Six Million Dollar Man photo by seeingDeniz (Flickr)
… you are incapable of defacing a book even if it’s for a good cause.
I took a bookmaking class (yes, I’m a “bookie” now :-)) and while I can make blank books and pamphlets from scratch, I am congenitally unable to “alter” books, even extremely boring, out-of-date ones. “Altered books” are regular books (usually discarded ones) that have been changed in some way by the artist. Sometimes this means that they have been cut into different shapes, sometimes this means that the pages have been cut up and painted in order to tell an entirely different story.
Knowing this, I decided that I would probably be okay just reusing old book parts so when I saw a battered copy of “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” on the library book sale pile, I didn’t hesitate to shell out 50 cents for it. My plan was to save the cover which had an interesting design, cut out the old text block (a text block is the pages that have all the printing on them), insert a new text block (blank journal pages), and add new endpapers (endpapers go on the inside cover of the book).
I was doing fine until I made my fatal error: I started to actually read the book. And enjoy it. And then my whole plan fell apart. Gosh, I said to myself, with some new endpapers and a little glue on the spine this book could be as good as new.
[insert “Six Million Dollar Man” theme music here]
Gentlefolk, I can rebuild it. I have the technology. I can make this book better than it was before. Better, faster, stronger …. YES, I CAN NURSE THIS BOOK BACK TO HEALTH!!!!
*Sigh* Well, so much for nabbing art materials from the book sale table ….
Ack, stay away from the book sales! That way lies madness.
Glad you can remake it, but I want to know how you will have it make that bionic sound when you turn each page 😉