Somebody once said, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” But I disagree.
In fact, I would go a step further: You can tell a lot about a guy by reading the book title peeking over the back pocket of his jeans.
At least that was true when I was in college back in the 1960’s, when a guy wouldn’t consider leaving the dorm without a book tucked in the rear pocket of his denims. In fact, accessorizing with the right book looming from your back pocket was probably the best way to meet some like-minded girl and strike up a conversation. The alternative was to wear a fraternity sweatshirt, which announced that you’d rather shut her up with a beer bong than hear what she’s got to say about anything.
Back then, any guy looking to make a statement had to decide each day if his pocket would carry Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse 5,” or maybe Salinger’s “Franny and Zooey.” Hmm…do I want the chicks to think of me as cynical and whimsical, or artsy and philosophical?
Or maybe dark and brooding is a better way to go — how about Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment?”
Or would I get more action if I struck a dusty ramblin’ man pose with Kerouac’s “On the Road?”
Yes, with the right book cover hovering over your butt-cheek, you could cut through a whole lot of that awkward introductory mumbo-jumbo and get down to the serious business of pretending to be deep and thoughtful.
But unfortunately, things have changed since the ‘60’s. The back-pocket literary howdy-do doesn’t work anymore.
For one thing, books have changed. None of those books that were so popular to wear in your back pocket in the ‘60’s were more than 200 pages or 250 tops. They were published in a 4X6 paperback format, maybe an inch thick at most. If you could fit a wallet in your right rear pocket, you could fit a novel in the other one.
But those days are gone, thanks to modern publishing trends. Today’s novelists are still clearing their throat on page 250. Their books are in a 6X9 format, wider than a pocket and thicker than Christmas fruitcake. You’d need a backpack and a hernia truss to carry around a novel from the past 40 years.
For another thing, the back pockets of most Americans’ jeans are strained to the limit just trying to keep American rumps under wraps. If 400 is the new 200 in the publishing world, it’s that way on American bathroom scales, too. If you found a way to stuff a 21st century book into the groaning denim on your ample buttocks, you’d need to beep when you made a tight turn to keep from knocking things over.
Besides, nobody reads books anymore anyway. Oh, they may still read novels, but they don’t do it in ink-on-paper form. Today’s readers stare at screens: iPads or smart phones or Kindles, and you can’t tell much about a guy by gazing at the smart phone bulge in his back pocket. What was he looking at the last time he fired that gizmo up? “Fifty Shades of Grey?” Angry Birds? GPS directions to the nearest Radio Shack?
Of course, just because books in our back pockets have died as a way to tell the world what we’re thinking about, that doesn’t mean that we haven’t found other ways to get the message out. Maybe you can’t judge a bro by his buttocks any more, but we have plenty of other “covers” to take up the slack.
For example, it shouldn’t take a girl long these days to know if she wants to strike up a conversation with that guy wearing the Tommy Hilfiger jacket or the dude in the Green Bay Packers hoodie. Or the guy in the T-shirt that says, “I’m not crazy. My mother had me tested.”
She can tell what kind of music she’ll hear in his car by measuring how many inches of underwear soar above his sagging pants or by judging how well-worn his boat shoes and cargo shorts are.
His tattoos announce whether she’ll be sipping chardonnay or slamming Red Bull with him at the evening’s end.
So, to that guy who said long ago that “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” I guess I would have to concede that you can’t judge anything by a book that no longer exists. Tell that old adage to your grandson, and he’ll say, “What’s a book? Do you mean a PowerBook?” Which, by the way, has also gone extinct.
But when you say that you can’t judge the cover?
Hey, even in an age without books, it’s all about the cover.
It has always been about the cover.
It always will be about the cover.
• Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.
