Complex Blog » Books

VIDEO: Inside “Lego Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary”

bfred — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:20:41 +0000

Looking to indulge your geek tendencies? Let us introduce you to the season’s must-have coffee table book, a little double-shot of nostalgia known as Lego Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary, which hit stores this week.

Acting as a comprehensive catalog of all LEGO Star Wars sets (and spin-offs) from the last decade, the book breaks down the facts and features behind every single ship and minifigure ever released. We recently caught up with the book’s author, Simon Beecroft, who was kind enough to speak to us about the various features. For a look inside the pages of the Visual Dictionary, watch the video below…

• CLICK HERE TO BUY THE LEGO STAR WARS BOOK FOR $12.86

Style & Design 2009: “Lowboy” Author John Wray Interview

dscott — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:29:33 +0000

Never let it be said that Brooklyn author John Wray doesn’t know the value of a good book. “Girls like it when they see you bring a novel out of your messenger bag,” he says. And if only one book makes its way to your bag this year, Wray’s heady footrace of a novel, Lowboy, deserves the look (click here to buy it on Amazon).

Before we included Lowboy in our 2009 Style and Design package, we hopped on the phone with the half-Austrian, half-American writer as he was working on his next book at an European writer’s colony. He spoke to us about his nomadic childhood, his writing process and why being an author won’t get you more girls. Read the Q&A below…

Interview by Damien Scott

Complex: Your past is a bit shrouded, where exactly are you from?

John Wray: It’s a little complicated. My mother’s Austrian, my dad is from California and I was born in Washington D.C. but I only lived there for about a year. Then I moved to sunny, glamorous Buffalo, New York. And also Austria depending on where my mother wanted to be. It was weird to grow up in a rustbelt city and spend time in this little town in Southern Austria. It gave me a split personality. But I grew up pretty much in Buffalo.

Complex: How did it give you a split personality?

John Wray: Because the two places were so different from one another and there were these very different social contexts that encourage slightly different sides of my personality. I just realized not too long ago that a lot of contradictions I see in myself, fall into two camps. The two contradicting camps would be the Austrian side and the American side. Hopefully as I get old and become a grown up, which hopefully will happen at some point, those two sides will reconcile. I would say the American side of me is more out going and down to Earth while the Austrian side of me knows about wine and cheese.

Complex: When did you start writing?

John Wray: I started writing when I was fairly young, I was in grade school. I decided I wanted to write a thriller that was going to be a spy thriller. Then I realized at some point none of the grown ups took my project seriously. And they were certainly right not to take it seriously. It was a pretty ridiculous project, but when I saw no one was paying attention I stopped completely and I didn’t write for almost ten years. When I was pretty much finished with college I realized that grown-ups might take me seriously [laughs].

Complex: Where did you go to college?

John Wray: Oberlin College in Ohio. It has a good music scene. A lot of great indie rock bands came out of there like the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Tortuous, Trans AM, and Liz Fair. When I was there I spent a lot more time playing music in bands than I did writing because I was still in that phase where I didn’t think I would be taken seriously. Then I lived in a bunch of different places. I lived in Alaska for a while, I lived in Texas for a while. And then I finally moved to New York to attend a writing workshop at NYU but I didn’t like it so I dropped out. I played in some bands around New York. Then I decided to go back to writing school because I had started a novel at that point, I was 25 I think, actually living in a band practice space in Dumbo, that is now the practice space of this band called Animal Collective.

Complex: Why were you living out there?

John Wray I was living there because it was rent free, this was around 1998. I didn’t know what to do with this novel, I didn’t know anyone who wrote fiction in New York. Then I thought, maybe if I send this novel in as an application to Columbia, I wont go to the school but at least if I get in, I will know I have a workable idea. When I sent it in to Columbia and got in, they called my bluff because I didn’t have the guts to not go after all that. So I went and then I dropped out again [laughs]

Complex: Why’d you drop out again?

