Yesterday my copy of
the Anticraft book showed up. I had been able to resist buying a copy (yay me!), although I'd walked to the book store several times to 'visit' it. I would whisper to the other people in the bookstore, "I'm in a book." Well, not so they could hear. Now I can be creepy in the privacy of my own home.
Why couldn't this book have come out in the 90s!? I would have loved it so much. I would have cried when I found it ... probably literally. I was kooky girl living in San Francisco that crocheted, and I felt utterly alone. This book would have been like a divine light. Plus, those were the days when I would have actually had a use for a duct tape corset or the time to complete a graffiti cross-stitch scene.
I started reading it before bed, cuddled in my blankets. The book starts with the
Antifesto, which I love. I remember the first time I read it and I thought to myself, "These are my people!" I felt especially touched by the last line, "We want you to help us carry this along, which makes it political - a stand against the current trends in society to sanitize grief, drug sadness, hide obscenities, stigmatize sex, and take everything much too seriously."
I feel very strongly about each of those things. VERY STRONGLY. I just wrote a rant about the whole thing, from which you will be spared. Suffice it to say, I prefer to live in a reality whose shiny happy rainbows are *balanced* with grimy underbelly grit. I like knowing the truth, even when I don't like the truth itself.
Back to the book ... The art direction is amazing! I love the destroyed layout and Victorian clip art. The book is definitely Punk-Goth-Industrial. The photos are wonderful and so kick-assed-ly styled. All three of my projects have OWLS in the photos! So awesome! I really had no idea what the book would look like, and I was so relieved that it looks so cool.
I love all their little asides in the book, too. One page is full of nerdy, misanthropic, three-dollar words like, a recent favorite of mine,
schadenfreude. I'm always careful to say it "shod-en ..." (like clod) because my Midwestern inclination is to say "shade-n ..." Kind of like I used to say flan like plan.
Well, I'm totally proud of myself. It's so funny, when I first found out they accepted my projects, I was worried about telling people because I didn't believe it would actually happen. Then, once I realized it was a go, I was worried about telling people because the book might suck. So, I just want to point out to myself, "Hey look! Something actually worked out well and didn't implode or explode or do any ploding of any kind. This whole experience rocked!" Thanks self, I really needed to hear that right about now.
Hey, see that? That's my name in a book.