I Love Ranch Dressing – And Other Stuff White Midwesterners Like
Cara Freie
This is a Midwest-specific version of Stuff White People Like. Targeting our likes with snarky accuracy, Freie pokes fun at our love of Ranch Dressing (on anything), comfortable Dockers, novelty sweaters, Cracker Barrel and having your wedding reception at the VFW. Hey, that’s not funny! Oh wait, yeah, it is.
http://www.iloveranchdressing.com
Dictator Style – Lifestyles of the World’s Most Colorful Despots
Peter York, forward by Douglas Coupland
It would seem that, out there somewhere, there is a checklist and letter that your average dictator is sent when they reach a certain level. “Yes,” this letter says, “you may rule with an iron fist and have your every bloody whim met. But in return, you will have horrendous interior decorating taste.”
Right, let’s see here:
Gilt and flocked wallpaper? Check
Dark European paintings? Check
French or English antiques (or knock-offs)? Check
Enormous, empty rooms with no purpose? Check
Stashes of stuff – shoes, furs, jewelry, more furniture? Check
Vast, ugly bathrooms? Check
Of course, not all dictators stick to the list. Some are quiet inventive. ...
Beneath the Roses
Gregory Crewdson
Crewdson’s new photo book hits the perfect note between eerie familiarity and creepy confusion. Unlike his past books, the images in this collection don’t have the theatrical, almost unbelievably staged, look. Instead, the images are shot in small towns perfect for their generic blandness. Every page gave me irritating deja vu. I’ve been to that town, haven’t I? Isn’t that in Wisconsin? Or did we drive through on the way to South Dakota? Or maybe somewhere in Minnesota? While the towns with their gently decaying houses, snow-filled streets, generic businesses and empty parking lots could be anywhere, the subjects of the images are ...
Do Everything Better (Urawaza)
Lisa Katayama
Urawaza is a secret or trick to do things better – life-hacking. This collection of Urawaza offers a myriad of ideas to fix and do things in a cheap and easy way – often as alternatives to a more standard way. For instance, have glass all over the floor? Don’t try to sweep or mop it up, but use a piece of soft bread to gently lift up the shards. Other tips are equally practical. Cat scratching your table legs? Wrap them in rope. Candle wax in the carpet? Use layers of paper and an iron to soak the wax out. Others seem a bit more iffy. I doubt I’ll stick scallions up my nose to clear congestion, nor do I think I will rub white shoe-polish ...
The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss
The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss – Claire Nouvian
This book is gorgeous. While the subject matter, sea creatures of the deepest abysses, is certainly fascinating the pictures are what makes this book so wonderful. Some show perfect, tiny jeweled creatures floating in the dark. Others, lit by ROV lights, look like computer generated movie sets. Unreal and intensely...
Ancient Micronesia and the Lost City of Nan Madol
Ancient Micronesia and the Lost City of Nan Madol - David Hatcher Childress
I first ran about Nan Madol last month in Oliver Sack’s Island of the Colorblind. The city of Nan Madol is located deep in Micronesia. The partially sunken city once covered 11 square miles and was cut through with Venetian style canals and ringed with man-made islands. The massive walls are comprised of 250 million tons of basalt – the equivalent of a small mountain. And yet, the tiny Micronesian islands surrounding Nan Madol can only support a few thousand people. The many-ton basalt crystal are far too large to be moved by canoe or raft. Carbon dating gives dates as early as...