Last Wednesday Mr. Mcginnis and I sold some items and enjoyed the eggnog at Melanie Flood Projects' holiday party and zine sale. Melanie's home/gallery is so lovely and warm. We had a good time, sold a few things, met some nice people and made some trades. As you know, the latter means new reviews to come! We've been posting lightly this winter due to busy-ness and other projects but we'll be back like crazy in 2009. In the meantime, happy holidays!

Looking at our Mid Afternoon book

Breanne Trammel and Peter Segerstrom

Breanne Trammel's prints

The table of stuff

The artists at the show and their websites:
Amy Stein
Breanne Trammel
Esopus Magazine
David Horvitz
Geoffrey Ellis/SadKids
Hana Tanimura
Jason Fulford
Jason Polan
Luke Ramsey/Islands Fold
Mikael Kennedy
Peter Segerstrom
R&S Media
Ryan Foerster
Vincent Dermody
Whprwhil Records
zingmagazine

Check them out, buy their work, and carry it around in a Print Fetish tote bag.

Ms. Keough and I helped organize this party and book sale tonight at Melanie Flood Projects, a gallery space at Melanie's awesome Brooklyn Home. Creators will be there selling their limited edition artist books, zines and magazines - everything under $50. Of course you don't HAVE to buy something, you can browse and maybe meet us if you're lucky.

Chris Morgan's and Drew Needham's little newsprint zine Biopsy claims it is America's last magazine, and after reading the latest issue of Rolling Stone, I'm inclined to believe them. I haven't read the latest issue yet (it's teetering on my stack) but I'm intrigued by the list of articles defending questionable activities. In any event, if you email Mr. Morgan, he'll send you a copy for free, so what do you have to lose?

The Josh is the latest sexy homo digest, a genre I'm frankly growing tired of since most are no where as good as the magazine that inspires them, Butt. The Josh however shows promise because of well chosen illustrators (most notably Logan MacDonald) rather than the typical dull attempts at naked homo photography (although there is that here too). I'll be following them.

It's always lovely to rediscover that people can still come up with seemingly obvious, practical, simple and attractive design solutions - such as the Lili Light, a cute bentwood bookshelf, reading light and bookmark all in one. When you place an open book on the self, the light turns off, when you pick it up it turns back on!

Available for 99 € at the Lili Light website.

I find this article about the differences between US and British editorial methods cute, but also useful - as I'm sure creatives will be leaving the United States for work in increasing numbers.

There is no one more fierce than Grace Jones - I mean, that is as far as the concept of fierce even goes. CR looks into Tom Hingston Studio's (frequent Nick Knight collaborators) work on her new album artwork which involves Grace working in a chocolate factory, inspecting an assembly line of chocolate molded from her body parts.

Flikcr Finds: Ilovecoffeeyesido's vintage christmas card and wrapping paper collection

Thursday December 11: Pat Place--guitarist for the Bush Tetras and former member of the Contortions--has an opening Thursday at Jane Kim/Thrust Projects. The End, 1981 - Infinity presents a selection of photographs from an archive of over 1,000 prints of end titles from movies on television. Place shot the images directly from the TV screen during a collaboration with writer Linda Yablonsky that began in 1981. Thrust Projects, 114 Bowery #301. 6-8pm. (Above image from Place's invitation.)

Also Thursday: A reception for the very cool Journal of Popular Noise at Printed Matter. 195 10th Ave. 5-7pm.

Friday December 12: Marcel Dzama signs copies of his new book Even the Ghost of the Past at his solo show of same name at David Zwirner gallery. Spike Jonze, who interviewed Dzama in the book, will also be present. 525 W 19th St. 5-7pm.

Saturday December 13: Ryan McGinness will be signing advanced copies of his new book, No Sin/No Future, at Zakka in DUMBO. The book is a collection of snapshots, sketches and scans from the artist's studio archives. 155 Plymouth St. Brooklyn. 7pm.

Girls Like Us #8 has DJ/Hercules and Love Affair singer/jewelry maker/always amazing haircut haver Kim Ann Foxman on its cover. She and various balls were photographed by Melanie Bonajo and Anne De Vries. Gaze upon their amusing and sexy centerfold:

The interviews in this issue are particularly good--sexy, funny, educational! We get stories about the Beijing art scene from DJ and curator Pauline Doutreluingne, the women's movement and a life story from political scientist Marjan Sax, sex and food from chef Kanki Fernandez, and more.

