Winters’ Tales
From Tom Waits's lisping to Palm Springs Living, there's something for everyone under the tree. But beware: Santa Claus is drunk in a ski room somewhere.
Matthew Strmiska
December 05, 2007
American artist Walton Ford is perhaps best described as Audubon on acid. The naturalist-gone-nuclear’s intricate, dazzling, and sometimes disturbing watercolors might be mistaken at first glance for antiques-until you notice some of the animals are engaged in sex acts, cannibalism, or other supposedly “unnatural” behavior. Ford’s outsized talent gets a suitable forum in an opulent, signed, limited-edition volume, Walton Ford: Pancha Tantra (Taschen, $1,250). Scrappy New Yorker scribe Bill Buford provides the text.
In other noteworthy tomes this month: Jean-Michel Berts captures a deserted Manhattan in the ethereal magic of dawn in The Light of New York (Assouline, $50). And the photographic genius who made the Modernist architectural masterpieces of California famous through his work is celebrated in the three-volume Julius Shulman: Modernism Rediscovered (Taschen, $300). Some of the houses first touted by Shulman are seen in their current incarnations in Diane Dorrans Saeks’s sleek, stylish Palm Springs Living (Rizzoli, $55). Widely imitated and justly world-famous architect Richard Meier’s residential commissions are showcased in Richard Meier: Houses and Apartments (Rizzoli, $85).
On a musical note, the story of one of the most under-appreciated bands in the history of rock is told in Jim Walsh’s The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting (Voyageur Press, $22). And the whiskey-soaked sonnets of our favorite gravel-voiced bard are transcribed in The Early Years: The Lyrics of Tom Waits (Ecco, $26). An important icon of American manhood is given fulsome treatment in Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds (Chronicle, $500), featuring contributions by the likes of Jay McInerney and Paul Theroux.
A more British manifestation of maleness is dressed up in James Sherwood’s The London Cut: Savile Row Bespoke Tailoring (Universe, $25). And be sure to save some night table space for Silent Movies: The Birth of Film and the Triumph of Movie Culture by Peter Kobel (Little, Brown, $45), with a preface by Martin Scorsese, as well as Psychogeography: Disentangling the Modern Conundrum of Psyche and Place, (Bloomsbury, $35), which only sounds like it will put you to sleep-no danger on that score since it’s by Brit-lit bad-boy Will Self and Gonzo artist Ralph Steadman. —Jared Paul Stern
Be the first to chime in, leave a reply below or Login to save it to your profile.