3 comments about Tombstones: 75 Famous People and Their Final Resting Places.

1. The book shows and briefly describes the tombstones of politicians, movie stars, writers, sports figures, musicians, scientists, murderers, spies and gangsters.
   
   We didn't know them personally, but there's a bond nonetheless. Especially with the famous. Maybe their book spoke to us, their movie drew us in, their words or ideas captivated us.
   
   There's something mysterious and serene about graveyards. It's the one great mystery we can't solve until we've actually been there - death that is. It's comforting to know we won't be the only ones experiencing it.



2. Very short narrative, including the date and place of birth and death, accompanies a good color photograph of each grave. Arranged chronologically by the year of death, this resource includes figures from the world of politics, entertainment, science, literature, sports and the military.



3. Thousands of visitors a year quietly stroll by Marilyn Monroe's tomb in Forest Lawn. There used to be a dozen fresh roses delivered weekly in her honor from one time husband Joe Dimagio. No more roses, Joe has left us too, but, Marilyn's simple yet elegant tombstone is still there.

   And for those of us that will admit to our quirky yet noble curiosities, this book enhances the lives of 75 famous people with information and full-color photographs of their final resting places. Some seem to reflect how they lived--larger than life, some quiet and unassuming.

   We found this book to be completely fascinating. Well designed colorfully detailed cemetary photos along with little known factoid bios cover such famous people as the afore-mentioned Marilyn Monroe to Martin Luther King, Jr., Golda Meir to Jackie Robinson, James Dean to Irving Berlin. There are gunfighters, sports legends, military heroes, writers , explorers and more.

   With this unique hard stock paperback book, one can whistle through the graveyard in the comfort of their own home. Or plan to visit these legends on an historical vacation in The States and Europe. One could then whisper, (sorry, we cannot resist)--I see dead people's graves! Seriously, as the author and photographer Gregg Felsen stated, " Most of these people overcame great obstacles and adversity on their roads to greatness in their respective fields. This book is meant to honor these remarkable people."

   A great gift for those interested in famous people, history, photography, travel, and death.

4 comments about The Nasty Terrible T-kid 170.

1. This book is mad! Great flicks.Well written and well designed.I would say this is the best documented graffiti writers story.An awesome read from start to finish.I have a better understanding of graff in the formative years thanks to this book.



2. I was a bit disappointed with this book. I have seen a lot of Tkid pieces and thought this book was going to be a great compilation, but it was only pretty good. A lot of the text is also very self promoting, so it was not really pleasant to "read" any of the text. But the pics are quality.



3. So, has this book been released or not? The original release date was like 6 weeks ago, but Amazon still isn't shipping. Anyone know?



4. First off let me say that I wish you good luck if your ordering this book through Amazon. But, if they are somehow REALLY able to get it, you'll be amazed at its content. T-KID is a legendary style master, and if you didn't know that, you're a toy.
   
   The stories are so vivid that you can smell the paint, and sometimes, the gun powder. And of course the art is fantastic. Tons of old school flicks to new school digitals. This blows many of the recent graff books off the "MTA map". If you own the COPE2 book than you've got an idea of how fresh this joint is.
   
   DON'T SLEEP!

5 comments about White Boys.

1. Too many wangs for me, sticking up to say "Hi there". I likes "The American Boy, A Photographic Essay" much better. Guess I should have guessed that "WhIte Boys" would be like it is, from the cover.



2. I found this book to be a well presented portrayal of the youthful male body, with subtlety of mood and tonal shading.



3. Sam Carson has an architect's eye for structure, interplay of light and shadow, the plinths upon which beautiful edifices rise, and the stability of well made creations. A successful architect in California, Sam Carson also successful in his other field of endeavor - the art of photographing male models.
   
   WHITE BOYS is a beautiful book bursting with healthy young sportsmen who seem as at home in front of Carson's camera as professional models. The pleasure here, aside from the obvious one that the young men selected are all from the cream of the crop status, is the sense of casual stance and attitude he achieves. Each richly colored photograph is well composed, the models are in various modes of either crisp white underwear - or not...., and the overpowering feeling is one of admiring healthy subjects who care for their bodies and love sharing that concern with Carson.
   
