I have to find some old books that I'm willing to cut apart
for a class I'm taking next week. I own
hundreds of books; including my stash at school for the students, that number
is over twelve hundred. My school books
are all packed up, though, so I only have the oodles of books here at the
house. I should easily be able to find
something with pictures in it that I'm willing to cut and paste to my heart's
content.
I pass by the paperback collection. The book is supposed to have pictures and be
a genre outside of my writing comfort zone, so mainstream fiction and
non-fiction are eliminated from the list of options. I go through my collection of art and drawing
books, my humor collection, history, holiday, reference books, books full of
house plans for a house I'll never build, and children's picture books.
I can only come up with one possible book I'd be willing to slice
and dice: U.F.O.'s. Inside this book
are chapters like: Where it all started,
Strange things in Earth orbit, Lights in the sky, and The search for other worlds.
I discover that there are several advantages to this
book. It has some fantastic photographs
in it. There are pictures and photos in
black and white and also in color. Each
page is decorated with a clamshell-shaped UFO (which would make a fantastic
flip book if I decide to cut them out and glue them down onto index cards as if
they are one UFO in motion). The best
part, though, are the chapter titles, written in large and varied fonts. If I get to mix and match words to create
text, I will be in like Flynn.
The more I look at the book, the less I want to destroy
it. I remember why I bought it (on sale)
in the first place. I am now extremely
concerned that I will need to take a trip to Barnes and Noble and buy a random
book to use as my cut-and-paste book.
This is so not good.
I stare at the photo of the woman crouching along the
rock-filled vacuum of land in Nazca, Peru, an ancient site where patterns of
strange lines spread out in all directions for 200 square miles. She seems to be imploring, "Don't cut
me. Please." Perhaps she is thinking that I should save
her. Her eyes almost appear to be
pleading, "I'm innocent," which is the exact line my friends and I
throw around when we're really guilty but want to pretend we are not. Her motionless excuses mean nothing to me.
There's the full-page explanation of Foo Fighters, WWII
Allied bombers, that experienced strange light phenomenon inside their aircraft
while flying missions. How can I abandon
the Foo Fighters? How will I cut them to
shreds without compunction (especially
since their namesake makes such great music)?
This class starts Monday.
In the hour since I placed the book into the box of collected materials
I am readying for the course, I have already removed the book twice to peruse
through it. I should probably note that
the book has been gathering dust on my shelf for at least two years since the
last time I even touched it. Yet
suddenly, losing this book seems like surrendering a limb.
I will know by next Friday whether or not the book comes
through unscathed by remaining at home, or if my classmates and I tear it into
shreds of creative novelty along with the books they are also required to
contribute. For now, the book is indeed
in the school box. The bibliophiles
amongst us know exactly what I'm grappling with at the moment. Honestly, at this point, my money is not on
me. After all, the book has technology
and science fiction on its side. And
aliens. Everybody knows only Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
I have my work cut out for me … literally.
