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So we’ve found ourselves in possession of this wonderful photograph, taken by Heather D’Augustine:
We think this is a great image to use to promote D. R. Haney’s Subversia, the maiden TNB Book, because, and I’m pretty sure Don Draper mentioned this in his pitch to the folks at London Fog, and even Peggy Olsen would agree, if you can build your ad campaign around either a photo of an infirm dude in a hospital bed or a photo of a woman’s pretty legs, you go with the legs.
The only problem is, we can’t seem to come up with a decent tagline. So we figured, hey, Milo’s limerick contest went pretty well, and everyone digs that cartoon caption contest on the back page of The New Yorker (I actually can’t stand that contest, but whatever)– why don’t we do the same thing?
So here it is: Think of a good tagline for the picture. Post it in the comments section below. Enter as often as you like.
The criteria, naturally, is something that will make a visitor to the site want to click on the slide and buy the book. It doesn’t have to be the funniest or the sexiest or anything other than, simply, terrific ad copy.
The contest closes at the stroke of midnight, PST, on Monday, December 27. The winner receives a signed copy of Subversia, plus a personal note from the author…and the honor of having bested the best minds of the TNB Universe.
Thanks, folks. Now go make Don Draper proud (and Duke happy).
Click here to see more
(it will never fail. No one ever said what they’d be seeing more of.)
Subversia: So good, you want it between your legs.
Subversia: It’s like underwear, but readable
D.R. Haney has been to the places you’ve wished you could go.
Hopefully I’ve inspired someone to come up with something better than that crap. 🙂
And by crap, I meant my entries not Duke’s excellent book.
Not one of those was crap. I thought they were bawdy and fun.
I agree with Kymberlee. Funny stuff.
Yeah, we’re all for bawdy around here. Furry, too.
The Great American Non-Novel
The Great American UnNovel
Mrs. Scott? Is that you?
Read Me
I couldn’t help but think “Read my lips” after this one.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
I’ll raise you a few more ha’s.
What Duke said.
Seriously funy.
Seriously funny.
Subversia by Duke Haney. Includes the acclaimed essays, “What’s for Dinner?,” “Are Those Converse?” and “Yes, You Can Use That as Dental Floss.”
You know you want to know what’s inside.
i like this one too.
Thanks. As I’m reading all of these, I’m stunned by the cleverness. What fun this is!
SUBVERSIA…because you’re not dead yet.
A direct quote from you:
“The only way to get a lot back is to put a lot out”
good one!
Have you seen my head?
Hey. The title of a piece in the book. I never would have thought of that as a caption, but it’s nice that it’s a title of a piece in the book, huh?
I think so.
Or
“Where is my mind” (Pixies)
Subversia:
A collection of true stories with legs.
Between the Lines.
Subversia
One man’s walk on the wild side.
________________________________
Subversia
Would these eyes lie?
_______________________________
Subversia
Hardly the lap of luxury.
Subversia
will steal your heart.
Subverisa
A brutally alluring comedy of one man’s life.
EAT ME. (what? It’s an Alice in Wonderland reference…very literary)
Something old (enough), Something new, Something borrowed, Something blue.
“…foreplay.”
“…before you can eat your dessert, you have to read your dinner.”
Subversia: Everyone has a few pages of life worth the fondle.
Subversia™ gave me the slim, toned thighs I’ve always wanted! Thanks, Subversia™!
(Consult your doctor before beginning a course of Subversia™. May contain anal leakage)
hahahaha! I needed that laugh tonight. Thank you.
Please note that the health warning featured there was not a comment on the quality of Duke’s writing. It was a Joke™.
As I think you know, Steve, I am very partial to ™.
Subversia – it’s crotch-sized!
Someone’s bound to go down on you tonight.
Literary lap dance.
Not your mother’s lap dance.
Give us the slip.
Not your mother’s lap dog.
Click where there isn’t a dick.
Clit lit?
like
long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.
“…one of these things is not like the others…”
“…two things you may want to take your time exploring.”
“…Coitus Interruptus.”
Haney His Way.
Your mom read this book.
