In the Dreamtime
the Point Was Ten

From Play It As It Lays,
the paperback edition of 1990
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux) —

Page 170:                                             “… In her half sleep
the point was ten, the jackpot was on eighteen, the
only man that could ever reach her was the son of a
preacher man, someone was down sixty, someone was
up, Daddy wants a popper and she rode a painted
pony let the spinning wheel spin.

By the end of a week she was thinking constantly
about where her body stopped and the air began,
about the exact point in space and time that was the
difference between Maria and other. She had the sense
that if she could get that in her mind and hold it for

170


even one micro-second she would have what she had
come to get.”

 
For further details
see yesterday’s entries.”In her half sleep
the point was ten….”
— Play It As It Lays
The Random House
Random House logo (color-reversed image)
signed first edition
of Norman Mailer’s
The Time of Our Time
(4 pounds, 1286 pages)
was published
ten years ago yesterday —
May 5, 1998:
Fireworks starburst
on the cover of
The Time of Our Time

Mailer's 'The Time of Our Time' May 5, 1998, cover with fireworks starburst
Also from May 5, 1998:
  File Photo in Mailer’s obituary —

(Photo by Bebeto Matthews
with Mailer obituary in
Toronto Globe and Mail)

with excerpt from the obituary,
by Richard Pyle
(Associated Press
Saturday, Nov. 10, 2007
at 8:20 AM EDT)

Norman Mailer, May 5, 1998 (with notes)

Related material:
Yesterday’s entries and
the time of this entry:
11:07:51 AM ET
CHANGE WE MAY BELIEVE IN sign, adapted from a current political campaign

I Ching hexagram 51: The Arousing (Shock, Thunder)
51

THE JUDGMENT
SHOCK brings success.
Shock comes - oh, oh!
Laughing words - ha, ha!

in light of…

 
A:  Mailer’s fireworks starburst
   on his book cover from
      ten years ago yesterday
B:  A real starburst in a story
from ten years ago today.