   There is more emphasis on mood and atmosphere than on displaying full nudity: Carson seems to be aligned with the stance that partially clothed models are far more sensuous when left with some secrets beneath the drapery of garments. The models are tanned, at times tattooed, but in general they all appear to be the All American Abercrombie and Fitch types. This is a book to please everyone who admires the brush of health that makes young sportsmen gleam. Grady Harp, October 06



4. There is no doubt, it is just plain sensual. Now, if the photographer will turn his lens on the older male, he will have hit a home run. This is a stunning book, fun, and not crude.



5. What can one say about this book?...uh...IT IS TERRIFIC! The models are cute, the photography excellent.

3 comments about The Dr. Ikkaku Ochi Collection: Medical Photographs from Japan Around 1900.

1. this was a great addition to my library. i have a fascination for anything grotesque, especially medical journals. the pictures are wonderful, taken with great angles showing details of the diseases. my only regret is that it really is just a collection of pictures. it doesn't provide an explanation or details of the client or of the disease that they are suffering from. this would have been useful for others who view this book who do not have knowledge on the medical conditions that these people suffered from. apart form that, it's a great book



2. It is rare that the public has the opportunity to view 'medical abnormalities' in a platform that is not related to sideshows/circuses. This beautifully presented collection of people born with aberrant bodies, or who developed the sequelae of diseases once thought of as 'unclean' and therefore not to be observed, is the work of the Japanese physician Dr. Ikkaku Ochi a quiet genius who not only had the medical foresight to capture these stoic and brave patients on film, he also had the ability to compose images that are at once realistic and artistic.
   
   True, other photographers such as Diane Arbus sought out similar subjects and it is through those portfolios that we have a bit of an introduction to the myriad treasures of this volume. But given the fact that these photographs were all taken in the decade around 1900 and that they were taken by a consummately humanistic physician allows us to study and appreciate all the variations that nature can produce - in a manner of sanctity and respect for the human soul.
   
   This may not be a book for everyone, but for those who are devoted to photography and to medicine and to all the studies in between, this volume of Medical Photography from Japan circa 1900 is a humbly and warmly fascinating book. Grady Harp, March 05



3. This collection of photographs is remarkable for several reasons: 1) the photos document the final stages of horrendous diseases (many of which are rarely seen these days); 2) the images are portraits of real individuals in great pain, but presented with stoic dignity; 3) it provides an insight into the remarkable level of surgical skill at work in Meiji-era Japan; and 4) the very survival of these photographs at all is something of a miracle when one considers they were sitting near ground zero when the American atom bomb exploded over Hiroshima.
   
   Truly, this is not a volume for the squeamish. In these pages one finds a startling array of diseases, from smallpox to the bacterial infections that ravished faces and limbs. Tumors, conjoined twins and leprosy each receive equal billing, and with often startling clarity. Also here are the before-and-after shots where one sees how Japanese surgeons excised tumors or reconstructed a missing nose, which is especially poignant when one considers the very rudimentary level of sterility and anesthesia available at the time.
   
   One can't help but be moved by these documents of human suffering and triumph, and then thank one's lucky stars that they live in an era of modern antibiotics and surgical practice.
   
   My one reservation (hence the four out of five stars) is that the captions for the photographs don't actually appear in the book itself, but rather on the publishing company's website. A bit more explanation readily at hand would have made many of the photographs less mysterious - or perhaps even more compelling.

3 comments about Snapshot Chronicles: Inventing the American Photo Album.

1. This book, for the reasons already mentioned by the other reviewers, is wonderful in its format and presentation of the information. I thoroughly enjoyed poring over the various albums presented and marveled at the unique creativity of each of their authors. As a person who creates scrapbooks, I admit feeling some sorrow that these albums have wandered far from their original "families," but at the same time, it gave me hope that there is an increasing respect for the folk art aspects of the "snapshot album" and that my albums -- if they go astray -- may someday be archived and revered like so many American handstitched quilts. So, I take solace in that the future my "art" is full of possibilities!
   
   I have one small criticism: I would have liked to have seen the text printed in a slightly larger typeface. I found the small typeface difficult to read with my aging eyes -- but, I persevered and read every word!



