4 comments about My Brain is Hanging Upside Down.

1. The excruciating beauty of David Heatley's work lies in its truthfulness, both raw and tender, both harrowing and endearing. Like watching a Lars von Trier film in storyboard form, at times you'll wish you'd closed the book before it was too late -- but inevitably you won't. An astounding achievement.



2. We've watched David Heatley grow as an artist and as a person, and loved his work as he appeared in the NY Times, the New Yorker and numerous prestigious Comic Journals. His wonderful drawings - self and life-revealing - and his excellent prose invigorate and challenge, as they entertain and delight. This is Great work!! A must have book.
   
   MH



3. This graphic autobiography is a collection of David Heatley's comics that are darkly and explicitly funny. He leaves very little to the imagination as he takes us through his sex life (and eventually his love life), his relationships, good and bad, with people of other races, and his relationship with his parents and family.
   
   As an autobiography, the book gives us rare insight into the feelings and experience of another human being. It doesn't hold anything back, and doesn't let us as readers, either. You might put the book down in disgust after the first couple of pages, or read in mesmerized fascination as David alternately destroys and rebuilds his life. In neither case, will you be entirely comfortable. That is good. What David does brilliantly here is hold up the weakness and frailty of the human condition, then show us that it is possible to overcome it to be something more than what we were.
   
   The book is graphic in more than one sense. It is as much about the drawings as the text. They are simple but effective, but in many cases the subject matter is very sexually graphic-about what you would expect in a book in which one section is titled "Sex." He draws his characters as real human beings with or without their clothes. This is one comic book that you don't leave out for the children to see.
   
   As I read through My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down, a theme emerged of needing to ask ourselves the tough questions. What is sex? What is love? Why are they different? Am I a racist? Do I really know my Mom or Dad, or even myself?
   
   For those with an open mind, this book will help you ask these questions of yourself.
   
   Armchair Interviews says: Thought-provoking read.



4. 
   
   
   
   
   Biographies can be so interesting, and they run the full gamut from tragic to comic and everywhere inbetween. They can either move you, or bore you with their incessant, seemingly irrelevant details.
   
   
   That's how I find "My Brain is Upside Down". He divides the book into five sections, sex, race, mom, dad, and kin. Given the subject matter, it is probably the best way for Mr Heatley to chronicle his life. Each of the movements in the book are blunt, and to the point. However, as truthful as they are, they do not necessarily belong in a public forum.
   
   
   Graphically, the art teeters on the edge of underground. As a New York cartoonist, he is highly regarded, and his work draws raves from Dan Clowes, Chris Ware and Dan Painter. His op-ed pieces like "Thoughts on a Subway" are considered critical successes. As a long time comic/illustrated fiction reader, I would take issue with that. Largely, his panels are too small, and cluttered. Surprisingly, the clutered art matches the cluttered story telling, and that would be why this book works at the level it does.
   
   
   Mainstream comic readers will find this unappealing, while connossieurs of 'new york-underground' style will rave about it.
   
   
   Tim Lasiuta
   
   www.pantheonbooks.com
   
   

1 comments about Letterhead and Logo Design 10 (Letterhead and Logo Design).

1. The book is good material, but the deal feels a bit like a swindle. I'm use to buy items on amazon all around europe and it's the first time I have to pay extra taxes. Taxes that rised the price up to double the original price. There is no warning telling you that there will be an extra tax to pay to get the item. Most probably the last time I buy something on Amazon US.
   Very disappointed!

5 comments about Leonardo da Vinci for Kids: His Life and Ideas, 21 Activities (For Kids series).

1. Leonardo da Vinci for Kids is a fascinating biography of a fascinating man with plenty of material to keep children and adults interested and amazed. The story details da Vinci's life, works, ideas and interests. His artistic and scientific creations and inventions cover an incredibly broad field - from his famous paintings to complex defense mechanisms for cities under siege to mechanical "creatures" to complex and artistically creative parties for important people of his day. The story is filled with fascinating details about his works, studies and ideas as well as many beautiful reproductions of his paintings and sketches. You'll find a resume that he wrote at the age of 30 for the ruler of Milan - offering his services as a military engineer! There are fascinating and sometimes humorous stories about how he prepared to design some of his greatest paintings, how he dealt with difficult clients and how some of his paintings were recovered centuries later.
   
