tantramar

King Charles

One of the books I'm reading right now is a Bukowski book of poems from 1977. It's brilliant. He's a gutter dweller and I think I love him.

She's always high
in heels
spirit
and booze...

taken from Sandra

Just thought I mention...

Dedication

I've just finished these two books, which perhaps unsurprisingly, are quite different in content. They are also in a way quite similar though, both being books about people. 

Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson, is compiled from stories from over one hundred friends and colleagues and Werner Herzog - Of Walking in Ice: Munich - Paris 23 November - 14 December 1974, is the story of an impromptu walk to Paris in the middle of winter to see Madame Eisner, who was ill.

Both are very intriguing books and while very different, one thing occurred to me about both men. They are / were very passionate about what they do / did. Both men clearly slightly mad but also completely dedicated to their cause, beliefs and methods.

It's a good thing to have somewhere or something to pin your colours to, however warped or bizarre that might be.

The people you remember are the ones who have captured that dedication, that passion, everyone else just fades away.

Without dedication, you are just another sack of water, evaporating in the sun.

The Value Of The Unknown

These are the books I own and haven't read yet.

I can hear my mothers voice saying how I certainly don't need to buy any more books until I've read them but part of me knew this isn't right.

One of the books I'm currently reading is Black Swan. You know, the one about the probability of the improbable, it's pretty good.

I was telling Lauren the other day about a passage where Nassim Taleb writes about the theme of seeking validation. Lauren liked it, so I thought other readers might also get something from it. It's particularly good for people that like books, reading books, the buying of books and the storing of books. You get the idea... books.

The passage in question is about having a library or a large quantity of books. It is pointed out by another author, Umberto Eco that the value of the books you own but haven't read, is far more than that of the books you have already consumed and that any library should have more unread books than read books. I aspire to this statement, my mother doesn't.

A private library of books is not an ego boosting appendage but a research tool. The more you know, the more you wish to know. This growth curve is exponential, similar to that of a research scientist. Obviously the more you understand, the more questions you then have. This goes on forever. So in theory, the older you get the more unread books you will own.

Anyway, this made me feel better about having the above books which I own but haven't finished or begun yet.

Killer Guide Dude

I love the intricacies of niche cultures such as cycle couriers, rockabillies, hobos and surfers. Surfers obviously the most main stream of that bunch but surf culture is still very rich and has obviously enriched the cultural world we inhabit. Despite this, very few books seem to have been able to cover the bases from films, talent, art, fashion and lifestyle the way that The Book Of Surfing, A Killer Guide does.

I was sent this book by one of the editors to look over I suspect because I have reviewed books on the work of Leroy Grannis and Ron Stoner. So they assumed I was a fan, they assumed right.

This book is almost like a surf culture bible, incorporating not only great shots from the aforementioned snappers but also great infographics on understanding the differences between waves and how to approach them.

You can also learn how to do the hula dance for ocean or love or find out why Gerry Lopez (below) is so important to the sport.

If you're into it for the history you can see how the board has changed over the years, or even the fin.

There are sections on famous surf films such as Big Wednesday and Morning Of The Earth as well as all important articles on the likes of John Severson, the early surf film pioneer. It's a great book, instructional, well designed and unlike most surf books it has great 1980s style illustrations on how to do the moves. I've missed those, the illustrations that is, I never really had the moves.

My favourite quote in the book is from Buzzy Trent "Truly big waves aren't measured in increments of feet, they are measured in incriments of fear". Being the big wave star of the late fifties, he should know really.

Loosly Leafing

Several blogs I read, have been writing about books and as I'm terrified on missing out on current blogging trends I thought I would have a mini show and tell. It should perhaps also be pointed out that I've gone a bit book nuts in the last few weeks.

1) Joe Mora exhibition retrospective from the Monterey museum of modern art. I love Jo  Mora. Most people will know his work from The Byrds Sweetheart of the Rodeo album cover.

2) Amazing new book on surf culture. More coming very soon on that one.

3) Kenneth Allsop - Hard Traveling. I love hobo culture. I also love Kenneth Allsop who wrote a great book on prohibition I read a few years back. This should be good.

4) Barry McGee - Things Are Getting Better - basically a big picture book of his work. Pretty good if you like him...

