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by David Krotz 
Advice for romantics, conspirators, the wealthy or worried
For many years my passion has been to seek out hidden things: organisms and entities usually invisible to human sight; knowledge ignored by the mainstream or hidden by conspiracy; ideas and objects so large or so much a part of our perception of the world that they are hidden before our very eyes. The occult, the obscure, and the invisible fascinate me. Accordingly, I was pleased when I stumbled across this book some years ago; it promised to tells how to build hiding places in one's home or office, and I bought it instantly, read it in one sitting, and emerged at the end full of ideas for hidden places in our own abodes. I think that the idea I like best in this book is the idea that modern American houses are hollow, waiting for an enterprising mind to fill them up with all things forbidden or easily stolen: "jewels, money, appliances, grass, pornography, whips", as the author David Krotz states in the introduction. He provides inspiration to the suspicious, the cautious, the wealthy and the protective. Now I am incapable of entering a house without wondering what lurks behind the walls, wondering if the floor or ceiling holds some dark secret the owner wishes to conceal (and knowing my friends, there is a good possibility that this is the case!) Three-fourths of the book is useful information on how to construct hiding places; the rest is light but entertaining filler: an account of what led the author to set out on his unique career, accounts of the people he had met, and an appendix on how to hide everything from an affair to a house. The tone throughout is tongue in cheek, but the instructions are valuable. I have myself used these designs to construct a few "hidey-holes," as the author likes to call them, and I can therefore say that the instructions in this book are sound and worth considering. We all have something to hide; most of us sleep better at night knowing that our secrets are hidden safely away. This book can help you achieve that sense of security. |