   Leonardo da Vinci has long been considered the paradigm "Renaissance Man". Through this book, he offers children a great example of enthusiastic love of life and learning. Readers will come away with a greater perspective on the importance and joy of learning, early advancements in science, general concepts of art and how to appreciate it, basic scientific concepts, ideas for using the imagination and memory, concepts in math relating to science, Renaissance life and much more.
   
   I was impressed with the care the author took in relating so many interesting ideas in an accessible and engaging manner. I found difficult concepts handled graciously and respectfully - particularly for the intended age level. For example, the reader will learn that da Vinci's parents were never married and that this had consequences on his career choices. We learn that da Vinci dissected dead bodies at the morgue for the sake of artistic and scientific learning. At one point the Pope prohibits him from continuing this mode of study. Instead of being judgemental about these sorts of issues or dwelling on them inappropriately, they are explained in clear, simple terms as relevant parts of the story, but without any extra nonsense.
   
   This book also includes 21 activities relating in various ways to da Vinci's life. They span a wide range: baking, drawing, math, science, painting, observing, language and more. The book is best for independent reading in 6th grade and up, though it could be read aloud to younger children.



2. While I believe that da Vinci was a vegetarian, his minestrone would not have had tomatoes in it. (Tomatoes are a "New World" product that were introduced to Europe by Spanish explorers in the sixteenth century - and many did not eat them as they were known to be in the poisonous nightshade family.) Suddenly my concern is - how can I tell what other errors might be in this book?



3. up to now the 3 itens do not arrived in my address.
   I already wrote a message about that months ago.
   Please do something
   
   Sergio



4. I have been going through some of the books by Janis Herbert and others than combine history with 21 activities, and as interesting as I have found those volumes to be I have to say I like the ones that deal with artists even more. "Leonardo da Vinci for Kids: His Life and Ideas" combines a detailed juvenile biography of the life of the great inventor, military engineer, scientist, botanist, and mathematician who found time to be a great painter and sculptor as well. This was the man who painted the "Mona Lisa" and invented the armored tank, diving suit, bicycle and airplane centuries before they were built. He is also an important figure in what has been the novel that has been at the top of the bestseller list for like the past year.

   The biography is divided into four sections, focusing on Leonardo's youth in Vinci, his years as a young apprentice, his period of greatest productivity in Milan, and his final years in Venice and France. The volume is illustrated with dozens of pictures of Leonardo's paintings and sketches, and the back of the book includes a Glossary, Biographies of key Renaissance artists (Botticelli, Michelangeo, etc.) and historical figures (Cesare Borgia, Ludovico Sforza, etc.), Web Sites to Explore, places where you can see some of Da Vinci's work, a Bibliography, Credits, and an Index.

   The other half of the book are the 21 activities and the art lessons, because in addition to detailing da Vinci's life Herbert talks about perspective, vanishing points and the like. Some of these are just basic art lessons, such as sketching things by observing nature, painting birds, decorating a jar for holding paintbrushes, and making a small picture frame. Others are specific to the artwork of da Vinci, such as making a life mask, lute, notebook, a parachute kite, and learning to measure human bodies the way Leonardo did. You can even make a minestrone soup in honor of Leonardo the vegetarian or Salai's aniseed sweets. Still others deal with the history of the time, such as making a banner.

   The net result is that "Leonardo da Vinci for Kids" does more than tell the story of his life and show examples of his great artwork, but provides young readers with an opportunity to try and do the same things. This book is also of great use to teachers doing units on Leonardo, the Renaissance, or art, who will be able to find both information and activities they can use in class.




5. Knowing little about art, I found this book easy to understand, enjoyable and informative. However, it is too advanced ("boring") for my almost 8 year old daughter. My opinion is that this book would be great for 10 and up.

1 comments about A is for Art Museum.

