Rev Robert Shields (1918 – 2007) was a former Minister and high school English teacher who lived in Dayton, Washington. He left a diary of 37.5 million words chronicling every 5 minutes of his life from 1972 until a stroke disabled him in 1997.

Excerpts:

July 25, 1993 
7 am: I cleaned out the tub and scraped my feet with my fingernails to remove layers of dead skin.
7.05 am: Passed a large, firm stool, and a pint of urine. Used five sheets of paper.

August 13, 1995 
8.45 am: I shaved twice with the Gillette Sensor blade [and] shaved my neck behind both ears, and crossways of my cheeks, too.

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He regularly recorded his body temperature and blood pressure; critiqued newspapers; and described all the junk mail he got and the cost of almost everything he bought. He had three dozen ways, none obscene, to describe his urinations, all recorded. He slept in two-hour stretches in order to record his dreams. (…)

To do his diary, Mr. Shields, usually in his underwear, retreated to his back-porch office. He sunk into a tattered secretary’s chair cushioned by a foam doughnut. He was surrounded by six I.B.M. electric typewriters, arranged in a horseshoe. He migrated from machine to machine.

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READ MORE >> weirdos, experience, books | August 15th, 2008