No ideas but in things declared William Carlos Williams with his red wheelbarrow and pilfered plums. But I’m an idea guy and have always found ideas easier to work with than things. And what if we’re talking in terms of ideas of things, the aesthetics, the looking and thinking about things in ways which physically handling the things tends to destroy their beauty?
I’ll use the book cover as an example. Sure I love books and reading, but it’s because I’m a cover junkie that I take so many home. Most I don’t finish, some I don’t even open but instead pour over the cover, the design, the font, the humor. What is included, what is alluded to or excluded altogether? Now as a librarian I always feel a bit guilty about my strong attraction to covers and I have tried for a long time not to give in to this indulgent, graphic tractor beam, but resistance is futile. Now to make matters worse, in terms of staring at things, loosing hours just looking, I’ve been introduced to these sites, The Book Cover Archive , Faceout Books and Book Covers Anonymous (just a sampling of the links from BCA).
Jonas Lamb 