1. My son, who is 12 months old, loves flipping through the pages of this book. He always stops at the "D is for Dancer" page and starts laughing and jumping around. The images are beautiful, and the text helps inspire simple conversations with your child about art. The paper is very durable, so it has withstood my son's "enthusiastic" page turning.

3 comments about How To Draw Crazy Cars & Mad Monsters Like a Pro (Motorbooks Studio).

1. This book was written and drawn by some of the original artists of Ed Roth's studio. It doesn't get any closer than this, great book!



2. My kids just loved this book. They are both aspiring artists and have done some great work since Christmas!



3. I bought this book for my husband, after several refferals from other hot rod friends. This book is better than described.

2 comments about Sensorium: Embodied Experience, Technology, and Contemporary Art.

1. A very well organized and articulate contribution to embodiment theory.See especially the entries by Jones.



2. This is must in the library of anyone who studies or practices new media art.

4 comments about Bay Area Figurative Art: 1950-1965.

1. Caroline Jones has done a stunning job, in her book 'Bay Area Figurative Art', of defining and chronicaling the counter movement, to abstract expressionism, of representational, figurative art, in California, from 1950-1965. The book was originally published as the catalogue for the 1989-1990 exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
   For the student as well as the established artist, this book is indispensible as a reference in understanding the dynamics and art of David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bishoff and James Weeks and the others who followed. The color illustrations are excellent. It's a shame the book is not in hard-cover; with that and in a larger format, it would be ideal for the art officiando as an interesting/informative library addition. The Chronolgy and Notes sections are extensive and add to the informational whole.



2. Bay Area Figurative Art: 1950-1965
   
   This is a wonderful book with a specific emphasis on the bay area figurative scene circa 50's & 60's. It vignettes several artists from the heavily enriched San Francisco Bay Area. I found it a good place to discover some lesser-known artists that played a part of the emerging figurative art movement. This book presents the last stirrings of abstract expressionism into the birth of a newly re-discovered figure. If you enjoy the works of Richard Diebenkorn , David Parks, Paul Wonner, Joan Brown, Elmer Bischoff, you may find a few other artist in this book to investigate further.



3. Take my advice from one artist to another... this book has impact. It has added so much to my understanding of what I do, and how I view abstracted figurative art in general. I recommend this book to all artists who work in figures. The reproductions in this book are full of color and there is very little to complain about. For those who are not artists, but enjoy reading about the subject, this book fulfills. You read about the artists struggles, success, personal lives and how they came to be THE Bay Area Figurative Artists. Their art, timeless... and this book lends them the respect they deserve but rarely get.
   
   Michael Aldana
   www.michaelaldana.com



4. I had the opportunity to see this show in Philadelphia and it absolutely blew me away. Not only does it include Richard Diebenkorn's best work, but it also includes work by Paul Wonner, Elmer Bischoff, Manuel Neri, Nathan Oliveira and David Park (among others). I have drawn endless inspiration from this book and you most likely will too.

5 comments about Outdoor Rooms: Designs for Porches, Terraces, Decks, Gazebos.

1. I bought this book for ideas on design, but it turned out to be a big disappointment. Unless you have beaucoup of cash, this book is just a tease.



2. This book will set your imagination on fire and motivate you to turn your ordinary backyard into a mini-paradise. Lots of pictures to drool over, you will find yourself thumbing thru it again and again..



3. This is a great "thumb thur" book. It has really nice pictures of outdoor areas that are very "architectural".... Not helpful for the "average joe" looking for ideas to create your own backyard/outdoor patio/room.



4. If you need ideas on how to create outdoor spaces for entertaining - this book is for you. Dining, lounging, dining, lounging... Even different photos of the same patio have different place settings on the tables to give you dining ideas. After a while, I began looking for spaces where you could do something other than dine, or lounge. Overall, nice photos of nice outdoor spaces, but limited appeal.



5. When looking for fresh ideas and inspiration on how to create the prefect outdoor space you needn't look any further than this book. From a modern symmetrical porch to lush English gardens, it showcases a wide range of styles. With so much to choose from anyone can find something to suit their taste.