From Melanie Bonajo's Fumble in the Jungle in GLU #8.

Ever since Mr. Mcginnis told me Ms. Grace Jones would be gracing the cover of this issue of Dazed & Confused, I've been waiting impatiently to rush out and buy it. And may I just say OMG. Chris Cunningham's photographic collaboration with Jones is weird and wonderful. A sample:

You can see some more images on Dazed Digital. This is the "Art Without Limits" issue and inside curators and artists take over. They, including Gillian Wearing, Terence Koh and Agathe Snow, celebrate Maison Martin Margiela's 20th birthday by interpreting its current collection in interesting ways. Also in there: curators Kathy Grayson and Paul Peroni, Hanna Liden photographing Gang Gang Dance, David Altmejd, Steve McQueen's horrifying/riveting feature film Hunger, and tons more. This is a pretty great issue.

Gillian Wearing's interpretation of Martin Margiela's current couture collection from Dazed & Confused Vol II, #67.

I love reading each issue of Cabinet Magazine in its entirety. And as a total spazzer, that is rare for me. This issue's theme is shame and everyone's favorite genital obscurer, the fig leaf, adorns the cover. On page 4 they have an amazing alternate cover image from a 1986 calendar featuring rats in anthropomorphic poses. This particular image is a white rat as Botticelli's Birth of Venus. Despite being a rat, she is still shameful of her "business" and without clothing or convenient hair, our rat venus covers up with her tail. Essay topics include Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, Adam and Eve, the disapproving gaze of the Other, gross things we can't tell anyone but our physicians, and so much more.

Various painted genital coverings from Alan Jacobs' Adam and Eve essay in Cabinet #31.

M/M (Paris) are one of my favorites... they don't define themselves specifically as designers, photographers, artists or illustrators or whatever, they just create. Check out this interview at PingMag

Flickr Finds: Duckage's Rock Poster collection

Hey, New Orleans is a city (despite Jim Jarmusch's scenes of OPP in the swamp) - people do stuff there besides drinking, practicing voodoo and being the subjects of more spooky songs than any other city in the world. This weekend is The 7th Annual New Orleans Bookfair, The New Orleans Fringe Festival AND North America's BIGGEST ever contemporary art biennial, Prospect 1 (although snooty New York and LA artists, names withheld, not only don't know about it, but question if I'm telling the truth - but still don't google it) is continuing through December.

The 7th Annual New Orleans Bookfair
Saturday, November 15th 2008
New Orleans. LA
500 & 600 Blocks on Frenchman Street
10AM-6PM

Continue reading "New Orleans: STILL alive and Printing" »

Letters to a Young Artist
Darte Publishing/Art on Paper
96 pages, Color cover/BW inside
$15

A painter friend of mine came by to discuss a project/eat dinner and left me this pocket-sized book for dessert. Letters to a Young Artist started as a special issue of Art on Paper magazine and expanded into this little book of 23 letters from various established artists to a fictional younger artist. Fresh out of art school, our young artist asks his/her heroes this question: "Is it possible to maintain one's integrity and freedom of thought and still participate in the art world?" The answers are varied, some are funny (Gregory Amenoff: "Stay away from Art Fairs,"), some are encouraging (Joan Jonas: "The answer is the Work. To Work. To care about the Work.") and some are critical (From great photographer/known crankypants Stephen Shore: "..you may be using your moral dilemma as an excuse for not engaging in your work... Cut it out!"). Each artist approaches the question differently and it seems to me that you get a sense of who they are and how they work. For example, Adrien Piper cautions, "You will develop a reputation for being "difficult," "uncooperative," "inflexible," even "self-destructive;" and treated (or mistreated, ostracized, or blacklisted) accordingly. Nevertheless, I enjoyed and was inspired by this book. I get a strong feeling of community and support in these letters--several of them explicitly instruct our young artist to find and support like-minded fellow artists. "Good luck to us!" says Jimmie Durham. "I love you!" says Yoko Ono.