John Wray: I dropped out of NYU because I didn’t like the program, I dropped out of Columbia because I couldn’t afford it. I learned a lot in the semester and a half that I was there but it just didn’t make sense to me. So I dropped out again but a teacher there took pity on me and hooked me up with her agent. So right before I left New York, because I couldn’t afford it anymore, I gave the manuscript to an agent. Then I spent the next year in Santiago in Chile, a cousin of mine was living down there. You can live there on very little money, that’s where I was when my book sold it all went a little faster than I expected. It’s basically been down hill from there.

Complex: You said you wrote LowBoy in a more direct way to make it more accessible. I’m guessing this was done to get a wider audience?

John Wray: When I’m getting towards to end of writing a book I’m so sick of the process I start having daydreams about another book I would rather be writing. Usually I have two or three potential book ideas, this time I had some complex ideas and they would have lead to some long difficult books. Then I had other ideas of other projects I was equally interested in. My second book was very difficult to write so I wanted a book that was like other books I really enjoyed which were both ambitious in their way but also accessible. Maybe a book like “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway or “The Great Gatsby”, books that were written in a straightforward style but still have style. And that still take you to some pretty strange places.

Complex: Was the process of writing this book completely different from your other books?

John Wray: It wasn’t all that different except it was more focused and more enjoyable. People think sometimes that because a book is dark or deals with some pretty unpleasant issues that it’s necessarily unpleasant to write, as though you the author are going through all the horrible and the frightening experiences that the characters are in your novel. To some degree that is true but a really frightening, harrowing book can be fun to write. A person like Steven King seems to have a lot of fun writing about horrifying things, so in a strange way I would say it was more fun writing this book than the other two.

Complex: The main character was based on a childhood friend of yours?

John Wray: My understanding of what it’s like to develop a mental illness as a teenager is based on a couple people that I knew. But the character of Will Heller, the voice, is mostly based on me when I was that age. Things that he’s afraid of and things he’s worried about are the same things that I worried about, and things I hoped for and things I was excited about are also the same. He just encounters them more without the emotional suspension system that most non-mentally ill people have, everything hits them harder. When I was 16 years old I pretty much thought the world was going to end if I didn’t get laid [laughs]. Low Boy’s preoccupations aren’t fundamentally different from most teenagers he just takes it to a level that most well adjusted kids might not.

Complex: With this book are you happy with how people are responding to it?

John Wray: Yes, I’m very happy with it. I feel any book of mine people are actually reading is a book whose reception I’m happy with. No author can ever have control over how people interpret his or her writing, and its very rare that you come across a view that really nails it or captures what you were hoping to achieve, but if the reviewer enjoyed the book they’re free to interpret it however they want. I really believe strongly in not spoon-feeding the reader and to some degree, an author should let them make up their own mind on what the story means.

Complex: I saw that you have a LowBoy Twitter page.

John Wray: I’m still doing a thing on twitter that’s about a character who was in an early draft of LowBoy but didn’t end up in the book. Not because I didn’t think he had potential, but the part he was in was just becoming its own thing. It wasn’t quite enough of a thing to write a novel about so it just seemed like a fun way to explore it and not just shelve it away.

Complex: That’s cool. Are you on any other social networking sites?

John Wray: When LowBoy was coming out my publicist told me, first thing you need to do is open a Facebook account and a Twitter account. He was just thinking I would do tweets like most people do, like talking about what I had for breakfast. Not saying that I’m not interested in what Miley Cryus had for breakfast, I just thought it might be interesting to do something different from that. Not only to promote your book but to hear what people have to say about your book.

Complex: They’ve certainly changed the game in regards to the way artists and fans communicate…

John Wray: Ten years ago with my first book, other than a couple of letters, I don’t think I got too much contact with anyone who ever read my book. It use to feel like you sent it out into space for some alien race to respond to 500 years later. With LowBoy I’ve gotten so much feed back on Facebook or Twitter, from people who have read the book, or just coming across people tweeting on the book, it’s been really cool to see. It’s like this new thing to see there’s some kind of evidence that people are actually reading it.

Complex: Speaking of tech, the big story in terms of books is the Amazon Kindle. What do you feel about people consuming books this way?

