I really loved Susan Meiselas’ Mediations. It provides a wonderful overview of her career, development as a photographer, and efforts to rebalance the power dynamics between photographer and subject. I particularly enjoyed the essay by Eduardo Cadava, which manages to be both personal and theoretical. Recommend.
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Adult actress in the grass, Los Angeles, Calif., 2001 | Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
One of the books I’m working on at the moment is a book-length work of narrative nonfiction. The title is: When Pornographers Were Kings: A History of America’s Most Notorious Business. More to come soon …
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Image via Wikipedia
One of the books I’m working on at the moment is a short story collection. The title is: Fables of the 818. The interrelated stories take place in the San Fernando Valley—at strip clubs, porn sets, and massage parlors.
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This year, I decided to read only books with pictures. In July, I read four books. (You can find all my short book reviews here.) My favorite was Barbara Nitke’s American Ecstasy; from my review: “I read and pored over this book at a glacial pace because I didn’t want it to end.” My least favorite was E. M. Carroll’s A Guest in the House; from my review: “I had to search the internet to try and understand [the ending].”
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I can’t remember the first time I encountered Barbara Nitke’s American Ecstasy series, but it was a very long time ago. And more recently when I realized I’d never owned the book version, I wasn’t sure why. Then I remembered that I was sick when it was published. So, finally, I ordered it. And this book just dazzles. During my career, I have spent quite a bit of time on adult movie sets as a journalist, and I have never encountered a woman who had a similar experience, which is captured in this magnificent volume. In her own words, the words of the performers and crew, and her dazzling photos, she brings to life the often hidden adult business, what it’s like to insert yourself into its making, and what we can learn when we take the time to look at and listen to a part of capitalist production that due to its preoccupation with erotic fantasy is often misunderstood and frequently vilified. I read and pored over this book at a glacial pace because I didn’t want it to end. This is better than Larry Sultan’s The Valley. This is the real thing.
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In this week’s newsletter, I share more about my next book—which is part of Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 books series and focuses on Dr. Dre’s 1992 album, The Chronic—including a peek at the proposal and the other contenders.
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Moord in Rotterdam is not for the faint of heart. It compiles crime scene photos taken by the Rotterdam police between 1905 and 1967. The cover features a woman who un-alived herself. She appears to be napping. Her lookalike doll is at her side. Is it creepy, beautiful, tragic? The scene is in the eye of the beholder. Flipping through the pages of homicides, suicides, and crimes of passion, one is struck by the grand artistry of it all. I don’t know whether to credit the Rotterdam police for their photography skills or chalk it up to fantastic editing of a gruesome body of work. A great pick for fans of Joel-Peter Witkin and Wisconsin Death Trip.
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E. M. Carroll’s A Guest in the House is a tricky book to review because about 90% of it is terrific. It’s a dark, weird, gloomy story about what happens when you marry a man who seems normal and it turns out he may have murdered the wife before you. One of the most exciting things about the book is how it occasionally explodes out and across the page in moments of colorful surrealism. So, mostly, I really liked this book. But the ending left me baffled. It felt rushed, patchworked together, and I had to search the internet to try and understand it. Your experience may vary. But in general, this is a great work. She didn’t nail the ending.
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I’m happy to announce my next book: Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. It’s part of Bloomsbury’s much-loved 33 1/3 series. I’ll be writing about the seminal album and its influence. Thanks so much to Bloomsbury for the opportunity.
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Thanks to John Wooden, who gave me my first editing job, for these nice words about my memoir, Data Baby. John has a new newsletter on Substack called EPOSTASY, where he rails against the all consuming “ebyss.”
You should subscribe to it.
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I’ve read Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” several times, so when I saw Taschen had produced this oversized version with photos by Phil Stern, I had to have it. I really enjoyed re-reading Talese’s work this way, Stern’s photos, and the ephemera that includes Talese’s hand-drawn outline for the work. A good buy.
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This year, I decided to read only books with pictures. In June, I read three books. (You can find all my short book reviews here.) My favorite was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Tove Jansson Edition which I called “vibrant and beguiling.” My least favorite was Art Monsters by Lauren Elkin which I did not finish.
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I guess I have sort of a strange relationship to Desolation Jones, because I was the inspiration for one of the characters in it: Filthy Sanchez, a kind of Los Angeles porn czar who says things like: “Everything goes better with bukkake.” I believe that I only ever read the first comic in this series, so when I saw that the first six had been republished in a single volume, The Biohazard Edition, I had to buy it. The quality of the book is great — oversized, colorful — and I enjoyed reading the full narrative. There was also a short return of Sanchez at the end that I hadn’t been aware of previously. The story itself is about a man who has PTSD from having his brain fucked and is on a quest for some Hitler porn. If you like your comics weird and filthy, this one is for you.
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Cool to see a photo of mine in Charles Saatchi’s 2015 book Dead: A Celebration of Mortality. I found it on eBay.
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In my Instagram Stories for Father’s Day, I posted a few links to my late father and his work, including his New York Times obituary, my favorite thing he ever wrote, his Rothko biography, Hilton Kramer’s New York Times Book Review review of my father’s Rothko biography, and my father’s Rothko biography research archive at the Getty Research Institute. It’s been almost 30 years since my father died, and I’ll miss him forever.
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Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Tove Jansson Edition combines two of my favorites from childhood: a marvel of literature and the creator of the Moomins universe. So I was delighted to learn this book united the two. Rereading Lewis Carroll’s text was illuminating—how willy-nilly he is with language and imagery and how much magical conjuring happens when a creator allows pretty much anything to sprout from his brain. I adore Jansson’s images for the text. They are more vibrant and beguiling than the originals. My favorite illustration features Alice peering over the lip of the mushroom to consider the caterpillar.
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This year, I decided to read only books with pictures. In May, I read seven books. (You can find all my short book reviews here.) My favorite book was David Lynch’s Catching the Big Fish, which has no pictures but I made an exception because I’m a big Lynch fan: “My favorite part is when he talks about Mulholland Drive’s box and key and says, ‘I don’t have a clue what those are.’” My least favorite book was Charles Burns’ Caprice, which, although interesting and enjoyable, was a collection of images with no narrative: “The themes are classically Burnsian: girls in trouble, blobular creatures, impossible landscapes.”
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Earlier this year, I submitted a proposal to do a 33 1/3 book on Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. The 33 1/3 book series is published by Bloomsbury and each slim volume is a close study of an album. I proposed doing one on Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. Recently, the editors shared all the artists that were proposed this year, which you can see here. In any case, I’ll learn if my proposal was accepted in June or July. I’ll share that info on this blog.
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Scenes from a recent evening in Highland Park in L.A. For more of my photographs, follow me on Instagram.
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Caprice by Charles Burns is a small thing. It’s not really a comic book, per se. And it’s certainly not a graphic novel. It’s a collection of fictional comic book covers, apparently. The themes are classically Burnsian: girls in trouble, blobular creatures, impossible landscapes. It’s an interesting journey through a curious mind.
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