Buy directly from Art on Paper or your local cool bookstore.

cover designed by Fletcher/Forbes/Gill

Someone ran up to Ms. Keough in the street and said, "Here, you'll love this..." and handed her this amazing 1965 issue of the Swiss design magazine, Graphis (It became an American magazine in 1986). I promptly stole it from her.

This issue is an amazing time capsule of design - when conceptual thought was king, creating 'art' was a major motivation in commercial work and illustration was prevalent. Even in black and white, the work depicted is striking and colorful. Wow.

a LOT of images after the jump...

Continue reading "PF Collection: Graphis 119, 1965" »

Thursday, November 6: Bruce of Los Angeles show at Wessel + O'Connor Fine Art in DUMBO. Amazing 1950s beefcake photography from a Nebraskan chemistry teacher turned pin up photographer. There is also a limited edition book and DVD which includes digitally restored versions of Bruce's rare films. November 6 - December 20 with opening party on Thurs. 111 Front St. Ste. 200. 6-8pm.

Our friend DrunknSailor has organized a reading at Capricious Space tonight called "The Way Out is the Way In." 103 Broadway in Brooklyn. 7:30pm.

Tiny Vices - TV Books exhibition and catalog viewing at the Hope Gallery in LA. Hosted by Tim Barber, RVCA and the Hope Gallery. 1547 Echo Park Ave., LA, 6-9pm.

Saturday, November 8: I wish I could be in SF for this show, so if you are, go to it for me. AUTOPORTRAIT: from the Reconsidered Archive of Michelle du Bois, a solo show by Zoe Crosher at Eleanor Harwood gallery. 1295 Alabama Street, SF. 7-10pm.

Hexedjournal.com and WORD presents the second installment of Vol. 1, a unique event that pairs live music with readings. The readers include Jesse Sposato, co-editor of Sadie Magazine and Zachary Lipez. At Bar Matchless, 557 Manhattan Ave, Brooklyn. 8pm-2am.

I have two equally powerful aspects to my personality: the helpful optimist and the pissed-off cynic. As an artist I want to make the world less ugly, express what is in my heart, and what needs to be said. Making a living is the secondary motivation for working in the arts. Art is primarily about learning and discovery - the final product isn't the most important thing.

I can't really divide my thoughts on art, and my thoughts on the workings of the world, so bear with me. When I look around at how fucked up the world is, I want to do what I can to make the world a better place, and what that first means is to be true to myself and actually do what I believe. 'Making a living' can never supersede the reasons for making art. When I look at a magazine, for instance, what I love to see is an honest passion for the subject presented - not an excuse to sell advertising. Also, as you can see, I consider making magazines an art form - and if the creators of a magazine don't think of it as an art form and just a job they do - it really shows in the magazine. I am not interested in a world that just does its job - not interested in just surviving. Life has to mean more than that.

Recently, the relaunch of Interview really depressed me, because it accurately express the state of the arts - which is crass, unimaginative, formulaic, devoid of inquisitiveness, and most importantly-completely dishonest. I definitely think this sad state of the arts is directly correlated to the selfish state of our country, which is obsessed with celebrity and spectacle more than with issues, where people care more about buying things than with helping people. It makes me angry, it makes me frustrated and it makes me want to give up.

But.

I don't even know how to describe what I felt last night. The lack of empathy, the selfishness, the hatred, ignorance and greed that I see and feel has made me angry, has made me hopeless - but when I heard them announce Obama winner, it smacked my cynicism away like a red-headed stepchild. I could not stop crying. Reason, judgement and compassion has triumphed over hatred and greed. It is the most monumental example of this in my lifetime so far.

So all you zinesters, discount fashionistas, ranters, photographers, drawers and shit-talkers: None of us has any excuses. Keep doing what you believe. Don't give up. All things are possible. Make it happen.

Our culture is far too immersed in living beyond its means and constructing an overly elaborate, unregulated credit based economy - so what's going down is no surprise, if you ask me. Duh.

Lame magazines are in trouble. What large media corporations need to do to continue making money is to cease making these bloated, crass and outdated wastes of paper and invest in small press while leaving them somewhat creatively autonomous. The model of creatively focused print is definitely the future. low overhead, inventive design, passionate creatives and intelligently narrowed advertising is the ONLY way print will survive. The movie industry and the record industry both invest in independent work and companies, when will print follow suit?