2. This is a most interesting book, at least for people such as myself who have an interest in late 19th and early 20th century photography. Actually, I suspect it would also intrigue people who lack that enthusiasm but who have an interest in general social history of this period. A premise of the book is that photographs in albums are often times given added historical or literary meaning and visual interest by being placed into a personalized context by an arranger, compiler, and/or photographer. This context provides the photographs with an enhanced ability to create an historical account of a life, a portion of a life, an event, etc. - without being subservient to a text. Most of the albums presented do not have any substantial written commentary (and many have no written text other than labels for individual photographs), and rely on the images alone to provide the larger insights. The book is extensively and richly illustrated with examples drawn from the large and thoughtfully acquired collection of Barbara Levine. These examples illuminate and extend the clear and insightful commentary in the book.
   
   The book also contains a very fine essay by the novelist Matthew Stadler discussing his ideas concerning the value of such albums that I was grateful to see, as these were ideas that would not likely have occurred to me, but were most insightful. This is a most pleasing inclusion.
   
   The historical component of a picture is obviously improved by being placed in context. One of the most interesting features of this book then, is its visual demonstration of the wide variety of historical narrative styles that can be illustrated by albums, and even the way historical events can be illustrated without a "narrative" per se.
   
   Definitely a valuable book for people who are interested in historical photographs. A small criticism, from my stand point is that I would have liked to have seen more albums filled with tintypes, but this is a _very_ trivial point when compared with the strengths of the book.



3. The cover is velvet, like one of those fancy Victorian-era photo albums. "Snapshot Chronicles" accompanies an exhibition at Reed College of innumerable photographs collected by Barbara Levine. The photographs are kept together as they were in albums of their original owners; or in the case of those not going with an album, in groups of similarly pictured individuals or similar subject matter. The source of the photographs was the Kodak Brownie camera introduced as a consumer item in 1900. This quickly led to an explosion of photographs of friends, relatives, yards and neighborhoods, vacation scenes, and varied activities (much as the cell phone has spurred new kinds of communication these days, one assumes). The photos were kept in "vernacular" photo albums; whose charm to later generations is explained by Willard Morgan, the Director of the Museum of Modern Art's Department of Photography in 1944, "The snapshot has become, in truth, a folk art, spontaneous, almost effortless, yet deeply expressive. It is an honest art...partly because it is simply more trouble to make an untrue picture than a true picture." The hundreds of simple, yet fetching snapshots were taken before the days when artists, photojournalists, advertisers, and propagandists started to make use of cameras for their own specialized ends. Thus, the guileless, popular, vernacular snapshots can be seen as an unwitting visual social history of the era too.

1 comments about Photo by Brady: A Picture of the Civil War.

1. Although collections of Matthew Brady's work abound, most are targeted at adults or armchair war historians. The American War Between the States was the FIRST war that civilians could "follow from home" and the first to be photographed. This book brings the war out of dry history books and into harsh reality for young readers. Nice addition to a buff's library as well.

4 comments about Girls, Guns and Ropes.

1. I was a little disapointed, the quality of the photos are great, but small pages and a little hard to see detail.



2. The photographs in this book are very sexually-charged, yet still artistic and relatively classy. The subjects -- nude, young, attractive-looking women -- are presented with a slightly dangerous edge. Some are holding guns and other weapons while others are tied up in rope bondage. I would say that even if you're turned off by guns, there are still plenty of bondage photographs here that are worth checking out. I've had this book for a while and I still enjoy picking it up for a look.
   
   Very cool and original piece of work.



3. I was eagerly awaiting this arrival from the Super Shipping Saving ordeal (8 days), and the book did not disappoint! I like the sleaziness of the girls, and I believe art can also be designed to cause the onlooker to get aroused. I did go from 0-to-Hardwood in about 3 seconds, but as I leafed through, I realized the same guns were in rotation. I understand it was the author's collection and bound to be limited--but I expect if there is a sequel to up the notch this book has attained that the author will have more funds available to rent some firearms. Perfect-size for throwing in a backpack, and the pictures taken merit a third or fourth glance over. The mood set by the bondage totally augments the sex appeal idea being pitched to the readers/glancers. If there is a follow-up book, I'm definitely going through the Super Shipping Saver ordeal again!



4. I really didn't know what to expect when I picked up a copy of "Girls, Guns and Ropes". Would it actually be tasteful and erotic, or would it be mindless crotch shots like so many other "artists" work?
   
   I was pleasantly surprised to find that this book totally measures up to this girl's standards.
   
   Even though nakedness abounds, Botello keeps it classy with well placed weapons and intense shadows, while still highlighting his models' curves. His dramatic style of lighting adds an ominous yet provocative mood to these black and white pictures.
   