Actually, my mom hasn’t read either of my books. I told her not to read the first, which after all starts with “It all began with a fuck,” and she objects to the cover of Subversia. She thinks it’s awful that I’m all beaten up.
Duke Haney goes all the way in Subversia.
Duke Haney is begging you not to put him down.
Go underground with D.R. Haney.
Subversia: A book to go down with the best of them.
D.R. Haney in Subversia: Where no man has gone before.
Yes, I have!
Wait. Certainly not with the model in the picture.
Okay. You win — the argument, I mean. The contest — it’s too early to call, I think.
Subversia: Read it without pants.
Subversia: Get intimate with Haney’s intimate life.
Scott? Did you ever put your shirt back on?
Get the skinny.
You know what you want.
Wow. This is going to be hard.
That isn’t a caption! I’m talking about picking a winner.
Keep ’em coming, if you can. Maybe a clear-cut winner will emerge from the bunch — something everyone can immediately agree outpaces the others.
“Wow. This is going to be hard.”
Er. Are you entering your own contest?
Subversia
The birth of . . .
Asnicker and Old Lace
Nah. But I’ve already typed it.
was that an inadvertent malapropism?
Nope. It was verdent.
making a pun-malaprop out of the title “Arsenic and Old Lace” is kinda like committing original sin. The opportunity only comes around once.
Click where to enter?
Some guys only think about getting laid up.
Hmm, this photo looks tres Lolita to me with the girlish inward tip of the sneakers. Which calls to mind the tagline on the movie poster in the SUBVERSIA documentary … what was it … “your daughters will never be safe again”? Or maybe that’s *too* subversive 😉
That was a ridiculous tagline. I’m sure it was used “ironically” in the doc.
I think Heather’s inspiration for the photo was high-end girlie-magazine stuff from the early seventies. So she told me. Her husband had recently sent away for way-old back issues of Playboy and its forgotten sister publication Oui, and she probably took note of my rapt absorption in scanning the magazines when they came.
Field research. Always field research.
How about: “Smart Chics Read” or simply “Smart People Read”. The irony is perhaps that in our current culture, reading itself is a bit subversive. There you have it, “Reading Is Subversive”.
Derek, you know James Reid, don’t you? Well, at one point, seven or eight years ago, in the course of remarking on how hard it is to be “rebellious” now that so much is permissible, he asked me what I thought it would take to be rebellious these days. I said, reflexively, “Be intelligent.” James went around quoting me for years. I would meet people, and James would say, “This is the guy who said, ‘Be intelligent’!”
So good to see you here, man. Can you please please please hang out soon?
What with the depression, I mean recession, and all, I was genuinely hoping to win a copy of your book. Not trying to schmooze with the judges or anything, but I really dug your article on failed artist children stories. I had a good laugh/cry of it.
How about: “Subversia: Afternoon Delight”?
You ever listen to the Subhumans? Your title always reminds me of Subvert City.
Wait, I’ve got it: “Subversia: Getting the pants off of young women everywhere”.
The last is bound to amount to false advertising.
“Subversia: Charming Your Sox Off.”
“Subversia: Sure to either delight or offend.”
“Bring something subversive home for the holidays.”
Go ahead, take a peek.
have to grudgingly admit, this one is a little bit good.
Subversia: Read between the legs.
“…I know what girls want…
…I know what guys need…”
The Waitresses?
indeed.
Subversia – Feed Your Head.
This has got to go on the short list, Z.
I love this site, read often and enjoy your writing – pretty much all of it. Its funny, intelligent, thought provoking, challenging. Really great writing.
So, even having read the explanation for the inspiration for the photo……..(taking a deep breath)
I was surprised to see this photo and this competition.
When you show part of a woman’s (girl’s) body, not the whole, in a sexualised context, its dehumanising, degrading. And gross. And exploitative. Its mainstream. Not subversive.
Don’t think it fits Duke’s writing at all.
Caption – The book is way better than the photograph.
To be fair, the photo itself isn’t particularly sexualized unless you consider any photo of a woman that doesn’t include her face exploitative, which is problematic, as sometimes it’s a fine line between feminism and a sort of Victorian fear of/shame about sexuality.
The comments/commentary are what sexualize it.
