Stir Well Before Reading

Feeling frustrated? Filled with nameless anxieties? No problem. Simply "go into a room by yourself; put on your favorite music, throw off your clothes; and dance."* So advises Laura Archera Huxley, wife of Writer-Philosopher Aldous, in her just-published collection of "Recipes for Living and Loving," entitled You Are Not the Target, and selling for $4.95. Mrs. Huxley's husband writes in his introduction to the book that "these recipes work." Readers less emotionally involved with the author may find her formulas to be, at best, ridiculous, and, at worst, risky. But lively reading nonetheless.

Mrs. Huxley sails far-distant waters. She is part Anne Morrow Lindbergh ("Listen to the sea--only listen"), part Lee Strasberg ("Become an animal; make the noises your animal makes; feel as it feels; think as it thinks; eat as it eats"), part Vic Tanny ("Hang a tether ball on a nail; punch it; punch, punch, punch"). She is a sort of Reader's Digest to the world's philosophies, dipping briefly into Zen, Yoga, evangelism, estheticism and existentialism. She dips as well, unfortunately, into sheer medical foolishness, instructs readers in search of momentary relief from irritation to plunge their faces into bowls filled with ice water, their legs simultaneously into steaming hot vats.

The 30 recipes range widely in subject matter. "Lay the Ghost" prescribes various diversionary tactics to erase that haunting memory. "Blink your eyelids twelve times; yawn enormously--like a hippopotamus; notice four objects in the room; count ten hairs on your head--pull out three." "Attend Your Funeral" is designed for pure fantasy-indulgence, requires two solitary hours during which the reader is told to dream himself a guest at his own wake, checking to see who sent flowers and who showed up in person, listening attentively to the eulogy. Those who feel themselves particularly unloved are encouraged to "Attend Your Funeral Alone" to "give love to one who has forgotten what love is."

You Are Not the Target is put together somewhat like a child's primer; printed in various type faces (recipes themselves are italicized, POINTS OF SPECIAL URGENCY set in bold capital letters), it affords the reader generous blank spaces where he is encouraged to scrawl his own reactions, such as, "I wish I had my money back."

* Dancers fraught with more than usual inhibitions are instructed to "ignore the mirror," or, failing that, to "cover it." Invalids are permitted to move only the movable parts of their bodies, following the rest of the directions in their minds.

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