Dondie is back with me once again to help me comment on the paperback carnage. And we're off:
Title: The Man with the Heart in the Highlands and Other Stories
Author: William Saroyan
Cover artist: Cassler
- And thus "Riverdance" was born ...
- "Dance, Timmy, dance, or I'll cut off your other arm!"
- This book was later retitled "The Child Predator with the Heart in the Highlands." (Subtitle: "Queerscarf!")
- Dondie says: "Ballet for the geriatric pedophile in all of us!"
- Dondie and I cannot agree on whether that is a cornet or a flugelhorn.
Editor: Morton White
Cover artist: Uncredited
- "Shh, I'm contemplating."
- "My bicep is HUGE! And astonishingly truncated!"
- Spirograph! - "Mom, look what I made in Arts & Crafts today!"
- Dondie says: "P.S., my hand looks like a buttox!"
- If you cover up "YSIS," this title is funny.
Title: Satan's Rock
Author: Marilyn Ross
Cover artist: [George Ziel]
- Lucy Ashton says: "Pax vobiscum"
- "We finally saved up enuff to get that castle addition on the old barn - uh oh, Bessie, it done caught fire already!"
- Rex says: "This castle is pooping out the moon ... onto a boat."
- Satan's architectural abomination - how does that monstrosity not crush the outcropping it's built on top of?
- Dondie says: "I want that shade of lipstick. I think it's called 'Coral.' I haven't seen that shade in some time."
Author: Thomas M. Disch
Cover artist: Uncredited
- Jewfro Sanderson and His Posse of Floating Vitamins!
- "I've come back from the future to get a refund for this awful haircut. You are getting sleepy ..."
- Is he coming through the rainbow pastel portal on his knees?
- Most highly decorated general ever: "I came back to get my forty-third star, biatch!"
"The year is 1990" is the funniest sentence ever.
"The year is 1990. The universe has witnessed the ultimate invention: The Chunnel!" (also "The Simpsons" and Windows 3.0)
Title: The Dark Frontier
Author: Eric Ambler
Cover artist: Oliver [...]
- Apparently, her bra is only 50% operational.
- Pencil Mustache liked to grip his gun with just two fingers - Euro-style.
- Her pendant weirdly matches the emblem on Pencil Mustache's gigantic cap.
- Dondie says: "I'm quite sure he is doing something to her ass."
- Are they in a ghost lab? What is that syringe / baster / bunsen burner on her left?
Title: Daybreak
Author: Frank G. Slaughter
Cover artist: James Meese
- First thing you must do - click on "Daybreak" (above) for background music while you read this entry and clap your hands like a doofus with your fingers drastically outstretched.
- Next thing you must do - read the back cover. Since you can't, we'll tell you what it says. It begins:
"The operation is simple. It is called a frontal lobotomy and its purpose is to pacify the violently insane."
OK, that's pretty much all you need to know. And now, the one-act play that is ... Daybreak:
Lynn: "Hello, my name is Lynn. Will you be removing my frontal lobes this morning? I put on this yellow dress for you. Let's go play tennis. I want to kill you with my teeth and bare hands."
Jim: "Your eyebrows are far too black for us to proceed. Do you like my neck whistle? I just came back from coaching a soccer game."
Lynn: "Your hands feel manly."
Jim: "Your shoulders are small. Say 'aaah.'"Lynn: "Jim, I don't want to be rude, but ... you have a giant dollop of toothpaste on your head."
Jim: "No, Lynn. That's my yarmulke. You are just being violently insane. Now, I repeat, Say 'Aaah!'"
Lynn: "But Jim, my mouth only opens this far."
Jim: "Well then, we have our work cut out for us, and I do mean 'cut out'"
[both characters chuckle amiably]
Jim: "Here, take two of these gigantic Mexican aspirin and take off that dress."
Lynn, reading: "'Aspirina...' Is that safe?"
Jim: "For the violently insane, yes. It helps numb your lobes. P.S. your slip is showing."
FIN
Title: Angélique
Author: Anne Golon
Cover artist: photo cover
Author: Anne Golon
Cover artist: photo cover
- "RO RO RO your boat..."
- The casting of "Ginger" on "Gilligan's Island" was a long and arduous process, and involved many a gland check.
- Dondie says: here is a one-scene play I have written about this cover:
Ginger: "Don't hate me just because I'm wrapped in a curtain!"
The Count: "But my cuffs are so satiny and superfluous, I must strangle!"
Ginger: "Perhaps if I expose my teeth in a feral grimace, I can convince you to leave me alone and shave your sideburns."
FIN
Title: Dance of Love
Author: Arthur Schnitzler
Illustrations: Rene Gockinga
Cover artist: Uncredited
- Dondie says: "Those are pretty nice boobs ... If I had those boobs, I'd probably have a lot more money."
- Why is her right boob so much longer than her left one?
- Her hair is patriotic.
- She has a face that says one or more of the following:
A. "My boyfriend is a douche."Join us next week for Further Tales from the Book Sale.
B. "Thanks for the heroin."
C. "My left breast casts an impressive shadow."
D. "Are you looking at ... this nipple?"
E. "Get me a beer, put the money on the dresser, and get out."
RP (with Dondie)
9 comments:
Does the cover art for "The Age of Analysis" remind anyone else of Ben Shahn?
Book #1: The sky is bright yellow, and yet you don't remark on that? How can they do a jig when the world is clearly ending?
Book #2: Holy crap, get that man a doctor! His wrist is broken. Go ahead. Try to duplicate that pose with your right hand on your cheek. Does your wrist bend that way? Also, I want his lipstick.
Book #3: Nice windblown hair effect.
Book #4: The hand that's trapped in the portal has a ginormously long thumb, doesn't it?
Book #5: Her bra's not the problem. The problem is that she paid $15 to get her brows waxed and they came out like that.
Book #6: Thank you for the soundtrack. I was not compelled to clap (only to sway to the beat happily).
Book #7: Actually, he's a dentist. He's checking her bite.
Book #8: Poor author. First banned for 50 years, and then they finally publish his book...and his name gets less play than the Loeb Drama Center.
Perhaps you could interest Showtime in a miniseries of melodramatic vignettes. Armistead Maupin did it with his Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Further Tales of the City, et al. (Well, the first Tales was on PBS, but Showtime saw the opportunity in More and Further).
I think there's lots of potential here.
Maybe it's the light, but doesn't Lucy Ashton look suspiciously like that bizarro Michael Jackson mugshot of yesteryear?
That would be a coronet.
I like "Satan's Rock" the best, as it's my policy to always go for the book with a boat. Any possible diagnoses on what terrible disease has given the heroine those massive, massive eyes?
It is definitely a cornet, not a flugelhorn (which is quite large.) This has a small bell. That's just for the sake of "anatomical correctness."
Now, where you disappoint is this: Arthur Sch?i?zler (Schniezler? Schriezler?) Surely you can DO something with a name like that. (Maybe he Schriezled that one boob?)
Elaine in Arkansas
It's "Schnitzler." You know, the guy who makes the schnitzel. And banned books, apparently.
[QUOTE]Book #1: The sky is bright yellow, and yet you don't remark on that? How can they do a jig when the world is clearly ending?[/QUOTE]
Maybe they caused the end of the world (or are celebrating the fact that their prediction of the world ending was correct). And, yes, I do think overlooking this was bad, but with the obvious pedophile joke staring you in the face, it's very easy to miss the sky's odd coloring.
The cover for SATAN'S ROCK appears to be the work of George Ziel, a prolific and often excellent artist. Although far from his best work, it does provide a decent example of his Gothic style.
Mark
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