John Wray: To me it’s no more dramatic than vinyl going to MP3. I think what’s fundamental is the text. When I write a novel I’m not thinking about what the jacket of the book is going to look like or if it’s going to be hard cover. I happen to really like books and will probably never own a kindle, but anyway that someone wants to read a book of mine is fine with me. As long as they read the words I put down I could care less how they get it. I personally like books as an object. I like the smell of books and the feel of paper, but none of that stuff is inherent to the text in itself, and obviously the Kindle is portable so it has that advantage.

Complex: What do you do for fun or a normal day?

John Wray: I do a lot of really nerdy shit. I’ll go to a lecture at the New School or bird watching at Central Park, then on another day I will go see a band or go to a party. As far as I can tell the authors I know don’t really conform to any particular type, they are all over the map. Some of them are hardcore geeks and some of them are like ridiculously hip and hanging out with the guys from Radiohead. I like to play poker and it’s embarrassing, but I’m into karaoke. I’m a David Bowie specialist, and I do a pretty good Al Green. I got an intense falsetto. It’s scary to see that in action. I play tennis, I like to go out and eat, I like to eat good food, and I spend entirely way too much money on that. I have been living in Brooklyn for almost ten years now. When people find out what I do they are generally surprised and I think it’s because I’m such a regular and such an unpretentious guy, or I don’t seem nearly smart enough to write. I can never figure out which one it is. I go to the movies a lot. The year I was writing “LowBoy” I was watching a movie almost everyday in a theater.

Complex: What was the last really good movie you last saw?

John Wray: The last really good movie I saw was… I would have to say The Hangover. It was hilarious. I tend to like stupid movies like that.

Complex: Do you ever see yourself writing a movie?

John Wray: It’s funny you ask that because I think “LowBoy” is about to get optioned. I was talking to one of the people involved and he was wondering if it was something I would be interested in writing a screenplay for. I would want to write a screenplay but not for one of my books because I think I would totally mess it all up. It’s totally a different kind of process, it doesn’t matter how you describe things in a screenplay, it just matters what you’re describing and the structure of the action, and that’s all stuff I would have to learn how to do. The novelist Richard Price, I went to a dinner with him once, and he was complaining about how much of a pain in the ass it was to write the remake of Shaft, the one staring Samuel L. Jackson, and at the end of it he told me how much he was getting paid for a month or two’s worth of work and I couldn’t fucking believe it. So I’m definitely not saying no to writing a screenplay.

Complex: Do you find it easy to pick up girls being a well-known author?

John Wray: It depends on the girl. At first I think it works against me because they assume I’m a pathetic loser who has sixteen eight hundred-page novels at his desk, and who is a deeply neurotic absinthe drinker. When they find out my books have actually been published it depends on the girl, some of them could care less. Most girls still want you to be a fun guy to hang around with.

Complex: Have you ever seen that show “Californication?”

John Wray: I saw like one episode online once. I enjoyed it. I think maybe if you’re an author and you’re David Duchovny it will go that way for you. Obviously there is a certain type of girl who I’m into. I don’t think it has worked against me, not for a while. I’ve never met girls at literally functions, usually the girls that I’ve met, I meet at a party or a bar or whatever. It’s hard to work “I’m a published author, these are my books, they have been well received” in a flirtatious conversation.

Complex: Why should the youth of America continue to read novels?

John Wray: I think they should read novels because there are things a novel can do that no movie, video game, or a comic book can do. There are great things about movies and video games, and I’m a big fan of both, but you’re short changing yourself if you don’t check out all the options you have out there. Girls like it when they see you bring out a novel out of your bright messenger bag.

Complex: What authors are you excited about beside yourself?

John Wray: I’m really excited about myself, besides that I just read a really hilarious book named “Then We Came To Then End” by Joshua Farris. I’m looking forward to the new Haruki Murakami novel coming out in a couple months. I really enjoyed Colson Whitehead’s novel “Sag Harbor.” People act as though there’s nothing to that novel or it’s not weighty, but I feel like he relaxed when working into this book, it’s a side of him no one has really seen too much. It’s breezy in a good way. It’s a thinking man’s beach book.

