Twitter

Monday, April 27, 2009

I like new-age hippie books (even though they're fluffish)


Above, Below: Tough book covers for mushy books


I have a totally not-secret habit of reading new-agey hippie books with humiliating cheesebag covers. Heart-shaped rainbows, sunset skies with flocks of birds, and sandy beaches grace them all, and it kills me that something I so guiltily enjoy is so poorly presented. You CAN judge a book by it's cover, especially when it's completely gay and retarted.

This sort of thing doesn't happen with sci-fi. My "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is an elegant black leather number, embossed with gold, which has proudly traveled with me around the world. Biographies make you smarter and more distinguished just by proximity-- Winston Churchill's "The Last Lion", for example, which features a black and white portrait of Sir Winston, above a coat of arms and atop of regal navy blue. Highbrow by default.

But if you get caught reading "Ask and it is Given" just ONCE you look like a turd-burglaring yoga instructor (or a tarot card reader, whichever is worse) and all your collegey literary cred flies straight out the window. You instantly "manifest" and "attract" whatever is the exact opposite of Bukowski, Rand, Joyce, and Thomas.

I therefore create book covers, a la high school (pictured above), for every pastel, new-agey palated cover that graces my path. This satisfies my inner snark, initiates interesting conversations, and allows guilt-free consumption of the inspiration and affirmations I so obviously need to undo the years of constant berating by my mother: "I have beautiful hair." "My arms are not too long." "I do not need to be more like Thomas Pearson in order to succeed in life" "Everything will be okay, even though I didn't go to Yale."

(*an