these are some of my favourite book cover designs

with most book covers, the cover designs are completely "divorced" from the actual narratives. it is like the book is trying to say "i am really cool, just look at how cool i am", but when you read the book you feel as though you have been tricked, because the book cover was just a sham, just an advertisement to lure you in. it is as though the publishing house thinks that the front cover is a billboard, so it hires a marketing team to find out what will lure the most people in. like a mcdonalds ad.

but then, rarely, with some books, the cover seems to be an attempt by the designer to actual enhance the story, by making the cover an actual part of the book.
with those sort of books, books with interesting covers, i sometimes read a paragraph of the book, and then turn to the front cover of the book and look at the front cover and think "hmmm" and smile or frown or something.

(the photograph looks really good and grainy, and feels grainy, it is also funny because it is as though you are opening the woman's head open whenever you read the book. it is also melodramatic, i think sarcastically... the woman also seems to be smiling a bit).


(i would read this book and think "mcsweeneys, mcsweeneys" over and over [because the artist is the same artist as from "the believer"], which would affect my reaction to the book in a good way, because i would have a preconception that the stories would be well-meaning and slightly "politically liberal").


(i just like this. it is bright yellow and just nice. miranda july knows that people who read her stuff don't want pictures on the covers, because they want purity. miranda july knows that it would be condescending to put a picture or elaborate design on her cover because it would alienate the reader a little or something).


(the cover is abstract, which is good. it makes it so that you can not have any preconceptions before you start reading. it would have been easy for the publisher to put a depressing or amusing picture on the cover, or a picture of two people, or something, to imply that the book is sort of depressing and amusing and about relationships. but that would feel "wrong". it would be like watching a tv show with a laugh track, because it would pressure the reader into approaching the stories with certain preconceptions - i.e. "the front cover is amusing, so the stories must be amusing". the front cover is abstract, you can read it in a lot of different ways, just like the stories, or something. you can see different things at different times. i like the cover).


(i just like this. it is like pop art or something. whatever, i like it).


(the front cover seems to remind me of chelsey minnis' poems, i can't really explain it. maybe the repetition and the funny layout. i like it).

guide to bad television: a novel (chapter 1, pt 1)

this is probably 0.5% of my novel. congratulations, after reading this, you will have read 0.5% of a novel! i will probably change it a lot, you just read draft #1, i will probably do like 84 drafts or something.

On Friday night, Shaun sits on the plastic seat of his motor scooter and drives to the gas station. Shaun feels severe anxiety, thinking “gas station, sandy station, sandy gas, gas sandy”. A repetitive thought process. A repetitive thought process.

Half way to the gas station, only three blocks away, Shaun turns the lights off of his motor scooter and drifts through darkness. The street lights glow orange, not very bright. Cloak of invisibility. He pulls on the throttle. ‘Throttle’ sounds sarcastically hard-core, Shaun thinks. Sarcastically hard-core throttle-cloak of invisibility. Shaun is driving at sixty-five kilometres an hour in a densely built-up urban residential area. Pulling on his throttle. Illegally speeding throttle-cloak of invisibility.

Shaun turns a corner and almost runs into a car which is turning the other way. Nobody has their lights on, neither vehicle does. Shaun remembers driver training, his instructor always saying, “Turn the fucking lights on,” and Shaun being scared of his instructor and the way they abused their power to make him feel nervous and insignificant and stupid.

“What just happened?” someone says.

The woman who was in the car turning the corner steps out of the car and places her hands on her hips. She looks like Oprah Winfrey. Or nothing like Oprah Winfrey. The woman turns out to be Shaun’s old driving instructor. She always used to say to Shaun, “Turn the fucking lights on.” Now it is the other way around, sort of. Now Shaun could say to her, “Turn your fucking lights on, what sort of driving instructor are you, I could call the cops and get your instructor license taken away,” but that would be an abuse of power. It would be him using his momentary power over her just to make her feel bad. If Shaun were to call the police and tell them about his old driving instructor driving without her lights on, she would lose her qualifications, lose her job, become homeless, lose custody of her three small children, and perhaps develop a crack addiction and become a cheap prostitute. That is stupid and sexist, Shaun thinks, prostitution is. Shaun thinks, why I am even thinking about prostitution right now?

Shaun's old driving instructor looks scared. She knows that Shaun is thinking, “I could destroy you right now.” She is scared because she has more things than Shaun and more power, which means more things to have taken away and more power to have taken away. Shaun thinks about this. It would only be a momentary satisfaction for Shaun, destroying his old driving instructor. She made him feel bad during lessons. Fuck her. She made him feel stupid. Asked him, as some sort of joke, whether he had an intellectual disability, told him that he would never get his license, screamed at him at intersections. He was glad never to see her again.