Complex: Now that “LowBoy” is doing well, what are you gonna do next?

John Wray: Now I’m working on the big crazy mind fuck of a book that I decided I didn’t feel like writing last time around. Maybe now people can handle it, maybe I can handle it. I’m trying to do something crazy next time around and see if it sticks to the wall.

Complex’s 10 Must-Read Summer Books

prubin — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:43:08 +0000

People can assume what they want, but there’s more to us at Complex than kicks, women and Twitter fights. It takes brains to be this fly, and we’re well-read like whoa, despite how this entire sentence is written. Not only do we have impeccable taste in literature, but we’re passionately devoted to making you a better person (or at least helping you pretend to be one), so we rounded up our favorite reads in recent memory in hopes that we can convince you to take a few books with you to the beach, on vacation, or wherever else you’re spending the last month of summer.

All are paperback, which means easy transport, and all have the official Complex co-sign. $150 for a pair of shoes that’ll be out in three months vs. $15 for a book that just might change your life? Get your paper up!

THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO (Riverhead Trade)

AUTHOR: Junot Diaz

A comic-book geek, hot Dominican girls, and magical realism? We think that maybe…yes, yes, it’s official, this book might just have it all!

BUY IT NOW!
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CITY OF THIEVES (Plume)

AUTHOR: David Benioff

The writer of The 25th Hour (which Spike then turned into a decent movie) goes back in time to the Siege of Leningrad in World War II to tell a story of two young men looking for eggs, sex, and Nazis. Sound boring? Wrong. One of the best reads of the year, trust.

BUY IT NOW!
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DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY (Vintage)

AUTHOR: Erik Larson

Nonfiction that reads like a crime novel. Old-timey Chicago and a serial killer who took out more people than Jack the Ripper? Yes, please.

BUY IT NOW!
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THE HUNTER (University Chicago Press)

AUTHOR: Richard Stark

Originally written in 1962, this is the first installment of an incredible noir series, The Parker Novels, by mystery O.G. Donald Westlake (writing under a pseudonym). It was turned into Payback, that Mel Gibson joint from the ’90s, but don’t let that sway you. No frills, just taut sadistic revenge.

BUT IT NOW!
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I AM NOT SIDNEY POITIER (Graywolf)

AUTHOR: Percival Everett

Post-racial utopia our behind. Just because our president is black doesn’t mean there’s not room for a white-hot satire in the vein of Ishmael Reed and Paul Beatty (blaow, two more recommendations for that ass!).

BUY IT NOW!
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LUSH LIFE (Picador)

AUTHOR: Richard Price

The author of Clockers and Freedomland went off to write for The Wire, then came back to books to tell a tale of L.E.S. hipsters, cops, and Tru-Life’s crew. Well, not exactly, but the book reads like a Field Guide to Ludlow Street, except with way more guns.

BUY IT NOW!
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THE ROAD (Vintage)

AUTHOR: Cormac McCarthy

A father and son scrabble across the wasteland that used to be our planet. Bleak post-apocalpytic settings were never so compelling, so read up now before the Viggo Mortensen movie finally comes to theaters and you’re exposed for the poorly-read poser you are.

BUY IT NOW!
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SUPER SPY (Top Shelf)

AUTHOR: Matt Kindt

If you’re looking for a graphic novel, stop here. Espionage + awesome meta-fiction + pretty pictures = JJ Abrams’ wet dream.

BUY IT NOW!
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WHITE TIGER (Free Press)

AUTHOR: Aravind Adiga

A dirt-poor village kid rises through the class divides of India. Coarse, hilarious, and a far fucking cry from the gauzy “Indian fiction” your girl’s into.

BUY IT NOW!
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ZEROVILLE (Europa)

AUTHOR: Steve Erickson

A freak show with an obsessive love of movies moves to 1960s LA, then falls in with some weirdos and descends into madness. Seriously, seriously unlike anything you’ve ever read.

BUY IT NOW!