5) Best American Comics 2007. This was was edited by Chris Ware, who has to be one of the best Americans alive today.  I meant to buy it last year but didn't and found it cheap on eBay, hurrah.

6) The latest edition of McSweeney. What can you say about McSweeneys that I didn't say here. It's always amazing. This issue looks particularly stunning with three mini books that come out of a die cut sleeve. All for £15!

7) Trail Dust and Saddle Leather by Jo Mora (again). I had been after this for some time. 1st editions go for a bomb but I managed to find a slightly chewed ex library copy. Best title of a book ever? It's all about Mora's documentation of the old American west which he was obsessed with. I'm pretty partial to it too.

8 Os Gemeos - a great book. They are twin street artists from Brazil. Os Gemeos actually means the twins in Portuguese. They starting painting in 1987 and Barry McGee happened upon them in 1993 while on an art fellowship in Brazil. They shared techniques and knowledge. They're pretty damn good.

Anyway, so that's what I have to look forward to, once I finish Musicophilia, which I'm currently consuming.

Snuff

This is a little film to promote the new Chuck Palahniuk book, Snuff, pretty nuts!

via Exclusives

PPP Pick Up This Penguin

This book by Clay Shirky popped onto my doormat the other day from those nice black and white fish eating chaps.

It looks interesting:
....what does it mean when someone with a laptop can spark a movement that can change the fortunes of a billion-dollar-industry or help topple a government?

The Power Of Organizing Without Organizations.

Sounds like a good idea which will get messy quickly. We'll see.

Funny how the picture throws out your eye isn't it!

Re-Using Things

A week ago or maybe more (I'm a bit behind), I went to the launch of this book and was pleased to recieve a free copy and get it signed no less. It looks good. John writes well and I'm sure I'll rapidly improve my limited knowledge about how to market using environmental methodologies.

I've been thinking a lot recently about re-suing things, perhaps after watching the Applied Green talks and a few other bits and pieces here and there.

This book has a little printed statement asking readers to pass it on. I will do this but I'm going to want it back as John sighed it and now it acts as a memory trigger for that evening as well. Humpf.

I have a box full of half-working electronic devices. This vexes me. My iPod Nano recently stopped mounting on my desktop but played fine and charged fine, so I was stuck with the same music on it forever. After about 2 months I was going a big mad and in serious need of a new iPod but couldn't throw the old one away.

I bought a new one and posted the old one to a friend with the instructions that when she gets bored of the music on there she is to pass it on, to another friend who doesn't have an iPod. This seemed like a good idea.

We should do this with a lot more things. Books come to mind and I'm working on a project currently trying to make that happen. We half-consume so much stuff. I'm sure there are people who want to consume the other half. Car-boot Sales and eBay are good for this but I'm thinking there's more we can do to give products a longer life.

The Howies coat is a great example of this. When you buy a coat you sign an agreement to pass the coat onto someone else when you are done with it. They want to get 10 years out of each coat. They are keeping spare material and zips from every colour-way to insure repairs are possible. That's how to do things.

The New Literature

I bought a book the other day, it's something I do far too frequently. I should really buy one when I need a new one to read but alas I'm greedy and not practically minded, I'm stupidly impulsive.

So, anyway I bought this book, it looked good. I like short stories I find it's nice to read a book of shorts between novels. I've just finished a great collection of shorts, No One Belongs Here More Than you, by the great Miranda July. Now I'm reading the Slash autobiography, hoping it's as good as The Dirt. So I bought this new book to read after that.

Wow, long intro, this is what interested me:
It's a book of short stories edited by Zadie Smith by notable folk such as Miranda July and Nick Hornby and wait for it Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes. Yes, there are drawn comics in with the typed text.

Brilliant.

For years now people have been yapping on about how comics are as relevant as novels (in a literal context) which they can be. Chris Ware (a few years back) won the guardian book prize, note the book prize not comic book prize.

This is the first time I've seen a publisher actually place them all together. That's progress that is. I don't know if the book is good yet as I've not read it but I know some of it will be good because Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes are unable to do bad.

PPP Pick Up A Penguin

I found this in a bookshop in Lyme Regis recently. The guy running it had a big hat on and was playing country music through the worst computer speakers in the world.

