"Sorry about the disruption, folks, but I always do the last dance of the season."
Patrick Swayze might have lost his battle against cancer today, but I'd like to think that somewhere, he and Chris are back together and putting on a damn fine show.
Showing posts with label 09X: Summer of Death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 09X: Summer of Death. Show all posts
All My Inner Children Are Dead
The bell doth toll yet again in these last few days of 09X, as Fate once more takes D-plan shorthand all too literally and extinguishes a beloved figure from my childhood—nay, America’s childhood—without so much as a chance to say, “I’ll be seeing you later.” Michael, Farah, that old dude (no, the other old guy)—what more could cold, cruel Death take from us? Gird your faith in a higher power, everyone, because Reading Rainbow is no more.
I weep as I type this, because LeVar Burton was like a brother to me. The man opened my precocious little mind in a way best expressed through LSD-fueled song:
Go elsewhere to read how Bush has continued to fuck us over from beyond the proverbial post-presidential grave; AMDAL mustn’t dwell on the past, but think of the future—of the children. And by "children," I clearly mean ourselves.
The book you choose to carry, and maybe even read, is part of your larger personal brand. Why else would Facebook ask for a list of your favorite titles? The prioritization of Eggers over Joyce is a rite of passage to self-identify with one's tribe in this Balkanized clusterfuck of a globalized society. The Iroquois Nation had its Mohawks and Oneida, and now the Internet has its hipsters and goths.* Read "Catcher in the Cradle" to mark yourself as one of them, or risk life as The Other.
With the Rainbow gone, what signposts remain as guides on that quest for the literary pot of gold, a good book? Obviously, the major warning sign—the "Bookworm's Banshee," if you will—is the pathetic writer's insistence on overworking a tired metaphor. But beyond that Blarney kiss of death? [Am I Irish? Téigh trasna ort féin]
"Don't judge a book by its cover." So goes ye olde proverb, but anyone with five senses and life experience knows that's bullshit. And let me take this moment to remind you that the literary world has no moral relativism: If you don't agree with Michiko Kakutani, you might as well go back to harvesting filth on your wretched fief. Lacking an archive of the New York Times at your fingertips (here's look at you, dumb-phone users), the choice becomes a simple matter of good cover/ugly cover.
And so, therefore, books should be judged by the color of their flap jackets and not the characters of their content.
After the jump, a case study and a bonus video: rare footage of an acoustic B-side demo Reading Rainbow performance!
Say you wanted to read a book on unicorns, because who wouldn't? Anyway, which book on unicorns do you think is objectively and scientifically 200% better than the other?
Exhibit A.
Exhibit B.
While I'm sure both volumes impart worthwhile lessons—in history and safety, respectfully—the obvious superior here is Book A, The Natural History of Unicorns. Appropriately kerned typography, illustrated fauna, grid-based layout and a clever visual pun on Enlightenment natural history monographs, FTW.
Both also happen to be available on Amazon Kindle, which makes this whole cover thing (and some would say literature in general) completely moot. One day, she thought to herself as she sighed deeply, technology will destroy us all. But for now, as promised, the Reading Rainbow vintage re-mastered concert footage (totally scooped Rolling Stone on this one!):
I hope to post Part Two of this train of aesthetically-minded thought, in which I outline the rubric by which all book covers should be judged, over the weekend. I thought I could get this all done in one fell swoop, but Fashion Week started yesterday, if somewhat unofficially, and I have already lost my will to live.
*Both had sweet lax bros.
I weep as I type this, because LeVar Burton was like a brother to me. The man opened my precocious little mind in a way best expressed through LSD-fueled song:
Go elsewhere to read how Bush has continued to fuck us over from beyond the proverbial post-presidential grave; AMDAL mustn’t dwell on the past, but think of the future—of the children. And by "children," I clearly mean ourselves.
The book you choose to carry, and maybe even read, is part of your larger personal brand. Why else would Facebook ask for a list of your favorite titles? The prioritization of Eggers over Joyce is a rite of passage to self-identify with one's tribe in this Balkanized clusterfuck of a globalized society. The Iroquois Nation had its Mohawks and Oneida, and now the Internet has its hipsters and goths.* Read "Catcher in the Cradle" to mark yourself as one of them, or risk life as The Other.
With the Rainbow gone, what signposts remain as guides on that quest for the literary pot of gold, a good book? Obviously, the major warning sign—the "Bookworm's Banshee," if you will—is the pathetic writer's insistence on overworking a tired metaphor. But beyond that Blarney kiss of death? [Am I Irish? Téigh trasna ort féin]
"Don't judge a book by its cover." So goes ye olde proverb, but anyone with five senses and life experience knows that's bullshit. And let me take this moment to remind you that the literary world has no moral relativism: If you don't agree with Michiko Kakutani, you might as well go back to harvesting filth on your wretched fief. Lacking an archive of the New York Times at your fingertips (here's look at you, dumb-phone users), the choice becomes a simple matter of good cover/ugly cover.
And so, therefore, books should be judged by the color of their flap jackets and not the characters of their content.
After the jump, a case study and a bonus video: rare footage of an acoustic B-side demo Reading Rainbow performance!
Say you wanted to read a book on unicorns, because who wouldn't? Anyway, which book on unicorns do you think is objectively and scientifically 200% better than the other?
Exhibit A.
Exhibit B.
While I'm sure both volumes impart worthwhile lessons—in history and safety, respectfully—the obvious superior here is Book A, The Natural History of Unicorns. Appropriately kerned typography, illustrated fauna, grid-based layout and a clever visual pun on Enlightenment natural history monographs, FTW.Both also happen to be available on Amazon Kindle, which makes this whole cover thing (and some would say literature in general) completely moot. One day, she thought to herself as she sighed deeply, technology will destroy us all. But for now, as promised, the Reading Rainbow vintage re-mastered concert footage (totally scooped Rolling Stone on this one!):
I hope to post Part Two of this train of aesthetically-minded thought, in which I outline the rubric by which all book covers should be judged, over the weekend. I thought I could get this all done in one fell swoop, but Fashion Week started yesterday, if somewhat unofficially, and I have already lost my will to live.
*Both had sweet lax bros.