Book of the Week: Vans Off The Wall: Stories of Sole from Vans Originals

Bradley — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:23:11 +0000

BOOK: Vans Book (published 6/09)

AUTHOR: Doug Palladini

FUN FACT: Vans has been holding it down for over 40 years and started making special customizaions in the early days of the company (when iD was still something that Freud talked about). Shoppers could bring their favorite fabric by the factory, and the Van Dorens would put together a pair of shoes for them that week. You can design your own Vans through the company site today.

WHY COMPLEX IS CO-SIGNING IT: While the kids are going nuts because Vans is O.G. skate, affordable, and there are about a billion colorways to choose from, this book breaks down a history of the company. History is boring, right? Author/curator Doug Palladini pre-empts your study hall whining by giving you the tales from the super heroes’ mouths. Chapters with skaters Tony Alva, Steve Caballero and John Cardiel; surfer Joel Tudor; music legends’ tales from the Warped Tour; and a photo essay on Frenchman Dimitri Coste’s crazy collection each show a facet of the company that you wouldn’t know otherwise. When it comes to reading we need a lot of pictures to look at, and this does the trick with 208 pages that include photographs by champions of the lens CR Stecyk, R. Grant Brittain, Art Brewer, and Trevor Graves.

CLICK HERE TO BUY “Vans Off The Wall: Stories of Sole from Vans Originals” FOR $25

Book of the Week: Public Enemies

jerwin — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:23:53 +0000

BOOK: Public Enemies (published 7/04)

AUTHOR: Bryan Burrough

FUN FACT: When Bonnie Parker was killed in a hail of 150 bullets alongside her boyfriend Clyde Barrow, her right hand was shot completely off!

WHY COMPLEX IS CO-SIGNING IT: Because we’re geeked up to catch the Michael Mann-directed, Johnny Depp-starring flick of the same name (in theaters next Wednesday), but we know it won’t be nearly as good as the book (unless it’s like 15 hours long, in which case, maybe we ain’t so excited to see it after all). Written by a longtime Vanity Fair contributor, PE tells the story of the 18-month crime wave in 1933-34 that birthed the FBI as we know it and gave America some of its most famous criminals: Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barker Gang…

In the midst of the Great Depression when folk were broke and everybody hated the banks (hmmm, remind anyone of a time we know?), the aforementioned group became cult heroes by criss-crossing the country robbing anything with cash and shooting at cops. Because local police had little authority to pursue suspects beyond state lines, a cross-dressing fat man named J. Edgar Hoover made a play to increase the power of his fledgling Federal Bureau of Investigations (thereby laying the groundwork for an immense amount of really serious fuckery in the ’60s and ’70s).

With the hardcover clocking in at over 550 pages, PE will herniate some disks if you carry it in your messenger bag, but the writing makes for pure brain candy with no telling details left out (including—SPOILER ALERT!—the dying words of most of the particulars). Sure, you’ve got just five full days to breeze through the whole thing before the movie opens July 1—it’s a small price to pay for being able to tell your fellow theatergoers “Well, it’s not quite right, because so-and-so was actually shot in the right eye, not the left…”

CLICK HERE TO BUY “PUBLIC ENEMIES” FOR $10.88

Phil Frost Book Is Out

complex — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:04:21 +0000

Eccentric vandal turned contemporary artist Phil Frost has a new art book out. He’s one of the few artists who’s been able to successfully parlay his “high evolved form of tagging” and transform it into a signature style of art that’s highly recognizable and all his own. Frost describes his work as thus: “I believe [my work] is indigenous to myself. I believe that within every person there is an indigenous expression of themselves.” Sure, whatever you say Phil. The 162 page book features numerous full color images of the artist’s work and of course, the obligatory essay by Carlo McCormick as well as some words by artistic mystery man Pushead. $29.70, www.amazon.com

[Supertouch via C-Monster]

Is Your Girl Really A Secret Assassin?

complex — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:33:11 +0000

Jason Howe and girlfriend Marilyn / Photo: Jason Howe

This dude’s was. Photojournalist Jason Howe fell in love with his girlfriend Marilyn and later found out she had a slightly sinister secret life: an assassin for death squads in Columbia. Howe set out for the countryside of the coke-torn country to interview and profile the real deal Columbians about the internal politics of the drug trade. That’s where he met his girl Marilyn. She invited him to come meet the fam and allowed him to use her house as a sort of home base, allowing the photog some freedom in patrolling around the region and shooting the coca fields and the paramilitary soldiers that guard them. After gathering what he needed, he left for a few months, but eventually returned to see Marilyn. It was then that she dropped this bombshell:

