Tales from the Planet Earth of Strange Occurrences and Astonishing Adventures to Fill the Endless Hours Before Parallel Lines Meet in Infinity

About the Book

Dr. Barry Joel Ferst knows something about the visual arts and a bit about creative writing, and since it shows in his work, he perseveres. In art, Ferst creates multi-dimensional assemblages using American kitsch. What he makes is Urban Folk Art. Having traveled in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and the Maghreb, at the late age of 76, he began writing a book about the creatures who settled the planet Earth, written in the same style as his art: multi-dimensional assemblage, Urban Folk Writing. “If my art and this book have a subject, it is the interwoven stories we live to make our existence somewhat worthwhile. The everyday has no requirement to be boring if we accept that items like Banquet TV Dinners, Susan Somers’ ThighMaster, and Ron Popeil’s Pocket Fisherman have a noteworthy place in our lives as we fill the few minutes allotted to us in the endless hours until parallel lines meet in infinity. Consequently, this book takes its inspiration from a fusion of Alice in Wonderland and A Thousand and One Arabian Nights.” Ferst is much too old to know better. Because he never had a mid-life crisis, his marriage did not fail, credit card debt is non-existent, he has never ordered anything from L.L. Bean or Eddie Bauer, he is therefore unable to understand why any form of entertainment is better than Walmart at 3 A.M. If anyone wishes to know more, one could review Ferst’s academic vita of fourteen boring pages or read the back covers of his other books. However, Ferst prefers to hide any successes that the gods fortuitously have bestowed upon him and remain a denier of his own meager abilities and the harm he has unleashed on others. He can find no literary critic famous or not willing to act as a back cover commentator.

About the Author

Working in the Urban Folk Art genera, Ferst creates multi-dimensional assemblages using kitsch. As a prose experiment, he has written his book in the same style as his art: multi-dimensional Urban Folk assemblage. A retired philosophy professor, Ferst taught Aesthetic Perception—an exploration of what the mind adds to sight.