Under the tree, on the shelf

The good folks at Atlas Obscura have put together a lovely list of book gift ideas, including offbeat guidebooks, strange history, and curious collections — compendia of wonder for the curious wanderer and adventurous wonderer.

New Gargoyles trade paperbacks are out!

After months of waiting, two new Gargoyles trade paperbacks were released last month. There are new books from both the main Gargoyles series, Clan Building Volume 2, which collects the last of the published single issues plus four more issues that were never released individually, and the spin-off, Bad Guys Volume 1, which collects all the single issues of Bad Guys plus one new one.

Disney raised the cost of the Gargoyles license in the middle of the production run and Slave Labor Graphics wasn't able to renew, so the previously unpublished issues were allowed to be released in the trades only through a fortunate loophole where they are included as "bonus material." No more issues are currently in production, and the future of the Gargoyles comics looks uncertain — but at last we have a complete set of the Clan Building and Bad Guys arcs, and we get to see the conclusion of Redemption, the Stone of Destiny arc, and the very first Timedancer story with Brooklyn's journey through time. This isn't a cheap knock-off or filler material, but the true, canon continuation of the story as penned by creator Greg Weisman. It's a great set of wonderful new material, required reading for any Gargoyles fan.

Get the full collection:

Gargoyles: Clan Building Volume 1
Gargoyles: Clan Building Volume 2
Bad Guys Volume 1

A great place for reconnecting with the Gargoyles universe is Station Eight, a hub which links an active comment room, info about the comics, a Q&A with Greg Weisman at Ask Greg, and the comprehensive GargWiki, which might be useful for keeping track of the comics' sprawling cast of characters if you can't remember your Canmores from your Constantines or need to brush up on the Battle of Bannockburn.

Win free science books

Seed Magazine has a daily book giveway where you can enter a drawing to win a free science book (today, it's The Alchemy of Air by Thomas Hager). There's a new book and a new chance to win every day, so you can just keep entering as many times as you like. There's no spam or automatic mailings (the newsletters are strictly opt-in) — it's a nice no-strings offer.

My God, it's full of sh--

This is the City of Work.





Here you can test yourself at the Human Potential Institute, check out the ideas for sale from the Think Tank on Idea Island, or keep on top of your world with some informative and educational Charts.





The City of Work is the vision of artist and MIT administrative worker Michael Lewy, who uses Powerpoint and architectural modeling software to map out bureaucratic dystopias using the absurd, dehumanizing language of productivity and corporate-speak. The self-absorbed excesses of office-drone culture are often parodied, but Lewy's work eschews the lighthearted comedy of dorky bosses and cubicle antics to instead evoke the more nightmarish prospect of a frightening collective descent into utter senselessness.





The book Chart Sensation gathers all of Lewy's strange graphs and Powerpoint artwork into one delightfully baffling collection, so you can take your time pondering the secrets revealed by illustrative charts like the one below.






Less tongue-in-cheek, unfortunately, is this apparently earnest 27-page design document for PepsiCo's pricey new logo, which was redesigned by branding agency Arnell Group last year at an estimated total cost of hundreds of millions of dollars (over a million for the actual design, plus the cost of replacing all of Pepsi's branded material with the updated logo). When I saw it, I was immediately reminded of Lewy's work.





While most people responded with a collective yawn at the result of that protracted and expensive five-month process, shrugging it off as an Obama logo clone or forming their own mental associations that Pepsi probably didn't intend, Arnell's design document, entitled "Breathtaking", reveals where all that time and money was spent — drawing arcane diagrams to demonstrate the new logo's deep cosmic connections to life, the universe, and everything.





The document was "leaked" from PepsiCo this week, almost certainly intentionally, since it's quickly become the fascination of the blogosphere and provided loads of free publicity for the newly transcendent brand. Bravo. (I refer you to the title of this post, which ought to make sense by now.) The document is indeed hilarious, a true masterwork.





You can read the full thing here.

Via the Consumerist; more from Gawker and Advertising Age.

I am unmoved by Pepsi's breathtaking show of mystical connectedness to divine perfection. When a beverage company takes pains to demonstrate how its brand identity is inextricably linked to Satanic soul trafficking, that is when I become a loyal drinker for life.





Years later this ARG, the first I ever encountered and the only one I ever paid attention to, still inhabits my consciousness, even though the game itself was judged something of a flop. A few of the game's sites still exist, though most seem to have gone — including the travel agency website where you could book trips to destinations like Devil's Island, Valhalla, and Babel, which can only be visited now courtesy of the wayback machine. There was also one that alluded to the demonic significance of the stars, horn, and other elements of the Stella logo, but I can't for the life of me find it. Oh, well...perfection has its price.

Beneath the surface of things

Beyond Light is the gallery of x-ray photographer Albert Koetsier. He arranges plants, animals, seashells, and other natural objects into delicate, ethereal compositions.









Unlike many x-ray artists who photograph flowers and natural objects, the celebrated Nick Veasey turns his camera outward, revealing the insides of objects from everyday life — like plastic dolls or underwear — but plants and animals have their time under his lens, too. He has published a book of his award-winning personal and commercial work, X-Ray: See Through the World Around You.









In his series of röntgen etchings, artist Ben Kruisdijk embellishes x-ray photographs with fanciful illustrations.









Photographer Bert Myers does simple x-ray portraits of a variety of subjects, both natural and man-made objects.









Commercial artist Hugh Turvey creates brightly colorized x-ray photographs of household objects as well as plants, animals, and other items.









Leslie Wright uses x-rays to look inside plants, animals, high-tech devices, and everyday objects.

