Kramer's Best of 2007
Sorry this took so long!
"Help yourself help yourself: Because nobody wants to take care of you, because do you know how disgusting you are? For a fee and the promise of future friendship, I will tell you. And I like you right back; afterall I'm disgusting too."
Patrick Dewitt's Help Yourself Help Yourself, a self-help book published by Cali Dewitt's Teenage Teardrops, was an inspiration from the opening words. The collection of memoirs, jokes, philosophies, inventories, songs, and myths, is hilarious, crushing, wise, and fits neatly in your breastpocket.
'The Unwritten Songs of Boyhood' is a personal favorite:
This School is Cold Bricks
I Don't Wanta Get the Glasses
The Farah Fawcett Poster
I Don't Want To Play Any Pranks On Anyone (Because Everyone Should Leave Everyone Alone)
Rebecca Perkins as Alfred E Newman's Girlfriend for Halloween
Boy by Takeshi Kitano
Takeshi Kitano’s ‘Boy’ is his first book translated into English, originally published in 1986, before Kitano gained notoriety outside of Japan for directing the films Ha-Nabi and Zotoichi. The book strays from his characteristic yakuza and samurai ultra-violence with three stories about kids.
In the story Nest of Stars two bullied brothers find respite in an obsession with astronomy. They are too poor to afford a decent telescope so resort to burglarizing the school science building at night. ‘Okemesan’ follows a teenager who runs away from his stable but stifling home, and falls for a biker girl who cons him out of his money, but lets him stay with her at her mother’s decrepit apartment. Kitano’s writing is unadorned, deadpan but warm, and totally immersing. Though the subject is more innocuous than his films, the pre-occupations are the same – absent fathers, broodings on death, and society’s bullies. Chip Kidd designed a sweet cover, with a cheese-hole jacket that peeks into a vintage Japanese children’s cartoon.
Seeing Ezra Harkham Grow Into a Young Man
New and Used by Marc Joseph
This book is only photos of the shelves of bookshops, record shops, and personal collections. It suggested to me why I probably do Family in the first place. I remember being 15 and getting the train downtown to the record store and buying one 7" a week and listening to it over and over again until the next week when I'd get a new one. A 7" was a potentially life-changing thing. This book is all about walking into a shop or examining someone's bookshelf, the crazy excitement of the potential of discovering something that will change your life. With writing contributions from:
Lydia Davis, Stephen Elliott, Shelley Jackson, Jonathan Lethem, Thurston Moore, Eileen Myles, Bob Nickas, Aaron Rose, Jeremy Sigler, Stephanie Snyder, Ian Svenonius and Nick Tosches.
Simon Evans Show at Jack Hanley Gallery with Pocahaunted
I've already said a lot about this event already. Evans uses liquid paper, scotch tape, pencil sharpenings, and ball point pen, to form meticulously crafted, large-scale images ranging from old ships, to anatomical studies, to imaginary theme parks. Fragments of text are woven into the images - stories, jokes, and philosophies, from the hilarious to deeply personal. In 'Ten things I Know About Men' Evans scrawls: "Everything about the penis [scratched out in pen] when it comes to using the toilet." Plus Pocahaunted are so great.
"Help yourself help yourself: Because nobody wants to take care of you, because do you know how disgusting you are? For a fee and the promise of future friendship, I will tell you. And I like you right back; afterall I'm disgusting too."
Patrick Dewitt's Help Yourself Help Yourself, a self-help book published by Cali Dewitt's Teenage Teardrops, was an inspiration from the opening words. The collection of memoirs, jokes, philosophies, inventories, songs, and myths, is hilarious, crushing, wise, and fits neatly in your breastpocket.
'The Unwritten Songs of Boyhood' is a personal favorite:
This School is Cold Bricks
I Don't Wanta Get the Glasses
The Farah Fawcett Poster
I Don't Want To Play Any Pranks On Anyone (Because Everyone Should Leave Everyone Alone)
Rebecca Perkins as Alfred E Newman's Girlfriend for Halloween
Boy by Takeshi Kitano
Takeshi Kitano’s ‘Boy’ is his first book translated into English, originally published in 1986, before Kitano gained notoriety outside of Japan for directing the films Ha-Nabi and Zotoichi. The book strays from his characteristic yakuza and samurai ultra-violence with three stories about kids.
In the story Nest of Stars two bullied brothers find respite in an obsession with astronomy. They are too poor to afford a decent telescope so resort to burglarizing the school science building at night. ‘Okemesan’ follows a teenager who runs away from his stable but stifling home, and falls for a biker girl who cons him out of his money, but lets him stay with her at her mother’s decrepit apartment. Kitano’s writing is unadorned, deadpan but warm, and totally immersing. Though the subject is more innocuous than his films, the pre-occupations are the same – absent fathers, broodings on death, and society’s bullies. Chip Kidd designed a sweet cover, with a cheese-hole jacket that peeks into a vintage Japanese children’s cartoon.
Seeing Ezra Harkham Grow Into a Young Man
New and Used by Marc Joseph
This book is only photos of the shelves of bookshops, record shops, and personal collections. It suggested to me why I probably do Family in the first place. I remember being 15 and getting the train downtown to the record store and buying one 7" a week and listening to it over and over again until the next week when I'd get a new one. A 7" was a potentially life-changing thing. This book is all about walking into a shop or examining someone's bookshelf, the crazy excitement of the potential of discovering something that will change your life. With writing contributions from:
Lydia Davis, Stephen Elliott, Shelley Jackson, Jonathan Lethem, Thurston Moore, Eileen Myles, Bob Nickas, Aaron Rose, Jeremy Sigler, Stephanie Snyder, Ian Svenonius and Nick Tosches.
Simon Evans Show at Jack Hanley Gallery with Pocahaunted
I've already said a lot about this event already. Evans uses liquid paper, scotch tape, pencil sharpenings, and ball point pen, to form meticulously crafted, large-scale images ranging from old ships, to anatomical studies, to imaginary theme parks. Fragments of text are woven into the images - stories, jokes, and philosophies, from the hilarious to deeply personal. In 'Ten things I Know About Men' Evans scrawls: "Everything about the penis [scratched out in pen] when it comes to using the toilet." Plus Pocahaunted are so great.
6 Comments:
Is that DeWitt cover by Carson Mell?
Pat Dewitt's an asshole.
Hurrah!
Hello Kramer,
Thank you very much for your incredibly kind words about "New and Used". I appreciate that very much.
I've never been to Family, but I'll come in when I'm next there in LA, which should be soon (we come there from here in NY pretty often).
Warm regards, best wishes to you for a Happy New Year.
Sincerely,
Marc Joseph
Justine - Yep, that's a Carson Mell cover.
Annonymous - Pat Dewitt is a gentleman.
Pat Dewitt - The critics also slammed Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.
Marc - See you in LA!
I think what we're all going to take away from this convoluted exchange is that you should be carrying Carson's book.
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