mysql fake select

My purpose is: to get multiple rows from a value list,like (1,2,3,4,5),('a','b','c','anything') and so on.

mysql> select id from accounts where id in (1,2,3,4,5,6);
+----+
| id |
+----+
|  1 |
|  2 |
|  3 |
|  5 |
|  6 |
+----+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

The above sql is surely ok,but my question is:is there a way to get the same result without

specifying a table?Because my purpose here is just to propagate rows by an id_set

another example:

mysql> select now() as  column1;
+---------------------+
| column1             |
+---------------------+
| 2009-06-01 20:59:33 |
+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

This example propagated a single row result without specifying a table,

but how to propagate multiple rows from a string like (1,2,3,4,5,6)?