under the hands of shirlee platjes

Joe and I pull images for our posters from a number of sources, but there is none that I use more than Google image search. As we work on a poster, we will enter certain keywords to bring up variety of images in hopes of finding just the right – and often bizarre – picture. In doing so, we come across some really wonderful things. Today, while working on a poster for Phosphorescent, I found a site with the following text:

I once fasted for seven days straight. There was another time when I tried to run up and down the four mountains in the Aspen area. When I was 19, I spent three weeks continuously traveling – every night, for twenty-one days, I found myself in an entirely different bed. As though that wasn’t bad enough, I couldn’t even recall the last time I’d had a conversation that wasn’t in broken Spanish. 38 days without relief. Three days of altitude sickness in the Andes. 24 hours of Moab. 30 minutes under the hands of Shirlee Platjes, with fingers capable of creating the feeling of femurs snapping, muscles ripping, I want to cry but know I can’t. About the fast…there was mishap with an imitation Pop Tart on the fifth day.

And one of the many pictures of the author that accompanied the story: