Literature

Allen Ginsberg died at 2:39pm April 5: 2+3+9+4+5=23. The code at the bottom of the Reuter's article about Ginsberg's death reads: '23:28'. (28=23+5).

Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 and died on April 23, 1616. Most of Shakespeare is known to us through the first folio published in 1623. 23+23=46. Shakespeare was 46 years old in the year 1610 (1+6+1+0=8, 8=2і), the year the King James Bible was published. Psalm 46 in that translation has as its 46th word "shake" while the 46th word from the end is "spear." Go ahead, explain that one. I dare ya. It's also a fun party trick!

In the early '60's in Tangiers, William Burroughs knew a certain "Captain Clark" who ran a ferry from Tangiers to Spain. One day, Clark said to Burroughs that he'd been running the ferry 23 years without an accident. That very day the ferry sank, killing Clark and everyone aboard. In the evening, Burroughs was thinking about this when he turned on the radio. The first newscast headlined the crash of an airline plane on the New York-Miami route. The pilot was another Captain Clark and the flight was listed as Flight 23 (ala the line "Captain Clark welcomes you aboard.").

2+3=5 is the equation Descartes chooses to theorize about as being an objective truth that he is possibly being fooled into believing is true in his Meditations on First Philosophy.

Not really literature, but then again, he did publish his works; June 1, 1996; The day Timothy Leary died. The date 6-1-1996 provides 6+1+1+9+9+6=32, or 23 backwards. Fortean Times #97 reported that Timothy Leary's ashes were to be launched into space the 2nd week of March (the third month). The launch contained the ashes of Timothy Leary,Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and 23 others...

June 16th, 1904; (19 + 04 = 23) The day James Joyce uses in Ulysses, who mentions the General Slocum disaster the day before repeatedly within this book.

In Dickens'Tale of Two Cities, Sidney Carlton, the 23rd man, is guillotined in the final scene. "The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three."

The Catch-22 of Joseph Heller's book/film: "If a bomber-pilot donґt want to fly missions then heґs sane, for mission-flying is deadly dangerous. If a bomber does want to fly missions then heґs insane for missions-flying is deadly dangerous. The only way to stop flying missions is to be insane, but if the flyer does want to fly missions then why shouldn't he go on? No way out (23)."

Lines 22-23 of Book I of Milton's Paradise Lost read, ".... what in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support..."

Jim Carroll - Forced Entries
p.3 - Chapter: Jenny Ann, like a cat
"She brought with her all my morning staples - two light and sweet coffees, two chocolate donuts (one laced with coconut flakes), and a pint of chocolate Italian ice from the pizza stand across 23rd Street."
p.6 - Chapter: A Day at the Races"He came in clocked at twenty-three seconds."
p.41 - Chapter: Robert Smithson does some impressive talking to an idiot who just trailed a beam of light"On 23rd Street I noticed that it turned, heading off a mirror five flights up a building facade on the southwest corner, in the direction of Lexington Avenue."
p.42 - Chapter: Robert Smithson does some impressive talking to an idiot who just trailed a beam of light"I was ready, however, to match my determination with it's creator's considerable wit, and I ran back down to 23rd to follow the downtown light from where it had originally split in two."