Roasting the Rider-Waite Tarot

The major arcana represent life, death, and rebirth. They also look completely insane.

Summer Block
Human Parts

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Photo: bigjom/Getty Images

1. The Fool

The Fool is traditionally both the first and the last card of the major arcana. In fact, the major arcana cards together comprise the Fool’s journey through life. The Fool represents new beginnings, excitement, courage, and potential.

The Fool is also full of advice that wouldn’t look out of place stenciled onto a lime-washed board and sold at a Hobby Lobby, things like “Believe in yourself and follow your heart” and “Have faith in where the universe is taking you.”

Like that one aunt, “the Fool is all about new experiences [and] personal growth.” He is also a little pouty and appears to have been captured in the middle of saying, “It’s their loss!” The Fool has very fine bone structure.

The little, white, prancing dog at his feet is supposed to represent a “protector,” though it’s unclear from what, if anything, a nine-pound dog is qualified to protect you. “All the tools and resources he needs” for this trip are packed into a bindle the size of a bento box. He’s wearing yellow slouch boots and carrying a single white rose — it’s like he used Goop to outfit an Everest ascent.

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Summer Block
Human Parts

Writer for Catapult, Longreads, The Awl, The Toast, The Rumpus, McSweeney’s, and so on. Owner of After-Party Taxidermy. Working on a book about Halloween.