Rock & Roll

Chris Paradis's Rock and Roll Tarot, self-published in 2000, passes the review's test for theme decks: only someone with a real feel for rock history could have made it, the assignments of musicians to arcana reading as verdicts from a knowledgeable fan rather than a licensing spreadsheet. Rock mythology is genuine mythology, dead young gods, crossroads bargains, ascents and burnouts, and the tradition maps onto tarot's offices with unsettling ease; the Tower was always a hotel room. Self-published music decks age into double documents, of the canon they celebrate and the moment they froze it: a 2000 vintage catches rock's pantheon just before the poptimist reordering. Alongside the Black Power Tarot's Marseille formality, it gives the catalog's music shelf its garage wing. It suits rock people of the arguing kind, music-history collectors, self-published Americana hunters, and readers whose saints wore leather. The classically tempered are directed to the golden decks, where the idols hold still.