer, besides. Any old bookstore will serve coffee on the premises; it takes real moxie to allow bookstore patrons access to alcohol.  I parked, I paid the meter, I made my way to the store's front door.  Closed.  Closes early on Tuesday.  Day late! I made my way up Lincoln Avenue, to allow chance the opportunity to lead me to where it wanted me to leave the quote.  Many of the shops were closed and the places that were open weren't the places the quote wanted to be. Finally, I came upon the Sulzer Library, a public library and thought, okay, here it is.  I went in, found the fiction, found the Hs and found no Hoban at all. Despair! Between Hoag and Hobb I stuck my quote. I renewed my library card, and went back out on to the street, in search of congenial spot to raise a glass to Russ.  I almost passed a restaurant called Fork, when I remembered Yogi Berra's excellent advice: "If there's a fork in the road, take it." I drank a very good Manhattan to Russ's memory, and enjoyed a small plate of Italian charcuterie. No one addressed me as "Dottore" and certainly not "Professore" but I passed a pleasant hour, just the same.

Let's drink to absent friends, and to one in particular.

 

Filed under Chicago Illinois United States The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz

SA4QE 2013 - Old Owl - Mandurah, Australia

Left in various locations (a phone box, a library, a school staff room, on a public barbecue) in Mandurah, Western Australlia

“I’m not sure of anything right now,” I confessed. “I may be a figment of my own imagination.”

“But that’s all anyone is; it’s the human condition. We’re given a name at birth and photographs are taken.  We come to be known by name and face and from this we piece together an identity and fix it in memory. This identity is not physically part of us; a knock on the head can make it go away."

Filed under Mandurah Angelica Lost and Found

SA4QE 2013 - Ra McGuire - White Rock BC, Canada

Greetings from White Rock BC Canada!

Yellow papers appeared on the pier today and changed things a bit. Folks on their walks stopped, curious. And walked away, curious. Hopefully Russ got a smile out of it. 

".....still I am of the world, still I have something to say, how could it be otherwise, nothing comes to an end, the action never stops, it only changes...."

Filed under White Rock BC Pilgermann

SA4QE 2013 - K. A. Laity - Claverack / NY, United States

Posted in the third floor ladies room of Albertus Hall at the College of Saint Rose.

Jump! Into the empty air,

Drop to the rocks down there.

Maybe some of us will make it.

I love the combination of hope and despair all at once.

Filed under Claverack / NY Soonchild

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