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Good is dead.
Chances are you know Chip Kidd without really knowing him. If you’ve bought or read a book over the last 25 years, then yes, you’ve probably met Chip without so much as a handshake or nod from the across the room. That’s how I met him.
It was 2003. I was in Napa, California for a sort of vacation under the premise of checking out Sonoma State University. On the way back from the campus, I stopped at a small, Mom & Pop bookstore to do what anyone else does when they go to a small, Mom & Pop bookstore. Among the various used and budget-priced titles, one caught my eye. At the time I was into philosophy - it was a bit of a forced habit since I needed supplemental credits to graduate, and I really didn’t want to take anything that involved numbers or science – and after receiving a taste of Nihilism and Existentialism in high school (thank you, Mr. McCarty), anything remotely having to do with Nietzsche made my mouth water. And so, while browsing this small bookstore, my eyes landed upon the blue spine of a hardcover book that said, at a glance, “God is Dead.” I walked over, pulled the book from the shelf, and examined it. I was wrong. It didn’t say “God is Dead.” It actually read “GOOD IS DEAD.”
I flipped it over. The front cover bore the title, “The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters” by Chip Kidd. The rest of the cover was equally strange, with images cut off at the spine - hell, even the author’s photo was cut off at the bottom of the slip. I say “slip” because that’s what it was – a slip of paper that slid onto the front cover. The edges of the book were adorned with the author’s acknowledgments in tiny, white letters, and when I saw a couple of said acknowledgments went out to Handjobs Magazine and Jergens Hand Lotion, I knew I had a winner. I didn’t even know what the book was about, but I had to have it.
On Uncledom, kids, aging, and other oddities.
I really need to start posting here more regularly. My apologies for not doing so, and for lumping four or five days’ worth of content into one massive post.
Before I get started, allow me to welcome my nephew Quentin Charles Ball into the world. He’s been here for about a week, but I’ve been busy and I needed to get permission to post his photo here. In any case, he’s here, and from what I’ve heard, he’s a very good baby. I’m also told he has long, alien-like fingers, much like I do, and that’s just great. One more youth to corrupt with the likes of rock music and subversive fiction. His mother claims his full name is “Quentin Charles Todd Ball,” which came about last summer when I quipped that she should name him after me. I just hope she’s kidding, and that he only has three names on his birth certificate, and not four. It’s bad enough that they’re going to call him Q-Ball. But four names? That’s just sadistic.
It’s weird to be able to say I’m an uncle. Thinking about that makes me realize that Erica’s son, Gabriel, will be five in a little over a week. That makes me feel even older. And I’m not even 25 yet. I’ve known Gabe since before he was two years old. I’ve watched him grow up, and while the word “Dad” has only crept up once or twice, I’m perfectly fine just being “Todd.” I’m his partner in crime, especially when it comes to driving his grandmother insane. The kid never ceases to astound me, though, and his eagerness to learn how to read makes me giddy.
Sorry, I’ve got something in my eye. Let’s get on with the rest of this, hmm?
I’m afraid I’ve not much to offer this week in the way of writer things except for this nifty little blog that author David Louis Edelman wrote about how to help promote your favorite author. It’s a great list, and it reminded me to work on recompiling the promotional material for ALT, so look for that to be downloadable in the coming days. Then you can make your own signs, posters, etc. and picket your local bookstore to stock the book. Right? Right.
The Full Package
It seems I’ve succumbed to the habit of hoarding news articles and various internet oddities over a period of days while composing a blog entry in my head. Have I fallen victim to the blog culture? It appears so. I’m not complaining, though. In this time of slow editing and idea generation, I’m happy to be writing something at all. It keeps my fingers limber and my brain firing for a better purpose than the banal daily routines of eating, sleeping, and defecating.
That last comma up there marks the first Oxford comma I’ve used in a long time.
I found this article to be interesting, if not alarming, as I couldn’t help but imagine a day when scores of American teenagers are “writing” the next great American novel via a Sidekick keyboard or, worse, the numeric keys on their smaller-than-your-thumb cell phone. Call me old fashioned, but I have a cell phone that allows me to call people and that’s about it. Nothing fancy. The phone itself was free with my plan. It’s over two years old. The screen is scuffed, the battery wears down a bit faster than I’d like it to, and the numbers on the buttons are starting to rub off. I can’t stand text messages, and to imagine someone punching in a novel makes my head hurt. Maybe I’m getting old. Give me a pen and notebook any day; you kids can take your cell phone and get the hell off my lawn.