“Judge a book by its Cover”
the old man in the hat
I like books. I guess I grew up a time in our history when there were no cable channels, no satellite TV, no internet, no cell phones, no Facebook. You know. The dark ages. The 1960’s. Rabbit ears and three channels. My children don’t understand. “What did you do?”, they ask with a quizzical look of utter bewilderment.
Well, I read books, comics, Mad magazine, newspapers, the funny pages. Anything and everything.
Confession time again. Despite the much quoted wisdom, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”,
I do exactly that. And why not?
When you go to a restaurant, who doesn’t look at the pictures on the cover on the menu and says, “that looks good!” It may turn out to be inedible, but we give it a try.
When we buy a new car, who doesn’t want to try out the convertible Camaro. It looks hot. It looks mean. Sure the van is what you really need, but when is the last time you dreamed about a new van?
I have watched movies where the scenes, music, and graphics in the opening credits are better that the rest of the movie!
So, what about those books? Do you buy the ones that have a plain brown cover, with a generic title, “Romance”, or do you go for the ones with a catchy phrase and a picture of a beautiful woman and a handsome man embraced in a rapturous kiss? Sure, it may turn out to be a dud. The story may not live up to the promise of the cover. But, I’m guessing, you would give it a try.
As in everything, politics imitates life.
Speaking of covers, I just have to mention a few politicians. Remember George Bush. If George was a book, would you buy him? A bit generic and certainly hard to understand. But good at fiction. Remember those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Oops! Guess that was a bad plot line!
What about Barak? Flash. Nice cover. Articulate and whip smart. A hard book to put down. Still being written, but fascinating.
Let’s not forget about Canada. We like good fiction here in Canada too. We have our very own ‘Stevie Wonder”. The inscrutable grey buddha. I’ve seen wooden statues with more hair out of place than our PM. Smirk versus smile. About Mike. Steve, what about Duff’s 96K. Sounds like Harpy’s been plagiarizing the Watergate plot line. What did you know, when and who told you? Maybe we could ask those questions if you actually had an open, unscripted, non pre-approved, pre-screened questions. Oh yeah, I forgot, you would also have to be in Parliament. You remember that place, “Paradise Lost”, don’t you Stevie?
I think that it time to visit the library for some fresh reading material.
Comments: theoldmaninthehat@sissonridge.ca