They had an amazing collection of Penguin and Pelican books. I bought a few including some great crime titles. In occurred to me that I had quite a few different types of  Penguin book jacket so I thought I would upload them to a Flickr set for all to see, if you're interested.

Ron Stoner

I’ve got a bit of a thing for surf photography. It’s so majestic. I don’t think any other sport photography can capture such a sense of motion, grace and style. In California in the early sixties, the golden age of surfing, there were only a handful of people shooting surfers such as Leroy Grannis and Doc Ball. These guys were the old school, doubtlessly very talented but they all had other jobs and took pictures on the side for the love of it. Ron Stoner was one of the first to make a living solely out of taking pictures of surfers.

Getting a brake as a staff photographer at Surf Guide in 1964, a time when the surf mags were really starting to take off, Stoner began to make a name for himself. After several disagreements with the management over money, he left to work for Surfer Magazine just before it’s massive dominance in the 60s began.

Surfer was set up by John Severson, who in fact, pretty much invented the genre of the surf magazine after making a booklet, called The Surfer to go along with a surf film, Surf Fever that he made in 1960. Severson was initially unimpressed with Stoner and didn’t hire him, but Stoner persisted and eventually Severson buckled.

Severson, years later commented that Ron didn’t deliver much to start with, but then ‘all of a sudden he started taking these beautiful, beautiful photos’. On $500 a month, a gas money allowance and as much film as he wanted, Stoner had made it and was becoming something of a minor celebrity. Surfers would call him in the evening to see where he was going to shoot the next morning. He had the lion’s share of the Surfer cover shots and was producing great work. He had started hanging around with the trailblazers of the scene – all the coolest kids.

In 1966/7 LSD had started to become quite widely used and Stoner started dabbling with it. But where other friends and surfers would take a quarter tab Ron would take 3 hits or even more. As his LSD usage increased his mental state deteriorated. He began quoting the bible almost fanatically and would frequently zone out for hours not speaking, just staring at the wall. He was still producing great work, in fact during this period he had ever cover of Surfer for an entire year, but he was definitely losing it.

In the spring of 1968 Stoner went for a meeting with Severson at Surfer and could not communicate aside from quoting the bible. Severson, increasingly worried about his young staff photographer decided to get him help. He drove him to a local hospital when Ron was diagnosed as a schizophrenic. He was 23. Ron was a full house candidate displaying every symptom; anxiety, internal voices, sudden rage, delusions, hallucinations and paranoia. Padded cells, straight jackets and electro-shock treatment followed which unsurprisingly changed Stoner forever.

When he was released he had changed. Before his ‘treatment’, surfing and surf photography was his life, now it was just something he did as a job. He carried on working for a while but some part of his soul was missing. He drifted back and forth between Hawaii and California in the coming decade, submitting the odd photograph but sadly no work really came his way. He was filed as a missing person in 1977 and in 1996 he was declared dead, although no body has ever been found.

It’s a sad end to Ron Stoners life and meteoric rise to fame. By the late sixties professional surfing had changed forever. Short boards had taken over the sport and advertising and the corporate dollar were controlling most of the scene. Much of the magic and beauty had gone.

The handful of surf photographers in the sixties all had their own style and speciality. Ron Stoner was the king of colour and brought a warmth and beauty to the art where it had been lacking. Thankfully he lives on through his work and in the minds of people that see his shots and are motivated to go surfing.

The book Photo /Stoner is out now.

Chris Ware Puts On His Penguin Outfit

I love Chris Ware’s work. It’s quite simply always really good. Here’s a new book cover he produced recently for Penguin as part of their classic deluxe series.

Beastly Book

Books have changed over the years, they’ve had to. At one time books were the source of all knowledge and people who had access to them were privileged and held in high esteem. As a result pride was taken in the design and construction of these valuable objects of power. Thick cloth and leather bound volumes with gold leaf-edged pages, sumptuous illustration on heavyweight stock meant books were beautiful as well as informative items.