Condé Nast Cuts Focus on 2 Magazines

Empty Nast Syndrome: Condé Nast Cutting Five Percent of All Magazine Staffs; Future of Men's Vogue In Doubt

These people do not look at magazines, they award magazines where their friends work... Do they ever visit a magazine stand in Manhattan? ASME 2008 Best Magazine Cover Winners and Finalists.

Flickr Finds: THE COOLVILLE KID'S LIBRARY

Mr. Mcginnis and I took a stroll through this year's NY Art Book Fair on Sunday (I just went back to read last year's coverage and noted that my first sentence here is the same as last year's. heh!) It was fun and overwhelming and a million degrees inside Philips de Pury, the auction house who hosted the event. I miss the big open space of last year's venue. Sadly, since we went on the last day of the fair, we missed seeing the whole queer zines exhibition. It'd been partially dismantled to make room for an auction. I'm looking forward to spending some time with their book so more on that later. Thank you everyone for talking to us and giving us such cool stuff! I took a few photos before experiencing camera issues...

Booklyn joined forces with Evil Twin and set up in this nice corner.

The RAM Publications table.

Jonathan Monk's The Reason Why I am Here is Why I am Here at the Presentation House Gallery table. You know I took this just because it features a Morrissey Record!

Continue reading "NY Art Book Fair" »

Review of Fantastic Man: Compared to Fantastic Man, all other magazines are coarse and common. That is all.

Please feel free to spend your money. But here are some cute, stylish options for those who like to make their own zines and therefore may be crafty.

Wire Hanger Rack at lifehacker

Pegboard Wall Unit at Design*Sponge

Marimba Magazine Rack made from drumsticks at Replayground

Thursday October 23: There are two art book fairs this weekend, Printed Matter's New York Art Book Fair and the Arlis/NY Contemporary Artists' Books Conference. Today, I'm heading up to MoMA for a talk at the latter. The talk is Multiple Ideas: Artists' Periodicals as Site for Collaboration and Distribution of Ideas and includes artist/North Drive Press creator Matt Keegan and Emily Roydson from LTTR. See their full schedule here. Both book fairs go all weekend so look at their sites and go to stuff. We'll be wandering around taking pictures and wanting to buy everything.

Also tonight is the NY Art Book Fair preview gala and their after party doubles as a Butt Magazine event at my old neighborhood bar, The Boiler Room. First 50 guests get the new Butt for free. Yay!

Saturday October 25: Release party for Habitus: A Diaspora Journal's New Orleans issue at Gowanus Studio Space. 119 8th Street, Brooklyn, 8pm-12am.

Sunday October 26: Magazine-we-love Girls Like Us is having a party for their new issue at Trophy Bar in Williamsburg. 351 Broadway. 5pm-10pm.

Likes/Dislikes
by Lacey Prpic-Hedtke
25 pages, 2.25 x 11", b/w photocopy inside, notebook cover
$2

I love making lists. On this laptop I have lists of novel titles, places I've lived, teen movie plot ideas, items that i've gotten in my eye and many many more. It's calming and entertaining to organize information in this fashion. In the same vein, I think, list zines are immensely satisfying. You can sort of read between the lines of words, the bits of information and put together a picture of a whole person. I picked up Likes/Dislikes at Printed Matter and sat down with a friend to read it. We didn't flip to the back for a bio until we'd had a chance to get to know our mystery list-maker. We hypothesize that Lacey Prpic-Hedtke, the writer, is fun (Likes: Laughing Uncontrollably; Riding my bike and singing), romantic (Likes: Those always ready for adventure; Patsy Cline; Men who write love letters), sexy, a good dancer, crafty, a reader, an artist, a teenager (dislikes: When people stare at me for no reason; When people tell me I'm not what I say I am), a punk, a cook, and so on. This zine is lively and entertaining and gives you the sort of thrill you might get from looking through someone else's notebook.

Both Likes/Dislikes and Likes/Dislikes 2 are available at Printed Matter or you can check Lacey's myspace page for a list of distros. She also has an etsy store.