   Many of the outdoor rooms have pools. It is amazing how they manage to flawlessly integrate the pools into the environment without making them seem out of place or just thrown there. The magnificent outdoor spaces truly become a part of the home.

   I love the combination of styles and how they compliment one another. One room features the creamy white walls of Greece, a timber roof and hot Mexican colors in a cushioned seat. Large color photos tell the story with brief descriptions of each example.

   In the back there is a sampler of fine furnishing and accessories form a variety of different styles including historical, rustic, Mediterranean/island, and geometric. There is also a helpful directory of design professionals, photographers and product sources.

No comments about Maxfield Parrish 2009 Wall Calendar.

5 comments about Modernism: The Lure of Heresy.

1. Peter Gay has written a sweeping survey of Modernism that is lucid, highly readable, amply illustrated, beautifully designed, and remarkably complete. He has, essentially, written a survey of 120 years of cultural and aesthetic history. This is not a task for the faint of heart, but Gay has never suffered from that malady, his array of works spanning multiple centuries. His two-volume history of the Enlightenment remains a very important study and his work on Freud and on 19thc sensibility equally so.
   
   The problem with Modernism is that there is so much of it, particularly if you set out to write about poetry and fiction, music, architecture, painting, pop culture, and the many movements and sub-movements attending them. And of course, he is not bounded by any national borders. This is history with a capital H. That means that he has relatively little space (4-6 pp., usually at the outside) for each major figure. Thus, the book is a sweeping survey, an excellent introduction to the subject. Theory is kept to a minimum. He focuses on two aspects of Modernism--its penchant for aesthetic heresy and its stress of subjectivism.
   
   The book is also scrupulously fair, recognizing silliness and extremism where they are found and recognizing the important realities that work designed to shock the middle class cannot exist without a middle class prepared to consume it and a society sufficiently free and stable to protect the shockers and provide them a safe place in which to work.
   
   Personally, I would like to have seen a little more discussion of individuals who distinguished themselves but who did not subscribe to the Modernist agenda, writers such as Graham Greene or George Orwell and any number of individuals who produced magnificent work within the constraints of traditional forms. This is a book about Modernism, of course, but that could be contextualized with sharper contrasts. Gay is a believer, though a balanced one. Still, he sees grandeur in the international style of architecture and tends to overlook the ugliness of fifties' boxes with smudged glass and drip stains from flat roofs. I did not expect him to take Tom Wolfe's stance on the Bauhaus or on abstract expressionism, but Wolfe's (much-maligned) stance is shared by many. The book concludes with a survey of contemporary Modernism, with Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim and Marquez's fiction. Gay sees the world of fiction as relatively flat, though there are many skilled practitioners. It is only flat, in my opinion, if you confine yourself to Modernist writing. Pynchon, e.g., does not fit his template and is thus not considered, though he is a towering figure. This is a small quibble in light of the book's accomplishments, however. I highly recommend it as an introduction to the subject and as an instructive, entertaining, well-written book.



2. I recently took a course on Joyce's Ulysses and I've been studying Eliot's "The Waste Land" both of which were published in 1922 and serve as defining modernist texts. I looked forward to reading Peter Gay's "Modernism" for insights into the movement's complex nest of heretical ideas, conflicted cultural displays and artistic expressions.
   
   I feel let down. He focuses on the usual suspects; Joyce, Picasso, Balanchine, Stravinsky etc. and tells their stories with verve and enthusiasm. He dates the beginning of modernism from Baudelaire's publication of Les Fleurs du Mal in 1857. These poems offered up the twin defining characteristics Gay assigns to the movement; the breaking of conventions that elicit passionate revulsion and a subjective, psychological, inward focus by the artist. The book then follows painting, drama, music and architecture in a chronological progression through the male canon (except for Virginia Woolf) praising their distinctive takes on modernism as he has defined it.
   
   He pulls the curtain down on the movement in 1960 with the advent of Pop Art. He ends the book with a rather perplexing claim that modernism is the great undead of movements, finding the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the architecture of Frank Gehry worthy of inclusion despite their work post-dating the movement's death knell by more than a generation. He does this by violating his own rule which is, "the lure of heresy." He doesn't claim that either Marques or Gehry were treated as heretics. They were grandly praised and understood immediately upon the appearance of their work. Isn't modernism dead when there is no shock?
   
