Thu, 19 May 2005

Owen Covers His Books
When Owen was in middle school, it was mandatory that in the first week of classes all the students put bookcovers on all their textbooks. Some kids went to the store and bought bookcovers with pictures of horses or stock cars or Jack Calamity on the front. These were the kids who were generally involved in the quiet escalation of school supplies, incresingly ornate trapper keepers and pens which wrote in thirty different colors. Owen was always struck with the school supply fetish, which would come back to haunt him during his brief visits to the offices where Rissa would temp, but storebought bookcovers were generally weak, and had to be constantly replaced. Instead, Owen made his bookcovers from grocery bags, the Food King logo with “We Are The Meat People” turned inside, facing the cover, leaving a brown canvas with the name of the book on the cover and spine. This left Owen plenty of room for drawing little crucified stick-figures, or figuring out nested BASIC goto loops. When Ana was in the hospital, and Owen couldn’t get any sleep, he made bookcovers for every book he owned, and they’re all still on to this day.
(12:10.05.19.2005) [/alpha/owenrissa] #