Kenn Duncan, the principal photographer at one of our favorite magazines, After Dark, is having a retrospective of his celebrity and performance photography at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts through October 25th.

Flickr Finds: Jovike's awesome record cover collection.

Showpaper is having open submissions for its huge covers which usually features bold, colorful illustrations. The deadline is this Sunday (sorry for the lateness), but they'll be doing this at least 4 times a year. The paper is free in the New York area, so this is a great oppurtunity to get your stuff seen.

For some ridiculous reason, Ms.Keough and I kept missing the Kate Moss covered relaunch of Interview. All the hype seemed to cause the magazine to disappear from every magazine stand we frequent in Manhattan and Brooklyn. I was feeling anxiety over not finding it because for the last summer the takeover of Baron and O'Brien had made me feel hope. Hope that the very first magazine I ever became obsessed with would return to greatness, hope that a commercially viable American magazine could actually be interesting.

Ms. Pace, my 9th grade English teacher, looked like a 1950's pin-up. She had big red hair, bright red lipstick and usually wore a sleeveless breast popping blouse, over sized fake pearls, skin tight capri pants and 4 or perhaps 10 inch heels. I remember her rushing into class late, wearing horn-rimmed sunglasses and maybe dropping her papers, bending down to gather them while asking the class if we remembered to write in our journals the night before. Ms. Pace was the kind of teacher who wanted her students to figure out things for themselves. She always asked questions and never gave any facts. In the back of the classroom was a box filled with years and years of Interview. "You should totally read that, it's Andy Warhol's magazine."

Continue reading "Where has all the fierceness gone? " »

Thursday, September 25th: The Diner Journal is celebrating their fall issue and two years of food and print love this evening at McNally Jackson (née Robinson) Booksellers on Prince St. starting at 7pm. Readings will be paired accordingly with cheese and booze. McNally Jackson, 52 Prince St. @ Mulberry.

(photography by Amelia Bauer)

Friday, September 26th: Magazine-we-love Capricious is having an opening at their office/gallery for a show called ENVIRONS which is comprised of "quietly exquisite drawings, photos and sculpture by artist Amelia Bauer." I'm looking forward to this and whatever else they have coming up in their fall program. Capricious Space, 103 Broadway, 6-9pm.

Saturday, September 27th: WFMU presents Lights at the Issue Project Room and while this is a music show and not exactly Print Fetish material... I wanted to mention it anyway because I'll be helping out with the visuals by putting together a little slide show. We here at PF also have many issues and projects, so that helps too. Issue Project Room, 232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor, Brooklyn, 8pm.

Sunday, September 28th: Housing Works Bookstore is having their great 4th annual open air book sale. They'll take over Crosby St and sell us cheap books, records, dvds, etc and feed us and supply us with beers. Yay! Housing Works Books, 126 Crosby St @ Prince, All day. --OH! this just in... Housing Works Thrift will also be selling clothes in $20 all-you-can-stuff bags. Cool!

Cometbus #51
The Loneliness of the Electric Menorah
by Aaron Elliott
96 pages, 1/2 size
$3

It's been two years since the last proper issue of Cometbus and let me tell you #51 is worth the wait. Cometbus #51 is a well-researched and reported history of Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California, the city of Aaron Elliott's and my birth. It begins in 1963 at Rambam, a short-lived bookstore run by two cranky, stubborn gentlemen: Moe Moskowitz and Bill Cartwright. Moe went on to open Moe's Books and Cartwright to start Shakespeare and Co.

The story of Telegraph Avenue continues and included are histories of underground comics, used booksellers, new age publishing, Lhasa Karnac, the battle of People's Park, North Berkeley yuppies, the SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army), the great Amoeba records, creepy Ken the owner of Rasputin Records and Blondie's Pizza, poster art, and a slew of other Berkeley characters. I've heard parts of these stories from my mom, though Elliott's starting point is a few years before her time as a student at Cal. I also spent plenty of my own time hanging around on Telegraph, getting coffee at the Med, buying records and trading books. Peppered throughout the story are certain Berkeley feelings, including a distaste for 4th Street, strong opinions on the changes in North Berkeley, and an incredulity as to why on earth anyone would move to Boulder, Colorado.