   As the title implies, this book is chock-full of intricate rope bondage; pistols and rifles as well as machetes and meat cleavers. The girls are attractive, with enough variety to please most people; however, brunettes clearly dominate this book.
   
   And the models actually have interesting expressions on their faces instead of the "I'm completely bored" looks that are in some of the other books out there.
   
   I thoroughly enjoyed this seductive book and highly recommend it.

2 comments about Guy Bourdin (Photofile).

1. Having known Guy for many years, I find this thoughtful little volume to include a wide, rarely seen selection of his work. The editing is succinct, and It is nicely printed. The richness and depth of his photography is evident. It is a refreshing sample of Guy's perfected technic, his incredible humor, and his fantastic fantasy life.



2. This is a real shame for those who admire Bourdins work. There are images in this book which are new to me and I'm sure many fans but they have run them across the folds so that its impossible to really view them. The essay is thoughtful and well done but what a pity the photographs were not respected by the designers of this small volume.

2 comments about First Families: Photographic History of California Indians.

1. Good book, but one thing about this book was the Yosemite Native history - If you say something enough times, it will become true.
   
   The damage of saying, in the case writing something false, is that many magazines, universities, and authors will later RE-WRITE this fale information unknowningly, and after awhile it becomes the truth. Sometimes the lie and misinformation starts off as an "implication", but then later on it turns into fact, even though it is false.
   
   This came up recently when one of our elders saw this new book that recently came out called "First Families: Photographic History of California Indians", written by L. Frank and Kim Hogeland for Heyday Press. Heyday Press and Books. The majority of the books is really great, but there was a few things that stuck out for me.
   
   Interestingly one of the Native American "First Families" in the book is Craig D. Bates, a white guy who we know wrote some misinformation and misleading works as the 'official' Yosemite Indian ethnologist, a person who appears not to have any college or university degree. We believe Bates tried to eradicate Paiutes out of Yosemite History, in favor of his then wives Miwuk tribe. He created and implied many things that we have now taken apart using documentation and sources. Still he is paraded around by certain people as 'thee' Indian expert on Yosemite.
   
   You can see how I have shown that aspects of his work is biased, incorrect, and misleading. A lot of his work was 'implied' and then later on many authors used his incorrect information as a reliable source. Remember this is only a few of his works. Bates has, what several of us believe are, many, many incorrect and false data and writings.
   
   [...]
   One of Bates 'mantras' was once again re-introduced in the new book by Heyday Books. This section looks like a referrence straight out of Craig D. Bates book "Tradition and Innovation", that he also put on the Yosemite NPS website. Here is my review of text from the book, pages 181 - 182. This we found very interesting and this is what we are talking about;
   
   "...people from the eastern and western sides of the mountain range visited each other reguarly. Centuries before American and European immigrants attempted to cross the Sierra in waong trains, Native Americans created a network of three main trails and a series of interconnected smaller trails that formed a massive trade system. During favorable seasons, Paiutes from the east and Miwok and Mono people from the west would follow these paths to visit friends and family, attend dances and festivals, trade their own regional goods for others, and enjoy the beauty of the High Sierra."
   
   "Paiutes from Mono Lake carried on a regular trade with the Miwuk of Yosemite Valley, sometimes even spending the winter there in lean years. Intermarriage between the two groups was common."
   
   In reality the Paiutes and Miwuks were ENEMIES BEFORE American and European immigrants settled in the area. It was the influx of the those immigrants, that decades after the American led Mariposa Battalion entered Yosemite Valley, that there was trade. The two tribes at one time were bitter enemies who fought over resources. Paiutes fought with Miwoks, Miwoks fought with Washoes, Washoes fought with Paiutes, Yokuts fought with Miwoks, etc...
   
   Also there were NO Yosemite Miwuks, that is correct there were no such thing as Yosemite Miwoks. It was documented that when the Mariposa Battalion entered Yosemite Valley they found a PAIUTE village in the valley. The Miwok chief, Bautista, even told his friend, yes his friend, the leader of the Mariposa Battalion that he and his people were AFRAID to enter Yosemite Valley. That was documented in Dr. Lafayette H. Bunnell's "Discovery of the Yosemite", which you can download here at this site;
   
   [...]
   That is why there were Paiutes visiting and trading with the Yosemite Indians, BECAUSE THEY WERE PAIUTES, not Yosemite Miwoks. Both Paiute bands traded and visited each other. Meanwhile many of the Miwuks were brought up to the Sierra to dig gold by the enterprising white miners who used them as a work force. Miwoks had an early working relationship with white settlers and immigrants, many of them coming from Sutter's Fort around Sacramento and the Central Valley.
   
