Friday, April 18, 2014

Paperback 765: 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft / Tuli Kupferberg & Robert Bashlow (Grove / Evergreen Black Cat BC-140)

Paperback 765: Grove Press / Evergreen Black Cat BC-140 (3rd ptg, 1969)

Title: 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft
Authors: Tuli Kupferberg & Robert Bashlow
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $20

BC140

Best things about this cover:
  • Well, that's one way.
  • This cover is simultaneously horrifying and hilarious (the latter by juxtaposition with the title). Contorted body is one of the most monstrous human figures I've ever seen. 
  • Found this little book jammed in among a ton of other old paperbacks on a cart outside Falling Leaves in Ithaca last weekend.
  • This book is literally a numbered list of 1001 ways to beat the draft. There are illustrations and documents interspersed throughout. It's a very, very serious joke, this book. 

BC140bc

Best things about this back cover:
  • Kill for Peace
  • If LBJ got drafted …
  • Signature is a nice touch

Page 123~ (pages are unnumbered, so here is a sampling of Ways to Beat the Draft)
11. Start to menstruate (better red than dead)
479. Contemplate the horror of murder
480. Sleep late with your warm girlfriend
782. Be so ugly you fail even Army standards
4. Die 
~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

2 comments:

Unknown said...

There is a sequel, 1001 Ways to Live Without Working.

Pat said...

Dying to avoid the draft seems a bit counter-productive. Also, there is no such thing as too ugly to be in the Army.