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<\/a>El pianista que mandan llamar<\/p><\/div>\n
This photo of a payphone from the West 4th Street subway station appears on the cover of El pianista que mandan llamar<\/a><\/cite>, by Luis Dom\u00ednguez Vial. This book was reviewed at elperiodista<\/a>. That photo actually appears to have been taken from this page<\/a> at the old Payphone Project site, though it may have resided at sorabji.com earlier. This happened to be the first of these book covers that I found, and I was taken aback by the fact a pianist and a payphone appeared in the same context. As a pianist with a particular interest in payphones I initially imagined the connection was deliberate, but that seems unlikely.<\/p>\n Ciertas Criaturas Terrestres<\/p><\/div>\n The Hammacher Schlemmer window display seen on Jorge Diaz’s Ciertas Criaturas Terrestres<\/cite><\/a> was “The Big Picture” for December 5, 2002<\/a>. That’s a photo of which I had no memory whatsoever, and which I find unpleasant to look at.<\/p>\n I discontinued “The Big Pictures” 4\u00bd years ago, after Chinese hackers blew out my web server and nearly sent me over the brink. I was ready to stop doing a daily picture anyway. The idea of presenting a single daily image as some kind of marquee piece of content made less and less sense on an Internet that is drowning in images.<\/p>\n Nueva Narrative Cubana<\/p><\/div>\n Nueva Narrative Cubana<\/a><\/cite>‘s cover uses a photo from Coney Island (they spelled it “Conney Island” in the citation) that was the “Big Picture” for August 26, 2002<\/a>. The cover image from the publisher’s web site is hard to make out but that’s definitely the same shot, just cropped at the upper right.<\/p>\n Cuentos Perfectos<\/p><\/div>\n The cover of Cuentos perfectos<\/a><\/cite>, by Antonio Rojas G\u00f3mez, has another photo of a Hammacher Schlemmer window display, though I cannot seem to find where it is or might have been at sorabji.com. The weird thing about this shot is that I would have bet cash cash money I took it later than 2003, when this book was first published. From what I can piece together from the book’s Amazon.com page the title was reissued in 2008 and more recently issued again in a Kindle edition. If they changed the cover for the Kindle Edition that might explain it, though I’m not bulletproof certain that the picture postdates 2003.<\/p>\n Flores para un cyborg<\/p><\/div>\n The cover of Diego Mu\u00f1oz Valenzuela’s Flores para un cyborg<\/a><\/cite> There are others, too. I think I found 8 or 9 books out there with my photos on the covers. Normally I might take offense at this sort of thing<\/a> but I can’t. It’s been so long since it happened, and I don’t think this publishing house meant any harm or made cash money on account of the images. I also like the way the covers look. The mutual amateurishness of the books’ designs and my images complement each other. I also appreciate the clear citations.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>
\nlooks like a cropped version of the “Big Picture” for December 12, 2002<\/a>, though I seem to remember posting other shots of that graffiti. On account of this particular title I have an entry on record at the Tercera Foundation<\/a>. I’m sure that doesn’t mean a damn thing but it’s an unexpected and strange discovery.<\/p>\n