Thursday, June 11, 2015

More Slices Of Bacon: A CarPeo Appreciation

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If I was born to do something,
it was to design book jackets.
Paul Bacon
 



The  previous page  
proves Mr. Bacon 
wasn't a one-trick 
pony designer.

 Both pages prove
 the search engine
 and memory can
 work overtime.





By 1969, I was a train-hopping hipster
if and only if the train was a subway
that got me into Greenwich Village
on a Friday night.

If something groovy did not happen
there, I would buy a book.

One night in 1969, I returned home
to Long Island with nothing
but  Brinton's book  to keep
me company and make
my parents think I was
a revolutionary.

The name on the bottom of the cover 
was  Paul Bacon.

I read the first two pages of the book aloud
while my mother–awakened at midnite–
cooked me a BLT.

I never read another word of Brinton's book
and forgot all about Paul Bacon until two nights ago
when Mrs. CarPeo sent me his obituary.

 

By 1973, few things in life 
were more important than 
baseball and today I can watch 
TEAMMATES  on youTube!






In 1973, I visited friends on the East End
of Long Island–the cultural opposite of
Greenwich  Village.


The greatest memory
of that visit was on a queue
at the post office.

The man in front of me
was Joseph Heller. 


I said not one single
solitary word to him
but his Catch-22 (and other 
novels covered by Paul Bacon) 
convinced me that fiction can 
dress up the greatest truths 
in high-heel sneakers. 







Paul Bacon
R.I.P.
His most inspirational image is  here. 
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