By Melody Sherosky
Blind Man’s Rainbow

Christoph Meyer’s poetry is in this issue, so I find it fitting to also include a review of his book. So here goes: I cannot believe any person would subject themselves to this sort of torture. No, I don’t mean reading the book (it is actually a nice read, full of Amish people and such). No, I am speaking about the labor involved in making this book. If you are familiar with Meyer’s zine, Twenty-eight Pages Lovingly Bound with Twine, you are familiar with his ability to make publications in the most awkward and time consuming fashion. I’m impressed with his patience every time I see one of his publications. What I did is no different. In a little ad he wrote up for the book he says, “You have no idea how labor-intensive it is making over 2000 copies of a book by hand, especially when the book contains silkscreens, hand-coloring, stamps, stickers, highlighting, etc.” But it sure does look pretty awesome. And it’s good, too! At first I was browsing the book by opening it randomly to see the author’s handy work. This actually worked out well for the story inside, as you can almost pick up anywhere. There are sections (chapters?) that cover vignette about this and that. Chapter XXIV is called “Your Choice of Toppings: Raw Venison or Ripe Blackberries.” In it, Meyer’s language and description made me laugh as he described his sister and her friend as “recently backsliding vegetarians.” He and these backsliders, and Meyer’s children (they seem to be along for the entire book) “pile into the minivan. Lisa’s driving and I’m riding shotgun, deciphering the map. According to their immutable laws of minivan seating, Lisa and I are ‘the parents.’ Whenever ‘the kids’ get fussy, I display the back of my hand in a threatening manner and Lisa screams idle threats like ‘I’ll turn this car around right now’ or ‘don’t make me stop the car and come back there.’ It’s good fun.” Also good fun are Meyer’s accounts of traveling on Amtrak. I love Amtrak and travel on the Empire Builder (that’s the line between Chicago and Seattle/Portland) often. Meyer encounters the Amish, Mrs. P and Mr. O onboard this line. And much, much more. One hundred and fifty-eight pages all full of individual touches would be nothing without a good story—and there is more than that here. Twenty dollars may seems like a lot but it won’t when you get it.