She then hit me with a confession that would both thrill and confuse me. She explained that in the months that I had been away in Iraq her role within the AUC had changed; she had joined the urban militia and become an assassin. Her job was now to eliminate informers and traitors. So far, she told me, she had killed at least 10 people in the area. I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, Marylin looked at me through the smoke as I exhaled, waiting to see how I would respond to what she had just told me.

Read more of Jason’s amazing account here. He’s also got a book, Columbia: Between the Lines, coming out later this year. Or if you’re really lazy you could always wait for the movie, a story like is too good to not exploit.

Stan Lee’s “Election Daze”

complex — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:30:20 +0000

Superhero ~~sellout~~ creator Stan Lee, who’s ruined countless comic icons by taking them onto the silver screen has a whole new cast of characters to slay, this time setting his aim on politicians like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, President Bush, among other newfound political celebrities like George Clooney,
Chuck Norris, and Stephen Colbert in his new book “Election Daze.” Lee, who’s most often associated with superhuman idols like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men, took his famed comic book format and transposed it to political humor. His new book features funny dialogue balloons accompanied by eye-catching photos from Capitol Hill shutterbug, Lauren Victoria Burke. According to Lee, the political arena sometimes offers more unbelievable material than his best fiction, “It's a great change of pace from writing fantasy tales, although sometimes politics seems more like fantasy than my own stories.” The caption-filled easy read will be available at the end of March and is available for pre-order online now. $9.95, www.atlasbooks.com

The Three Thug Mice “Bomb Hard”

complex — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:30:28 +0000

As we mentioned, each week a new webisode of the Three Thug Mice will be released. Now showing is “Bomb Hard,” featuring the voices of Patty Dukes, plus graffiti writers: FUZZ ONE, KET, TEAM GO, MIN-ONE, GHOST, KIT 17, and STAK. Go watch it now or shoot pigs for fun instead.

Stagg Street Shop Opens Up To Raise Money For Book

complex — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:36:18 +0000

“Courtney Cruz on the floor,” 8×10 glossy, signed

Ellen Stagg, the photographer responsible for lensing the erotic beauties on Stagg Street, has announced that she is publishing a book! To help raise money for her fleshly endeavor, she set up the Stagg Street Shop to sell, among other things, signed, 8×10 prints of her work including the above shot of the lovely Courtney for $100 a piece. The first 100 people to buy a print will also get a free copy of the book when it’s published later this year. The proposed 200 page coffee table book will feature countless erotic images and will showcase the full breadth of her sizzling shots. Do the right thing for yourself'as well as your fellow man'and contribute to a very just cause.

Marveling At Marvel Comics

complex — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:34:06 +0000

Good news for the comic book afflicted. Marvel is offering up a big selection of their comics online. Marvel Unlimited has 250 free samples to browse through now, and if you want full access to thousands of titles, they’re charging $9.99 a month or a discounted $59.88 for an annual subscription. They’ll be adding 20 new titles weekly and the collections include both contemporary and vintage Superheroes, including back issues of “Spider-Man,” the “Incredible Hulk,” “X-Men” and the “Fantastic Four,” among other crowd favorites.