   Many people don't believe this. They believe that the Miwuks were living in Yosemite Valley and in the Upper Tuolumne area, but that was not true. EVEN THE SAME BOOK ADMITS THIS ON AN EARLIAR PAGE. That Miwoks were taken from the Valley floor and brought up dig gold for whites in the foothills and higher up in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
   
   In fact in the same book, "First Families: Photographic History of California Indians", page 42, exposes this as truth;
   
   "When one thinks about mining and California, the image that comes to mind is of a bearded Angelo immigrant panning for gold along a Sierra river. Left out of most popular histories, however, is the fact that native people have participated in the mining industry ever since the earliest days.
   
   In January 1848, Martin Murphy, for whom the Calaveras County town of Murphys is named, MOVED an entired village of native people from the Sacramento Valley to the UPPER Stanislaus River to mine for gold. That same year, Issac Humphrey took some of John Sutter's Indian laborers to Coloma AND WAS SUCCESSFUL ENOUGH TO INSPIRE OTHERS TO DO THE SAME: laborers working for another of Sutter's neighbors reportedly retrieved sixteen thousand dollars in gold in just five weeks. With the rapid environmental and social changes being wrought by gold rush immigrants, native people were forced into the new cash economy. As early as June 1848, California's military governor, Richard Barnes Mason, visited the goldfields and estimated that half of the four thousand miners were Indians."
   
   "After the uproar of the early gold rush years died down, many Nisenan and Miwuk people WHO HAD BEEN DRIVEN FROM THEIR VILLAGES returned and went to work in nearby mines."
   
   In other words the authors of this book, printed by Heyday Books and Press, just exposed a historical fact what we already knew. You see a couple of miles further down south, around Tuolumne and Mariposa foothills, the same exact thing was happening. The story above is the same for Central eastern California valley. People like Charles Weber, founder of Stockton, California, Johnson, James Fremont and even James Savage had left Sutter's Fort, gathered up local Indians as large work forces, and went to find their fourtunes in the goldfields of the Sierra foothills. Weber took 1,000 Indians from the Central Valley and took them to dig gold for him in the foothills of Tuolumne. John C. Fremont took many of his Oregon Walla Walla Indian "friends" who fought along side him in Indian wars to the Mariposa area where he acquired a large Spanish land grand. The problem was there the immigrant goldminers and settlers found Paiutes in the upper Sierra who attacked gold miners and that is how the Discovery of Yosemite Valley happened. The white gold miners decided to clear out the troublesome "maurading" Paiutes who were preventing them from digging for gold and becoming rich, meanwhile the docile Indian tribes (workers) they brought up were allowed to stay.
   
   In books from John Muir, to Curtis the photographer, to C. F. Hoffmann, to modern day books by Brian Bibby (also printed by Heyday Press), there are documented and written accounts from REAL Indian people talking about how Paiutes attacked encrouching Miwuk camps. How Paiutes attacked Indians that came to fish on the eastern side of the Sierra. How Paiutes fought with Miwuks over Hetch Hetchy. How Paiutes STOLE women from their camps. So explain this to me, how was that a 'friendly trade' while "visiting friends and family"? That is pure flights of fancy and not based on historical facts, because there was none when the first white immigrants entered the area.
   
   Now LATER around 1870, when whites settled the area, was their trade, but before that...NEVER, that is pure fantasy, just like there are Yosemite Miwuks.
   
   But besides that, the book is great. The photos are very beautiful and written very well...of course the Yosemite Miwuk part is not correct.
   
   CC: YNP - a matter of public interest



2. A rare and beautifully put together general history, especially the incredible photographic history, of relatively recent Native life in California.

2 comments about Inside: The Chelsea Hotel.

1. Staying in the Chelsea Hotel was a joyous and unique experience. Julia Calfee's photographs captured the essence of this experience. A brilliant and beautiful book.....



2. I am not an art critic, but I was enthralled with each and every page in this book. I felt the raw emotion inside every photo. I felt like I was there.