But revenge is boring. It would feel satisfying for about five seconds, but then Shaun would feel bored and hypocritical. Using power to destroy other people is ‘bad’. Shaun doesn’t want to be ‘bad’. Shaun thinks about using power to destroy other people. No, he thinks.

“Cloak of invisibility,” says Shaun.

“Cocoon floating in complete and utter darkness,” says the driving instructor, feeling lucid. “Tonight I wanted to be feel alone and non-existent. You can only do that in complete and utter darkness. Wait. What am I talking about? Why I am explaining myself to you? You used to be my student. The one with the intellectual disability. That means that you were once my insubordinate. You are worse than me. Go away before I call the police.”

Shaun thinks, “Abuse of power,” and drives to the gas station. 

sarcastic and neutral prescription pill abuse

i am sitting at my computer reading about prescription pill abuse.

i like reading about prescription pill abuse, the stories are interesting to me.

can any interested, cynical, sarcastic, funny readers comment with their personal stories of prescription pill abuse? or just prescription pill use, it doesn't have to be abuse. i think i want some stories about xanax, restoril and prozac mostly.

(two things could happen now: either two hundred people reply, or nobody replies. kendra grant malone, i want you to reply. you said something funny about prescription pill abuse on your blog a while ago, i think that you would do a funny reply.)

revenge of "emotional vs neutral lit": the sequel

thank you tao for linking to the emotional vs neutral lit discussion. 

here are a couple of things that might make my original post make more sense.

1. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE CHOICES THAT ARE NOT EMOTIONAL

everything a human being does is emotional. every decision is emotional, because every choice is based around the human being thinking, "if i choose A as opposed to B, i will feel happier, so i will choose A". people always choose A. people are primarily concerned with feeling happy, rational thinking ("will my actions have a positive effect on the universe, overall?") is secondary.

for example, if i plant a thousand trees, i will be acting both emotionally and neutrally. but mainly emotionally. i would only plant the thousand trees if i knew that i would feel happier after planting them, which is regardless of whether or not it is a "good" thing to do. other examples: mother theresa helped poor people because it produced serotonin in her brain. george w bush invaded iraq because it produced serotonin in his brain. i wear fake wayfarer sunglasses because it produces serotonin in my brain. all human choices (beyond basic survival) are the same, everything that people choose is, "what will produce the most dopamine and serotonin?" that is what emotions are for, helping people make choices that will lead to more dopamine and serotonin being produced in their brains.

[so, i guess my whole argument is "flawed" then, who the fuck cares? i dislike it when people say, "your reasoning is flawed". everything a human being does is hypocritical, people who try to use "logical fallacies" against other people do not accept that everything is arbitrary, that people and beliefs are contradictory. a person goes to a zoo to look at cute animals and then eats a chicken burger at the cafe, a person buys a t-shirt saying "capitalists, your fall is near", a person who does not believe in god says "god bless you" and prays that he will get a promotion, a person who hates the alienating effects of technology has a mobile phone etc.]

2. NEUTRAL LIT IS THE OPPOSITE OF ADVERTISING

emotions are able to be easily exploited. people buy things (like clothes, home entertainment systems etc) because they think it will make them "happy". advertisements are generally based on saying, "you will receive more serotonin in your brain if you buy this product". in the 1940s, though, lots of advertisements were more neutral (although not completely neutral). they were more like public service announcements. here are some i made up: "buy and wear sunglasses in order to prevent the development of cataracts in your eyeball" or "buy and eat oranges in order to increase your intake of vitamin c" or "use soap in order to prevent the spread of deadly bacteria on your body."

today, advertisements are more like: "wear sunglasses in order to be more sexy", "eat oranges to be more sexy", "use soap in order to be more sexy." (sex produces a lot of serotonin).

neutral lit is the opposite of advertising, because it is rational. it does not try to "sell" a lifestyle because it is "sexy". neutral lit is almost always funny and sarcastic, the reason neutral lit is funny and sarcastic is because it is so odd to see things that are not advertising. lorrie moore's characters are the exact opposite of people that you would see in advertisements.

neutral lit is funny because it says things that are rational and sensible and we are not really used to reading things that are rational and sensible. we are used to reading things that are "sexy".

3% of the people who just read this post understood it, 2% agreed with it, and 1% will comment it.