   This paean to the Marquez and Gehry points to a key weakness of the book in terms of providing an intellectual framework for the movement. It feels like he is far more interested in doling out the label of modernism to favorite artists than in grappling with the deep and ongoing issues that modernism evokes.
   
   I don't claim any expertise on this subject but I think that to ignore western culture, to not even mention the Greek, Jewish, Christian traditions that modernism was reacting against and which Joyce and Eliot, in particular, engaged even as they exploded, is to miss the challenge modernism poses to our lives still. For example, Gay never mentions post-modernism as a movement and how it contrast and endangers or extends modernism. Perhaps it is a dead end, a stale rehash but can it be ignored altogether?
   
   To me, these questions matter, modernism matters because it suggests a crisis in how we celebrate and express our collective identity. If modernism is dead or if it's merely a tradition of breaking rules and looking inward where are we now? How will we nourish our souls, define and share in a common sense of beauty and truth? However useful Gay's book will be for college freshman, it doesn't address the larger question of how a civilization picks up the pieces of all its broken icons.



3. I have not yet finished this book, but its content matter has inspired me to write a review anyway. Peter Gay has simply done a phenomenal job here. Of course he is famous for his biography of Freud, among other things. I consider myself a traditionalist, in belief if not in practice, and thus was a little hesitant to buy this book. But about ten pages in I realized I had made a good purchase. I began reading "The Picture of Dorian Gray" at just about the same time I did Gay's work and must say I think I have a greater understanding of what Wilde was doing in his work, thanks to Gay.
   
   I've never understood Modernism really, always just sort of shyed away from it because I did not understand it:ignorant really. And though I will not say I have a new appreciation of Modern Art, I still loathe it mostly, I can at least understand the roots of it, (keep in mind I have not finished this work yet.) Peter Gay's work is very easy to follow, one may say fairly, I think, that it was written for the layman. What is better, it is enjoyable, and the combination of these two aspects makes it a welcome edition to any library...



4. Now that Modernism is seen as a historical moment in the arts, it is useful to look at its full artistic context. This is also a big undertaking. The author seeks to capture the nature of Modernism in visual arts, dance, literature and so on. This is bound to be an uneven treatment. Who can be equally conversant with such a broad array of disciplines? The reader faces an equal problem. To fully understand the analysis of Modernism in the work of a particular writer or artist one must be already quite familiar with this person's work. The real specialist, however, may find the analysis covers familiar (and not necessarily new)territory.
   Having said this, I still feel that this is a worthwhile book for anyone trying to rethink the significance of the Modernist movement and its relevance today. Some will take issue with the choice of a particular composer or architect, but this can be the springboard for interesting discussion.



5. The history of Modernism will never be written; we know too much about it (apologies to L.S.). Yet time and again some intrepid soul takes up the challenge and plunges ahead.
   
   I am happy to report that Peter Gay, while by no means having written that elusive definitive opus, acquits himself splendidly and has produced a compulsively readable introduction to this vast topic. Discussing both the usual suspects in concise chapters (Baudelaire, Picasso, Cezanne, Duchamp, Joyce, Schoenberg, etc) and some less so (Ensor, dealer Durand-Ruel, museum curator Lichtwark), Gay weaves multiple stories together to make a seamless whole that carries the reader across Modernism's multiple manifestations: dance, sculpture, architecture, music, film as well as painting and literature.
   
   Apt illustrations punctuate the text and the book's production as a whole is lovely. I would only criticize the dearth of illustrations when discussing paintings: verbal description can't do the visual arts justice. And like much of Gay's previous writing, Saint Sigmund hovers over the entire enterprise, thankfully never becoming too intrusive.
   
   Having written definitive explorations of European culture in the 18th and 19th Centuries, it is a pleasure that Gay has brought readers into the 20th with this new volume, certain to be one of the most accessible introductions to Modernism for some time to come.