norwegian coastal steamer

Great big thanks to Jessica for providing today’s eye candy:

There’s the jacket  (above), and the actual book cover, front and back (below).

    

Not to mention the inside cover…

This was an awesome surprise gift to get in the mail!  I love it.

americana

Again in honor of gift-giving times, here’s a book that was given to me by the lovely Africia H. Before I even got to reading the film history inside, I was struck by the layouts of its pages:

  

    

 

Thanks again, Africia! There are some great stills in the book, little works of art in themselves.

Everett Aison, its designer, was also a screenwriter and director, an author, a designer of title sequences and film posters, and co-founder of the School of Visual Arts Film School.  That’s just the kind of multifaceted involvement in media, and film in particular, that I admire…

double d

Perhaps my favorite find ever at Strand. A two-volume set of Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot (in German). This is almost actual size:

  

If only I wasn’t foolish enough not to pick up the other books in the set because I had already read them…  Dumb broke college kid!

thrift gift

This is my suggestion for those of you who are in similarly dire financial straits. It’s nothing new to me, but it may be to you, and thus, you may not know how to shop on a budget.  Here is afforable art at its best: independent, educational, accessible, and, yes, affordable.

I’m not normally a fan of semi-ironic celebrity portraiture, but I’ve been laughing over Aiyana Udesen’s “Drawing” book for years. This is why:

The artist’s website, complete with examples of other books, is here.  The challenge comes in finding the book to purchase! I found it at both a local comic-book store, and a local bookstore.  So get away from the Internet for a moment and go look… it will make your gift more meaningful.

Of course, there’s also 20×200 for other affordable art, if you’re a bit lazy.

ink spots

I do wish that the records within this sleeve were not warped and scratched, but for $1 it seemed worth it just to see this:

These days I can just download the tunes anyway,  pull out the damaged goods from the sleeves and pretend they’re what I’m hearing.  A simulated experience, yes, but it’s a recording either way, no?

lunar

Possibly my favorite thrift-store find is the $1 lunar globe found in a bin of clothing and broken toys in the as-is section of the St. Vincent de Paul.  Like many people, I’ve always been fond of globes.  Of looking at them, learning from them, wasting time playing the spin-the-globe, drop-your-finger-somewhere-ramdomly game.  The lunar globe adds an even greater fantasy element to the game, and to whichever room it’s in.

The shapes of the surface elements are interesting, but the nomenclature fascinates me more.  I see an Edison crater, but have not found a Tesla yet.  Even the moon has its controversies.  Cabinet magazine recently had an article about the naming of features on Mercury.  The Mercury Task Group opted to utilize the names of cultural figures rather than scientists.  They made an effort to be cross-cultural, but have almost entirely excluded women.  Uh, there are women in all cultures, folks.  But I guess you can’t make everybody in the universe happy.

grrr

Another bright, patterned German book cover to enjoy.

         

content

These small, simply designed pocket books by one of the strongest writers of the past century were impossible to resist.  Perfect inside and out.  Even if one of them may have suffered a bit of wear inside a bag toted around NYC last month.

        

        

whodunit

Paintings of unknown provenance add mystery to the walls. And mystery inspires conjecture. And conjecture just inspires.

 

 

(found at an Out of the Closet thrift store, los angeles, ca)

(found at a garage sale, los angeles, ca)

 

(found in a thrift store, boyle heights, los angeles, ca)

 

(found in a thrift store, pomona, ca)

 

(found in an Out of the Closet thrift store, los angeles, ca)

 

(found on ebay by MW)