(An earlier partial draft of this posting was inadvertently posted a while ago. This is the final draft.)
From Ryan Tamares (a Stanford librarian — this is relevant — who got it from other librarians on Facebook) a few days back, this image of a book:
(#1)
I was much taken by the title — who would not be? — and asked about the book. Ryan (who has serious resources for checking on such things) was surprised to discover that no such book seemed to exist. So, presumably a wry bit of language art, but who was the artist?
Indeed it is, and I found the source through a blog posting for National Poetry Month in 2016.
On the “Oh, by the way” blog by “Interior Designer, Actor, Poet, Artist” the mononymous Jeff: “Smart Ways To Use Poetry In A Street Fight: In honor of National Poetry Month” on 4/3/16, the artist is identified as Johan Deckmann, who specializes in language art framed as book covers. From his “About” page:
Johan Deckmann is a Copenhagen-based artist, practicing psychotherapist and author, whose works examine the complications of life through witty one-liners painted on the covers of fictional “self-help” books. These book titles, though often filled with scathing satire and humour, tackle life’s biggest questions, fears, and absurdities.
A words-only example, in a frame (so that it is presented as Art):
(#2)
June 16, 2020 at 12:42 pm |
Sadly, in the commercially available edition it seems that all of the pages are blank,
https://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Journal-Planner-Gratitude-Notebook/dp/169136102X.
However, Prof. Oddfellow has kindly posted speculative fragments of the volume, https://danskjavlarna.tumblr.com/post/142099899589/youve-seen-johan-deckmanns-smart-ways-to-use.
June 16, 2020 at 1:07 pm |
John’s response was to the earlier partial draft, but it is nevertheless a propos.
The Amazon item is one of many in which arresting images are used as covers for blank books, in which people can take notes.
The Oddfellow is another matter, a gigantic academic joke in which the writer takes using poetry in a street fight entirely literally and imagines what the material in such a book might be like (even if the original text has been, unaccountably, lost).
June 17, 2020 at 4:29 am |
Dear Arnold,
If you are not yet acquainted with Alexei Sayle’s ‘The Noble Art of Verbal Abuse’, then please allow me to demonstrate…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JnPfgX82GmM
Thirty years on, this is still one of the funniest things i’ve ever seen.
Greetings from Bunbury, Western Australia.
June 17, 2020 at 4:59 am |
This is indeed wonderful, and I thank you for it. This particular posting of mine is only tangentially connected to verbal abuse — but I’m working on another posting on smears and jeers, where it’s more directly relevant.