[Source]

Norman Mailer Had ‘The Faith of Graffiti’

complex — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:30:32 +0000

Pulitzer prized author, journalist, founder of the Village Voice, filmmaker and tireless button pusher Norman Mailer passed away this Saturday. Although he’s renowned for his countless award winning works, we’ve always known him for his lesser known essay that served as the text for the groundbreaking book, The Faith of Graffiti. It was an oversized masterpiece with photos by Mervyn Kurlansky and Jon Naar detailing the mysterious emerging art form on NYC’s subway trains. The notoriously tough guy author intellectualized the graffiti movement in its early beginnings'’Faith’ was published in 1974'when hand styles were still being developed and most of the letters were very primitive. Mailer was fascinated by the art form, writing, “What a quintessential marriage of cool and style to write your name in giant separate living letters, large as animals, lythe as snakes, mysterious as Arabic and Chinese curls of alphabet.” In honor of the pugilistic legman and the groundbreaking book on graff, we’ve assembled some excerpts and images:

“Slum populations chilled on one side by the bleakness of modern design, and brain-cooked on the other by comic strips and TV ads with zooming letters, even brain-cooked by politicians whose ego is a virtue – I am here to help my nation – brained by the big beautiful numbers on the yard markers on football fields, by the whip of the capital letters in the names of products, and gut-picked by the sound of rock and roll screaming up into the voodoo of the firmament with the shriek of the performer's insides coiling like neon letters in the blue satanic light, yes, all the excrescence of the highways and the fluorescent wonderlands of every Las Vegas sign frying through the Iowa and New Jersey night, all the stomach-tightening nitty-gritty of trying to learn how to spell was in the writing, every assault on the psyche as the trains came slamming in.” -Norman Mailer

THE FAITH OF GRAFFITI
photography by Mervyn Kurlansky & Jon Naar
text by Norman Mailer
edited in 1974 by Praeger Publishers
ISBN : 0275716100
96 pages

Stylin’ And Profilin’ Hip Hop Culture

Joe — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:30:43 +0000

Although a lot of cats claim to be “80s babies” only a select few truly grasp the time period that spawned dookie chains, high-top fades and some of the best Hip Hop to ever hit the streets. Luckily for the young'ins photographer Janette Beckman has catalogued photos from when she was pounding the pavement taking flicks of the underground scene of DJs, b-boys, fly girls and graff writers in a new book titled “The Breaks: Stylin' and Profilin' 1982-1990.” Included in the book are top-notch photos of icons from an earlier era like Africa Bambaataa, NWA, Eric B and Rakim, EMPD, De La Soul, Rick Rubin, the Beastie Boys and a whole lot more. The book is now available and can be scooped up here, check some imagery after the jump.

Borat’s New Book Is Great Success!

complex — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:56:24 +0000

Borat/Photo: Eatmenow

His name a Borat'Sacha Baron Cohen’s parodying, anti-Semitic, woman hating, Eastern bloc alter ego'he come to U.S. and A. to promote new book. And despite the droves of kids that came with their parents to Borders bookstore in LA on Wednesday night, Borat didn’t pull any punches for their sake, declaring “Wahwahweewah! Very nice! There are many childrens here!… You are gypsies? I can buy you?” He even paraded his own dirty-faced gypsy boy clad in tighty-whities to help promote and launch his new R-rated laced book, Touristic Guidings to Minor Nation of U.S. and A. and Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation. It was officially released on Tuesday and should receive a stiff condemnation by the country of Kazakhstan any day now. The faux travel guide and cultural almanac is an invaluable resource:

Packed with helpful tips, BORAT offers off-the-beaten-path recommendations and “will instruct you on all you needing know” for your next family vacation, be it at home or abroad.

Check out some Sexy Time! flicks from the event.

Gorillaz In the Mix

treats — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:01:52 +0000

I don't know who's big idea it was to group less traditional music into the alternative category. The powers that be (~~record labels~~) are probably so lost when they get music from “experimental” artists that when it's shipped to retailers, they figure it should sit either in the back of the store with rap, or next to the CD cleaners with the cashier. Before groups like De La Soul, Radiohead, the White Stripes, and OutKast changed the way our ears listened to music, it was simply lyrics and an image. Today, only through our brave new world of CGI and viral marketing can a hair-brained idea like a virtual band exist as all-walking, talking, singing, dancing, rapping, fully functional artists we call the Gorillaz. Depending on where you cop your music, they're probably sandwiched between Feist and Ghostface, thanks.