On a totally feminism-unrelated note, I thought the innuendo-based taglines were simply bad strategy. Unless you’re only trying to sell the book to men. Maybe that’s the plan. I don’t know.
So the challenge is for folks like you and I, who recognize the gender issues inherent in using an innuendo-based tagline (regardless of what we think which among them is the most problematic) is to come up with something that isn’t innuendo-based.
So far, I’ve got nothing.
That’s an interesting point, Becky, about innuendo. Obviously, there would be no plan to sell the book only to men.
This is in no way meant as a slight to the photo, but I did have qualms about suggesting it as a promotional slide for the reason that Jacqui states: I knew it could be taken as exploitive.
I wasn’t thinking about whether the picture was “subversive,” which I don’t think is a selling point for the book anyway, not particularly, despite the title. The picture already existed, and I was flattered that my friend had taken it, and one of the things that struck me, when I first saw it, was that the cover image was used in a way that I would never thought to use it — that is, the head was used as just that. Also, the photo is here run sideways, but the feet in it are meant to be at the top of the frame so that the body is upside down, just as the head on the cover of Subversia is turned on its side, so there was an interesting thing, to me, about bodies not being as they are, as well as a kind of meta thing. I also thought the lighting was painterly.
In any case, the concerns raised here are certainly something that should be taken into account, and they will be, I’m sure.
I agree with you about the photo, Duke.
My first reaction to it, as yours, was one of “that’s a cool photo,” not, “should I be offended by this?”
I hope I didn’t give the impression it was the other way around.
And I don’t think innuendo should be disqualified. I was just trying to acknowledge Jacqui’s objection while at the same time standing up for the pic.
I think it’s a great pic, for many of the reasons you mention. And also because I like her shoes.
I think you should use it.
And I think you should use any tagline you want.
If TNB and/or its book brand undertook such an over-careful PC stance that this photo could not be used, I’m sure Jacqui wouldn’t find the site nearly as appealing. I know I wouldn’t.
We are all bound to take offense at some point. Thank God.
I’d buy this book based on the photograph and I sprinkled my menstrual blood on a Bora Ring as a fuck you.
Stick your tongue in your cheek and make somebody laugh. That will sell the book.
Eat these words.
Subversia… If you’re into a Freudian slip.
(Or if you just want to be boss:)
Subversia. Get into a Freudian slip.
(You know in advance I have editorial OCD, right? The options are endless…)
Subversia. Get down with a Freudian slip.
Peel slowly and read.
Lap rants.
Be crazy dumbsaint of the thighs.
D.R. Haney: Bard of the thighs.
Betrayal takes two.
I wanna be your lap dog.
Open up and read.
The original lap top.
Read between the thighs.
“The original lap top” is brilliant! Intelligent and sophisticated.
Lap rants was pretty funny too.
“…curl up (or, not) with a good book.”
“…you can try to put it down…”
“…what innuendo? “
“…not forbidden. Just slightly dangerous.”
“…short skirts and short stories for short attention spans…”
not showing up for some reason:
subliminal…sublingual…subcontextual…sublime…Subversia
Subersia: Because a Dirty Mind is its Own Reward.
Sorry, late at night SUBVERSIA! Forgot the V.
Subversia:
Keeping my Subversia jacket *on* because even in my inanimate state I can smell her yeast infection.
“Sometimes it IS what’s between your legs that’s important.”
Subversia: Not the girl next door
Subversia: A Book that You just can’t put Down
Hey, Debbie, your last name is clearly a variation on mine. Do you know anything about its origin? I’ve read a number of different explanations.
“Outside of a woman, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a woman, it’s too dark to read.” is what Groucho would have said if he read this book.
Subversia, dark enough to want you to try anyway…
Subversia…you’d want your face buried in this.
Slip and Fall
Crotch Rocket
“…just one more story.”
Brilliant photo. Forgive my ignorance. What does Subversia mean? I’ve never heard the word and google is not providing me with a definition of the word. So I’m stuck in stupid mode with no hope for escape. Little help please and thanks.
something something American Apparel something
[…] Awhile back, we held a contest concerning a caption for a cool photo. […]