As a bay area kid, I am so happy to read more complete versions of stories I've been hearing for years. And anyone who knows what it's like to have a complicated relationship to a place will appreciate and understand this great issue. After I finished reading it, I sent my copy along to my mom who, hilariously, has moved to Boulder. Also inside are wonderful stencil art portraits of the major players in the story by Caroline Paquita.

Cometbus #51 is available for $3 from Microcosm or at your local cool bookshop.

Funky and colorful, this wood mag rack is wrapped in a patchwork of misprinted metal cans that would've otherwise been discarded. Each rack is unique and would be perfect for a kitchen - maybe EVEN a bathroom. Go wild.

The Misprint Magazine rack is available at Viva Terra for $89

During Butt Magazine's early years they had a companion zine, a sisterly counterpart, called Kutt. It was started by their friend Jessica Gysel. She put out a few issues of Kutt and then seemed to disappear, only to resurface a few years later with the fantastic Girls Like Us magazine. Ultimately, Girls Like Us is the better mag--more fully realized, existing on its own rather than as a version of Butt, etc. Regardless, the issues of Kutt are still totally good, if you can find them... I had been looking for ages before I finally found a single copy of issue #3 at St. Marks Books.

Continue reading "PF Collection: Kutt" »

COMING SOON: Graphic Design Referenced (GDR) is a 400-page guide to the most commonly referenced terms, historical moments, landmark projects and practitioners in the field of graphic design...

Flickr finds: Jan Tonnesen's album cover collection

I've recently discovered one of my favorite magazine blogs... Glossed Over. Hilarious and bitchy examinations of American women's fashion magazines by Wendy Fellton, a freelance editor and writer who can't stop buying tacky magazines even though she seems to really, really hate them.

I keep seeing these in my many searches for fabulous magazine racks... but I always hold off because none of them seem to be in production anymore, and these amazing vintage pieces do not come cheap. Austrian designer Carl Aubock seems to have designed more magazine racks than anyone from the Mid-Century period (or contemporary for that matter), leading me to believe he was a fellow Print Fetishist. LUST after these, or if you're rich, buy one and send us a pic of you lounging beside it.

These are the best images I could find, but he's done even MORE magazine/newspaper racks than this. I love his use of leather, wood and metal - natural looking, but modern, my favorite. Simple and apparently obvious like all great design.

We must organize an a movement to get these manufactured again! Who is with me?!

It is possible to buy some of these pieces here, here
and here.

The much coveted music issue of the Believer is out featuring a well constructed mix CD of a bunch of white people (and one of my hip-hop favorites Aceyalone) inspired by African and middle eastern music. I'm not convinced, but found it an interesting listen nonetheless. The issue also has a great story by Rick Moody about attending a music residency in upstate New York, Brandon Stosuy's thoughts on American Black Metal and a wonderful essay about the personal connection between music and changing technology by Lavinia Greenlaw. The most awesome thing about this issue is the Interview with New Orleans soul singer Irma Thomas (who is illustrated by Charles Burns on the cover). Irma Thomas is usually always described as someone who should have been as world famous as Aretha, Tina or Dionne, and once you start listening to her you see why. Read the Interview, and go buy her new album!

Capricious #8 is a format departure from earlier editions—it's larger and unbound so each page can be hung as poster—but it still features the same flawless editing, gorgeous images and a mellow uncluttered approach to displaying them. This issue is a tribute to animals and it's really good. Each photographer, including PF favorite Melanie Bonajo and Olaf Breunning, included a statement about their relationships to animals. Go buy it at once!

Ah Doingbird, you make me wait so long to enjoy you. Doingbird 13 is finally out and has model Hilary Rhoda on the cover. I must say I'm getting a tad bored with the Terry Richardson covers but... She looks good! I don't think I've seen her face around as much lately. Jeff Burton is in here as is David Armstrong, a photographer I totally like, and Nobuyoshi Araki. Phosphorescent (a band of Brooklyn boys who make very nice music) are in this issue too. Overall a solid issue.

What do I love about magazines? I think a few people might think it's typography and design, but my Print Fetish isn't specifically about design - it's about print, about the art of editing. I'm not interested in a magazine that utilizes inventive layouts or pristine typography if those elements are not completely conceived and utilized to support the point of view of the editorial whole. Point of View is the most important aspect of a magazine, and if a magazine lacks point of view, which most seem to, I could care less about the design.