Two multi-platinum albums deep, a bevy of remixes, and a collection of Kidrobot vinyl figures, the animated soul of pop music goes one step further with their autobiography, the “Gorillaz: Rise of the Ogre.” After flipping through the first 30 pages alone (spoiler alert!) we learn the origins of Murdoc, 2-D, Noodle, and Russel through funny interviews that have the feel of an E! True Hollywood Story with the visual pacing of a graphic novel. As of press time, there are rumors of the band's breakup and the new “D-Sides” album (Nov. 19th) of unreleased material touted as the last official release, that is unless they decide to reunite for their forthcoming documentary, “Bananaz.” For answers to all your Gorillaz inquiries, log on to Facebook tomorrow at 1PM where Murdoc, the band’s bassist will be holding an online forum. Until then, it looks like music will be in search of a new “alternative.”

Stay Tooned

treats — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:30:42 +0000

Oh joy! The complete anthology of Nicktoons just landed on our desks today, and we can barley contain ourselves. The 106 and Park generation might be too young to fathom our echoed sentiments from Ren and Stimpy (1991). So the geniuses at Nickelodeon packaged all of their animated classics into one comprehensive look with original concepts for shows like the franchise cash cow, Spongebob Squarepants, to rough sketches for the America meets anime culture clash, Kappa Mikey. Try getting past this coffee table book's green goo plastic cover before your childhood begins to flash before your eyes. “Nicktoons!” hits all major book stores this November.

We’re Going Coo-Coo For New Cereal Horror Book

complex — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:01:24 +0000

We’ve been big fans of breakfast cereal ever since Life’s “Hey Mikey! He likes it!” commercials were blaring in between Saturday morning cartoons shows back in the 80’s, so of course we’re going to like this soon to be released coffee table book: Cereal Killers. It will feature highly imaginative parodies'we’re really feeling this “Koo-Koo Pebbles” mash-up from artist Kevin Schmid'of cereal boxes that are spooky, nasty, and downright distasteful, yum! And really good news, all the art from the book is being posted on the publisher’s blog and the book will be available as a print-on-demand project, so if the thought of icky ink and paper sickens you, check back to the website and get your fill there.

[Source, via]

Author Takes On ‘One Hundred Young Americans’

complex — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 21:14:13 +0000

Dealing with one teenager is a pain in the ass, now imagine a hundred of ‘em, like Michael Franzini did in his new book, One Hundred Young Americans. The author-photographer was on a mission to document a cross section of American teenagers to hear and document firsthand, what’s it’s like living as a mini-adult in this country. So he went on a junket:

He traveled to all fifty states – a total of 30,000 miles in five months – to meet, interview, and photograph teens, ranging from the mainstream kids like the jocks, the cheerleaders, and the studious preps, to the fringe kids like the goths, the skaters, and skinheads, and everyone else in between.

The result was a mass of raw photos and uncensored stories that show a new generation more than once removed from the previous. The book drops in November, but there’s plenty of stuff to preview on the ‘100 Young Americans’ website in the meantime.

[Source]

Winding Down: Sandee Westgate Is A Pearl

complex — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:30:51 +0000

Good things come to those who wait: “[I]t only took 15 months of running this stupid site, but it finally happened! I got a nice email from a hot woman who actually wanted me to put her pics up on the site.” [Horny Oyster]

Todd McFarlane’s Halo 3 custom painted controllers are out of this world. [Gizmodo]

Japan has the coolest and weirdest fetish combos. All hail the taxi maidens. [Newlaunches]

Finally, some good reading for hypochondriacs: The Complete Manual of Things That Might Kill You. [Neatorama]

Winding Down: Giorgia On Our Minds

complex — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 22:30:05 +0000

We’ll have to agree with the ‘Tuna‘ on this one. We’ve never heard of Giorgia Palmas, and frankly it doesn’t matter. The important thing is just how good this lass looks in a bikini. [Hollywood Tuna]

Kids will eat pretty much anything if its wrapped in McDonald’s packaging. [Core77]

TWIST aka Barry McGee, has got a new book out. But better be well versed in Japanese if you expect to actually read it. [TheWorldsBestEver]

Chances are that scientists will develop the Hover Skateboard like in Back to the Future Part II before Nike makes the Air McFlys. [Neatorama]