Archive for the 'books' Category

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Featured Book of the Day: Burning Angel: Photographs By the Lovely Brenda

Published on October 21, 2008 0 Comments

Burning Angel is a sexy photo book evolved out of the website founded in 2002 burningangel.com, a site devoted to punk-inspired erotic photos and hardcore videos as well as record reviews and interviews. The photographer, Brenda Staudenmaier (also known as the Lovely Brenda), uses brick walls, rooftops, subway stations and the like of New York City as her backdrop. Tattoos, glasses, mohawks, colored hair, gym shoes, guitars, pierced body parts — True, it’s kind of SuicideGirls-y, but tattoos and rock star hair on naked ladies can be sexy. You just can’t get enough o’ that! To see the photos on both burningangel.com or suicidegirls.com you have to pay a few bucks a month, but with either of the books you can see it for free (that is, once you buy the book) any time you want without the internet. Also, not unlike going to see a roller derby bout, there’s lots of opportunities to pick up some good fashion tips. Oooo! Black and magenta-striped leggings with sparkly gold high heels. I am SO there.

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Featured Book of the Day: Fraktur mon Amour

Published on October 14, 2008 3 Comments

Fraktur Mon Amour (Princeton Archetectural Press) showcases 333 Blackletter fonts collected by Judith Schalansky, accompanied by a CD of 150 fonts compatible with both PC or Mac. Four of the fonts were created just for this book! It’s beautiful black and hot pink, has won awards and looks like a prayerbook. Rock horns, everybody!

People tend to think of Blackletter font (also known as Fraktur or Gothic type) as something associated with hip hop or heavy metal album covers, gangs, street culture, tattoos, goth culture and even advertising. You know you’ve seen it! It’s the font usually used just for titles, ’cause a whole document with it can be harder to read. But this font pops up in lots o’ places, like these, for example:

But it wasn’t always like this. Blackletter font was popular in Europe during the Middle Ages though the Renaissance replaced most of it with Latin Antiqua. It was incorrectly associated with the Nazis, who actually banned its use in 1941 because it was falsely believed to be a Jewish invention. These days this font is embraced in many parts of both subculture and popular culture.

Each Blackletter font in Fraktur Mon Amour is presented on a full page along with its complete alphabet, date of origin, the name of its designer, and its original foundry. Like this:

Isn’t this hot? How could you not want this? It even has a black and pink ribbon bookmarker to keep your place in case you are deciding whether to use Duerers Minuskeln or Fette Deutsche Schrift to decorate your goth greeting card for your goth holiday party invitation. Come into the store today and take a look at this beauty.

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Today’s Featured Book: L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, Illustrated by Graham Rawle

Published on October 8, 2008 0 Comments

This is no ordinary reprint. This version of The Wizard of Oz is an artbook illustrated by Graham Rawle, author of Woman’s World (a novel created entirely from fragments of found text from 60s womens mags, now being made into a movie). The text is the same — hence it being almost 300 pages long! There’s illustrations on almost every page, and they’re crazy. Collage-y type of stuff with dolls and toys and beads and doll slippers and bottles and things cut out from other things — like he cut up magazines and newspapers and then went crazy at American Science and Surplus. Kids would love this but adults may love it more. Even some of the font is spicy with cursive and italics and who knows what else. There’s little graphic surprises on almost every page. A lot of work went into this thing!

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Today’s Featured Book: Beautiful Mutants by Mark Mothersbaugh

Published on October 3, 2008 0 Comments

Yes, that Mark Mothersbaugh — the lead singer of Devo. Beautiful Mutants is the show catalog for the 2007 exhibition of the same name at CSUF Grand Central Art Center Project Room in Santa Ana, CA. It has lots of old timey photos of interesting people (Carmen Miranda, the Del Rubio Triplets, various circus-y freak people, just to name a couple, even a few pugs! I’ve seen the artist with his pugs. Awesome!) halved and then resewn to show the same half as the opposite side. What do I mean? OK, so let’s say you took a picture of me. Oh, and let’s say I’m a sad-eyed perfumier in Brecksville, Ohio in like, the forties. In one hand I’m holding some flowers. And in the other hand I’m holding lace. So then you take the side where I’m just holding the flowers and make a replica of that side, except that you reverse it. Now both sides are facing each other, totally symmetrical. You cut away the side with the lace, and you attach the side with the reversed image of me holding the flowers. And voila! I look like a very mutilated version of myself. And my sad eyes are way too close together. Or way too far apart so I look freaky like Jackie O. Does this make any sense? Some of the photos in the book the eyes are so close together that it makes one eye, so it’s like a cycloptic magician or something. Crazy!

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Today’s Featured Book: Concrete Inspection by Crispin Hellion Glover

Published on September 26, 2008 2 Comments

Subtitle of Concrete Inspection by Crispin Hellion Glover: “A Manual of Information And Instructions For Inspectors With Standard And Typical Specifications.” Actually it’s a collage telling the story about the narrator’s mother (among other things). Even though it’s a black hardcover with copper engraving (I think maybe engraving is the right word), it feels very zine-ish ’cause of its cut-and-paste approach. Funny that the story would be about the narrator’s mother (and we realize you should never assume the narrator is the author), since when we call the publisher (Volcanic Eruptions) to place reorders, we’re pretty sure that we talk to Crisin’s mom. We’re not 100% sure on this one, but well, pretty sure. Maybe. Anyway, we have some of his other books too, here.

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