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One of the efforts I am making this session is to (try to) read 29 pages each day. I sometimes find myself cramming in large reading sessions, and am trying to be better about “dosing” myself with content and letting it sink it more. So, today I actually forced myself to stop reading. What kind of reading challenge is this anyway?
I am loving ANY DAY NOW full of references to Allen Ginsberg and Andy Warhol. A novel based in the era, a young man meets a dude named Roads in his hometown of Owensboro, Ohio who teaches him about poetry and makes him read Walden. Roads invites him to hop on a boat and sail to the Caribbean and Clay, the protagonist of the book, gets duped and stood up. However, Clay is already infused with Roads’ non-traditional approach to life– he’s a beatnik.
Clay moves to NYC and shacks up with a gal. He works as a fry-cook, she attends Barnard. it’s pretty cool and they are protesting the war and Clay is writing poetry. In between prose are letters from his mother referring to his father, who was a veteran and worked on radios compulsively, and the woes of his illness that seems incurable. Clay is the kind of guy who takes it all in.
In the last chapter, the gal EmCee who he is staying with, gets blown up in an apartment– she evidently had gotten involved with the Weathermen. That’s where I’m at now– I will probably allow myself to read and finish this book over the weekend, but it has been nice to ease into the story even though it is such a satisfying and tasty read.
Open Arts Spring 2023 
If reincarnation is true, I’m 98% sure you were a beatnik in your former life. I’d hope you take that as a compliment.
You know until you framed it as “29 pages a day” it didn’t occur to me that this reading exercise was something that should be so pervasive (but in tiny morsels). I was like “ooooooooh, this is a true commitment that I should actively pursue as if I were doing a 30 day challenge.” If anyone’s not familiar, there’s a great Ted Talk on 30-day-challenges.
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I do take that as a compliment- haha- thanks! I really enjoy the page number approach because it makes me think about reading in a different way.
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I also broke it down into a pages per day thing, mainly to see what it would take to get through it- how much time do I need and also as a way to measure my progress and see how much reading I am actually comfortable with, so for that reason I’m not limiting myself. Reading the minimum everyday is required and I can read as much as I want or have time to- more books isn’t going to hurt.
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Get get ’em Kate! Can’t wait to see what you’re getting out of your reading 🙂
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Thanks for checking in. I’m going at the challenge with a 30 pages per day goal. So far, I’ve felt reminded rather than pushed, but it’s early days. How long does it take to form a new habit? Two weeks? Maybe I’ll have a daily reading habit of about 30 pages when this is done. That would be a nice outcome!
Must know what happens to Clay. Poor EmCee! She had such a good name.
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