Papercuts on the Mind's Tongue: Books

the idea born in someone's mind
is nurtured by a thousand blind
anonymous beings, vacuous souls
do you fear the confusion?
your lack of control?
you lift your arm to write a name
so caught up in the identity game
who do you see? who do you watch?
who's your leader? which is your flock?

The Making of Judge Dredd: Dredd versus Death

Ethan Switch - Thursday, January 29, 2004

Arriving in the mail all the way from the UK, a marble dyed package. Within, a cool smelling copy of The Making of Dredd: Dredd versus Death. Rebellion's take on their tale of the efforts that went into the making of the cross platform game, Judge Dredd: Dredd versus Death. On the subdued and shiny cover, a transitional image of Judge Joe Dredd from the wire frame into the model used in the game and as a way to bring in the core of the book.

First off, the sheer weight of it all cannot be escaped. Killing someone or at least knocking them out cold shouldn't be too hard with this book. Rather cumbersome, casual reading isn't an easy option here. The binding and the thickness of the book makes for hard reading supported on arms or being held up in the air. Pages clinging together in an atomic sort of way, their bulk puts in the fear of having to react to the pages as they tear away from the spine. A table is what's needed to do away with the numerous impressions left on the forearms from cradling the hardcovers.

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A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

Belvedere Jehosophat - Tuesday, June 10, 2003

It seems that, because of the recent adaptation of another, different Virginia Woolf book, bookstores have been importing as many of her books as possible to cope with the current, and what will probably short lived, consumer demand. This is how I came to find and buy A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf.

I suspect that when the Gwyneth Paltrow movie based on the life of Sylvia Plath is released there will be a similar demand for her poetry. No matter, I am not reviewing consumer foibles, I am reviewing A Room of One’s Own.

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Textual Manipulation for Dummies (Design & Typography in easy steps)

Ethan Switch - Monday, March 17, 2003

The basic premise of the Kama Sutra is to provide visual guides for enterprising and consenting sexual partners (or strangers) a way to explore positions in the art of fornication. It is an idea not that far removed from that of reading a book, any book, for extended periods of time. In both instances there is the task at hand and if a suitable position isn't found it could prove to be the undoing and perhaps even sour the moment. Which is why spending a mere 118 minutes reading a book in typography and lay out was rather startling. Startling in the fact that it only took 118 minutes to read all of the 186 pages in a library. Index not included in the reading.

Variations on a theme can always prove to yield endless results no matter what the situation. Such is the subject of a page of text and/or graphics. Design & Typography in easy steps is much like a learner's guide into the world of page lay out. Providing numerous examples and little pointers it presents an easy to understand hand with which to hold and follow into in the treacherous world of copy manipulation.

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Sleeping Tight at Night under the Gelignite (The Australian Terrorism Kit)

Ethan Switch - Friday, February 21, 2003

By now, every Australian should have received the taxpayer funded mail out of the Federal Government's Terrorism Kit. Not long ago a copy was delivered to a mysteriously flowering bush outside the Head Office of The Wax. Unsure about why it would be laying on the ground I ventured over a suburb away and grabbed a copy from somebody's mailbox. With all the time that has passed, if they wanted to keep theirs they would have taken them in.

Putting back the other envelopes which fell out of the slot the walk back to the office was marred by the fact that the newly acquired package was crooked, menacingly so. But one cannot always read into things that may have occurred naturally due to wear and cocaine.

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Books reviews from the vault

Flick through all the other books reviews ever written at The Wax Conspiracy.

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