How wonderful then is it to find New Zealand zine (or magazine), White Fungus, which has a wonderfully independent, funky yet thoughtful point of view. White Fungus is an art and literary (and sometimes political) zine that gives you writing and art work you aren't expecting. Although many magazines espouse their mission of promoting talent and giving voice to those "outside the mainstream" who "go unnoticed" (God... HOW many magazines have written about or done interviews with Daniel Johnston? Give me a break), White Fungus actually delivers. Without all the absurd mission statements and press kit boloney.

Genuine interest in the subjects and art works presented is what makes White Fungus an interesting read. It really balances the slightly punk enthusiasm of its look and voice with superb editing. This is what I personally love to see - a magazine that utilizes non-corporate, irreverent aesthetics (design and writing), yet maintaining high language standards and classic (maybe old-fashioned) typography. The attention to detail and standards never get in the way of the fun, and although this is an "art" zine, it is far from the sterile and humorless voice of most art magazines. In many ways it's like the editors took the best aspects of Cabinet, Zing and Butt and squished them into White Fungus.

White Fungus #9, the first issue available in the U.S, features artwork by Richard Killian, Yao Jui-Chung, Hye Rim Lee and Tim Bollinger. Writings on Terrence McKenna, the end of art history and a conversation with sound artist and composer Annea Lockwood. I particularly enjoy the opening feature on New Zealand historical figures, and this issue Jane Janesly writes about Chew Chong, a chinese immigrant to New Zealand in the mid 19th Century.

This is absolutely the best magazine anyone has sent to me at Print Fetish, so definitely go find it.

Last week Mr. Mcginnis and I dropped by Tim Barber's TV Books exhibition at Partners and Spade on Great Jones St. Mr. Barber is a man of many talents and projects and he recently added a bookshop to his website Tiny Vices where he's been curating wonderful selections of photographs for some time. At TV Books you can find limited edition books from Mr. Barber, Aurel Schmidt, Patrick Griffin and more. Go shop. Or look at photos from the show. (pictured at left, the cover of Simulations by Chris Dorland)

There's an in-depth article on The Atlantic and its journey into and beyond the digital age on the Folio site. (via MagCulture)

In the last two years photographer Rachel Barrett has photographed all 236 of New York's newsstands. And she's just in time too because they are on their way out—to be replaced by standardized structures provided by the city. Wow, how boring. I love newsstands. I've always wanted to man my own but I guess I'm too late to have any fun with it. See The New York Times slideshow here and the accompanying article here.

Photo by Rachel Barrett.

Nutopia scanned Uniqlo Paper's interview with David Strettell, owner of the lovely and amazing Dashwood Books—a place filled with things I want (Via A Visual Society).

Holes and Halos
Photographs by Paul Schiek
Published by these birds walk and Stephen Wirtz Gallery
11x17 newsprint, B/W, 24 pages
Free (Given out at his show at Thomas Erben Gallery in NY)

Paul Schiek's new book Holes and Halos, made in conjunction with a show at Thomas Erben Gallery, is the best thing I've seen by him so far. This book is a closed circuit of holes and halos, absence and echoes, light and dark. The images are organized in such a wonderful way. The book begins where it ends, with a hole and a halo. Everything in between—the trees, the waves, the hands—appears as if it's leaning toward the center so it rushes forward and then pulls itself back around again. Looking at Mr. Schiek's lovely newsprint catalog is a calming experience. I love this reoccurring shape, more like a gesture i guess, made by hands and bodies and trees and water. It's both strong and tender. I love whole pages of newsprint that are mostly covered in ink. I love getting books in the mail.

Holes and Halos is unavailable at press time but Mr. Schiek tells us that it will be back and buyable once his new site launches next month. In the meantime we have some images from the book after the jump. And you can look at his current website for other books and projects. The next installment of The Kin Series—the first of which we reviewed here—is in the works, so stay tuned!

