How do I send a book to Valhalla?
Or you could take a large wooden bowl and fill it half way with gasoline. Drop the book into the bowl, and then launch the bowl into the lake. Then you take a torch that you constructed earlier out of whatever torches are made of, and you take a rope that is attached to a branch that hangs out over the lake, and you swing out over the lake carrying the torch, and you light the bowl of gasoline as you swing over it. After you light the bowl, you throw the torch back onto the bank (to avoid polluting) then when you reach the apogee (is that a word?) of your swing, you let go of the rope and turn in mid-air, and you watch the book burn up as you fall into the lake. It might be difficult, but it would make you feel even better to piss on the burning book as you fall. Beware: if you piss too much it will put out the fire.
My first choice would be diesel fuel. Soak the book in it and it will burn just fine. Much less dangerous than gas, easier to light than wax. Will produce a very satisfying flame (unlike wax or any alcohol) and lots of billowing black smoke. Kerosene/camp gas/white gas/naphtha is a decent alternative too and will produce less black smoke. Don’t use gasoline. It burns too quickly and is quite a bit more dangerous to handle in an open pool than either kerosene or diesel. For a boat, use a cheap 9×13″ cake tin. For effect, build up the sides with papier-mache. You’re not going to be able to burn the “boat” below the waterline by any method, so I’d pick a base that will be stable and support the flame easily.
You need to build the boat out of balsa wood and rubber cement. Balsa burns really nicely, and rubber cement burns like a motherfucker. You’re going to need to go to an art supply place to get the balsa (which is soft enough to cut with a utility knife, so no hard labor for something very sturdy, very boyant and very flammable). You’ll also need to buy the rubber cement at an art store, because the stuff at Rite-Aid is for kids who can’t be trusted to not to do their best Human Torch impression with it. Some plastic soldiers I bought a couple summers ago were very sad when their base camp (a rock sticking out of Maine’s Lake Cobbesecontee) got hit with a match after they carefully stuck themselves down with a few ounces of Best Test One Coat. Coat the raft with the rubber cement to make it waterproof (and don’t be stingy) and I’m sure that after all that use your GMAT book would beneifit from a coating of top-grade adhesive, t
I would highly recommend using about 10-20 packs of sparklers set up to burn the book from underneath… Like a funeral pier. For reference, 1000 sparklers will give you an effect something like this: Sparkler Bomb 100 would give a much smaller jet of flame, but if you wrapped them in Aluminium foil (just around the sides, make sure you can get oxygen in from the bottom), you could direct the flames as much as you like. If you find the sparklers with the wooden sticks, you’ll just be adding ash & wood to the lake. Personally, I’d make a larger raft and go with all 1000, and have the book set up as if it were a witch to be burned right in the center(rather than the “noble hero” send-off).