This concept, of a book as a piece of art is something that has mostly been lost over the years. The disposable nature of modern culture, the prohibitive cost of hand crafted items and of course in recent years, the Internet have all knocked considerable weight out of the idea of the book being the gateway to knowledge and power. So now in this electronic age it seems beautifully fitting that this new volume; Beasts, put out by Fantagraphics harks back to a forgotten time to suit its subject matter.

Beasts, is an encyclopaedia of fantastical creatures that probably never existed and only feature in the mythical stories of old salty seadogs. The book in fact, takes it's cues from an ancient book called a bestiary. A bestiary would contain beasts, most of whom, had not been proven to exist by the not quite up-to-date scientists and botanists of the age. The book would also include some text detailing the abilities of each beast and information on it's nature. This modern version contains a huge variety of mythical creatures, from the well documented Vampire and Lock Ness Monster to the slightly less known Triton and Nuckalevee.

Asp Turtle By Souther Salazar.

Fantagraphics has published this volume and it’s been dreamt up, designed and curated by their art director Jacob Covey, so all the illustrations are by the very finest talent in the arenas of comics, skate art, children’s books, rock posters and Sci-Fi / Fantasy art. Containing work by Jeff Soto, Jay Ryan and Tony Millionaire to name a few, the list of the ninety contributors is pretty much a who’s who or who’s up and coming in the aforementioned disciplines. Every monster has its very own page and there is some accompanying text detailing the specific legend of each beast on the opposite page. The illustrations vary greatly in style from the bright playful Japanese-esque ‘Kudan’ by Mizna Wada to the playful amusing monotone ‘Minotaur’ by Jason.

Werewolf By Jordan Crane.

Beasts looks to be a real labour of love for Covey, the book is a beautiful thing – ten inches square, one inch thick with a matte black and gold cloth binding, guilt-edge pages and an extruded title illustration on the cover. With the comic book market awash with collections of comic strips by a plethora of talented artists Fantagraphics and Covey have done very well to come up with such an intriguing idea for a book, that outthinks the competitors so efficiently. Fantagraphics are on fire at the moment, no one can touch them. Books like Beasts are testament to that fact.

An Anthology Of Graphic Fiction

I’ve been reading this comic anthology (amongst other things) for weeks now, possibly due to the fact that it’s 400 pages long. Essentially, this is a study, an overview of modern (non- fantastical) comics with some interesting texts by the likes Charles Schulz and Ivan Brunetti. There’s also somewhat obviously, a lorry load of examples from the powerhouses of the genre – Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Robert Crumb, Daniel Clowes and Joe Sacco to name a few. Some of the aforementioned artists also discuss classics such as Peanuts. On top of this there are some nice examples of classic Peanuts strips, included for the reader’s education and amusement.

Ivan Brunetti, Schizo comic creator, edits this coffee-table-crushing volume. His book enters the currently very busy realm of the comic collection. What this volume does well is to throw in bits you perhaps wouldn’t expect to see, such as double spreads on Henry Darger (below) with details of some of his unusual projects.

Another rare treat is Chris Ware (above) and Art Spiegelman’s interpretations of a Peanuts strip. On the Chris Ware front there are also some excerpts from his eagerly anticipated (by me at least) ‘Building Stories’.

While there are some strips that won’t please everyone and the content is quite straight (in terms of comic narrative) the collection as a whole is pretty impressive. It’ll be hard purchase to avoid for most comic fans.

Sweet McSweeney

McSweeneys is quite brilliant, really, there should be more projects like this floating around. Or perhaps there are and I just don’t know ‘em. Feel free to let me know.

Essentially this is a collection of literature by well respected or up and coming authors. McSweeneys is often packaged in inventive ways with quite exception production for the book world. I only bought issue 18 to get the free DVD; Wholphin, a collection of short films and stuff. More on Wholphin later.

The writing in McSweeneys is quite exceptional. There are 14 stories in this issue ranging in length from 3 pages to 30 and containing a myriad of different writing styles. Very few of the authors were familiar to me before reading this volume but I’ll be sure to check more work by them after reading this. Honestly I can’t recommend this highly enough. They are on volume 23 or so and it really looks as if they’re all worth getting.

McSweeneys have a really playful nature about they way they produce literature. Chris Ware even edited an edition a while back to widespread acclaim. This is a company that does everything right. One to watch.