Continue reading "Holes and Halos" »

Hey, The BUKAN Magazine Rack is not available in the U.S! Lame. I love powder-coated steel and bold, colorful typographic shapes, so this Swiss design is totally going into my want folder. I mean, this big red "X," which can hold quite a bit of media, would really look excellent next to the contrasting colors of a couch or wall. Perhaps one day I'll have enough rooms for all these hot mag holders.

The Bukan Magazine Rack is available in Europe only for 199.50 Euros.

Dwelling Portably 1980-1989
By Bert and Holly Davis
Published by Microcosm Publishing
5.5" x 8.5", 176 pages, BW
$7

It's been ages since I've hitchhiked anywhere, or slept outside, or lived out of my car. I've been settled into my own apartment with a cat and a girlfriend for years. But now that I'm looking for a job in the hot beginning of a New York summer, the thought of just packing up and wandering off holds a certain appeal.

I picked up Microcosm's Dwelling Portably at Left Bank Books in Seattle and read it on a road trip to Boulder. The book is a collection of 10 years of Bert and Holly Davis' newsletter, Message Post: About Portable Dwelling and Long Camping. For the past 30 years, they've been cranking it out on a manual typewriter in their yurt. They share tons of fantastic useful information and stories about living a nomadic life with fellow travelers, who also frequently write in with their own two cents. You'll find diagrams and notes on how to make tools, portable showers, find seasonal jobs, stay warm at night while Winter camping; hitchhiking and freight train hopping guides; suggestions from people who live in their car, in tents, yurts, tipis, or nowhere at all. And perhaps my favorite thing about Dwelling Portably are the personal stories that surround the helpful information. I've talked about this before in reference to Straight To Hell... you have a zine with a really specific topic—gay sex in Straight to Hell and camping and nomadic living in Dwelling Portably—and people write in with their stories, and around the relevant information are these sort of mundane details about their lives, their likes and dislikes. These intimate details are the things that make the stories human and connect them to readers like me, someone who is neither a gay dude nor a person who camps or even leaves the city.

You can buy Dwelling Portably for $7.00 at Microcosm Publishing

I don't like all the mags on the list of The beauty of print: the best-looking titles on the news-stand, but I do find it interesting how magazines that are at least striving for quality and creativity get mentioned in the European press. [via MagCulture]

Flickr Finds: Hilly Blue's incredible collection of After Dark magazine scans, featuring celebrity portraits, movie stills and tons of naked dancers (if you hunt, you'll find some not often seen Mapplethorpe photos, like the one below).

The Ephemerist is a blog I've been enjoying that shows cool comics, illustration, advertising and various cool junk.

My current addiction is We Heart it, an image bookmarking site where you collect all the images that inspire you, and share them with all your pals. Basically I got tired of waiting around for an invitation to ffffound. Anyone can join We Heart It, which makes it cool and lame... but I'm on it, so theres always that.

I picked up the second issue of Fabien Baron and Glenn O'Brien's Interview, with Marc Jacobs on the cover, and let me tell you... Interview may just very well be back. I was immediately pulled toward it on the shelf at St. Marks books because it lacked the irritating, typical and excessive cover lines which pollutes most American magazines. I was also pleased to see that actual art direction was taking place on the cover, as well as inside.

In a desperate bid for survival, Interview joined the cover-line arms race toward stupidity. Concept fell to the forces of project hype and too much control from people in marketing and celebrity agent negotiations. The magazine, once the most fabulous indicator of everything interesting about the pop and art world, had slid into the celebrity hole in an attempt to compete with drivel like Entertainment Weekly an Us Magazine. As far as I can tell... the night freaks, downtown icons and art world hadn't been reading Interview for years, but it looks like Baron and O'Brien are set to bring Interview back into the hands of Warhol's children.

This isn't the official re-design or re-direction of the magazine, just a taste of things to come, according to Baron. The look has been stripped down and emboldened with typography that is extremely well executed. The overall content isn't yet completely satisfying, probably due to stories that have been brewing since before the new team. But the "80th Warhol Birthday" section featuring Warhol memorabilia, superstars and the reflections of 14 contemporary artists (presented with typography that is arranged in a very painterly manner) is quite beautiful. This section alone is worth the ity-bity $3.50 cover price.

I'm excited to see what they'll be up to. The June issue is out now in the U.S