Christmas in July

The Strand Annex on Fulton Street is closing. The rent hikes are too high, the construction on the streets is choking foot traffic, times they is hard. I pass the place frequently, depending on the particular route I take from work to the subway home, but I've never gone in. I'm on the wagon and a budget. But everything is twenty percent off, said the sign in the window, so I went for a coffee and a zucchini muffin to pass the half hour until opening, came back for the unlatching of the door, slipped inside, and let myself loose.

Two sacfuls and twenty-two big, beautiful books later (and they are, for the most part, attractive books -- life is so short and there are so many books, I don't see any harm in restricting myself to the most handsome and physically satisfying specimens, which really streamlines my browsing and spruces up my bookshelf), I feel like a kid at Christmas. So allow me this rare bit of self-indulgence, a moment of show and tell. Lookit what I got!

One of the best things I found was the selection of brand-new leather-bound, gilt-edged, illustrated classics that, to my mind, they were practically giving away. In fact, I'm pretty sure that new paperback editions of these books from Penguin Classics at today's prices would have cost a fair bit more than these beauties. I snagged Candide, Gargantua and Pantagruel, Medieval Epics and Sagas, and Classics of Horror, plus a canvas-bound, illustrated, dual-language version of Dante's Inferno, and I probably should have gotten more. I also scored some cheap Taschen Icons books: Alchemy and Mysticism, 16th Century Paintings, and M.C. Escher.

A sample of my other discoveries:

The Phantom Museum and Henry Wellcome's Collection of Medical Curiosities

The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic

Time Lord: Sir Sandford Fleming and the Creation of Standard Time

Vice: An Anthology

Literary Landscapes of the British Isles: A Narrative Atlas

The Curious Sofa: A Pornographic Work by Odgred Weary

Logorrhea: A Spellbinding Collection of Tales from Twenty-one of Today's Most Imaginative Storytellers

One more thing to love about the Strand: their price stickers come off so easily. I wish they would spread this remarkable book-stickering technology to the rest of the world. Some people love old book smell. Me, I get mostly used book smell: eau de WD-40.

Okay, back on the wagon now. I'm going to need it to carry all these home.

Souvenirs of imaginary nations

Antarctica Dream-Dollars are the currency of Nadiria, the lost colony of Antarctica, a utopian community founded in the mid-nineteenth century by visionary Dream Prophetess Constance Brundt and her husband Samuel Brundt in order to realize a society of "moral and intellectual bliss". After an industrious period of construction and development, Nadiria was plagued by internal divisions and power struggles and shortages of its sustaining element, the heat- and life-giving substance known as Heaven's Fire. In 1899 the colonists mysteriously vanished, but explorations and investigations into the controversial nation kept up interest in Nadiria and its culture, and the recovered currency of the vanished Antarctic colony has held a particular fascination for the world at large up to the present day.

A complete timeline of these events, plus a wealth of history and stories of Nadiria, can be found at the above-linked site; there are also wallpapers, samples of the currency to be purchased, and a book in the works. As an exercise in world-building, Nadiria emerges as fanciful, immersive, and exquisitely realized.
Via Brass Goggles.











One of my favorite posts from the regrettably retired blog Giornale Nuovo explores artist Jerry Crimmins's Republic of Dreams, a fascinating city-state revealed through a collection of ephemera -- pamphlets, train tickets, maps -- included in the exhibition catalog for an show on imaginary lands. (How I would have loved to have been there!)







While Misteraitch shares his little trove of treasures from this fascinating otherworld, the best avenue for exploring it now appears to be the book: The Republic of Dreams: A Reverie. (Some juicy excerpts are available for perusal.)

Rêves (pronounced rev) is an island republic located in the Mid-Atlantic, somewhat south of Bermuda, between the Sea of Clouds and the Sea of the Unseen. By a majority vote of its citizens, the Republic can render itself visible or invisible, accessible or inaccessible, to the rest of the world.

Each district of Polis Poeton has its own flavor, particulars, and erratic spiritual features. It is a city of contrasts, the old and the new, the familiar and the exotic. A walk through the city can take you from the charm of a Victorian neighborhood to the mystery of a North African bazaar. Paris and Berlin, not in replica but as they actually are in the imagination, are there to be found by those who seek them.

Sign me up for the tour package.





Capolan: Travels of a Vagabond Country is an artbox by the excellent Nick Bantock, containing an enchanting a collection of postcards and stamps issued from the fictional nation of Capolan, which has no fixed home and moves from place to place.

When the Capolanian government wanted commemorative stamps and postcards created in honor of their 650th anniversary, they turned to Nick Bantock. The result is a sumptuous treasure box of history, legend, and fantasy. Inside you will find postcards and stamps Mr. Bantock created along with a book—not much larger than a passport—in which he introduces the history, philosophy, customs, and traditions of this mysterious nomadic tribe.








There's now a sequel, Windflower -- not an artbox, but an illustrated novel about a Capolanian dancer named Ana.

(Interesting discovery: there's also a Capolan wine, complete with a teasing placeholder for the doesn't-exist-yet Capolan Winery website. Intriguing. A nomadic vineyard?) [Update: the actual website is now up, so you can learn all about this unusual landless wine made with grapes not grown on any particular patch of earth, but purchased from all over and blended together in the true Capolanian spirit.]

Capolan.org is a community of fans and artists inspired by the work of Nick Bantock who gather to share paintings, collages, books, card decks, and other artworks and ephemera belonging to the shifting, borderless Vagabond Country. Riffing on the themes and styles found in Bantock's oeuvre, these artists serve up a delightful visual infusion that is both recognizably Bantockesque and refreshingly original.

star map by Amy McClure

page from "Portraits of Purgatory" by Chris Angelucci

page from "Seeking the Face of One's Intended" by Lynne Perella