Art & Culture: Public Art in Vancouver: Angels Among Lions by John Steil and Aileen Stalker

Every city needs a book like Public Art in Vancouver (TouchWood Editions) a kind of walking tour through the public art -- all the public art -- in the city of Vancouver, Canada.

“The character of a city is revealed by its public art,” the authors point out in their introduction, “what it collectively places on its streets and walls and in its public spaces.”

Most of the book, however, is given over to that art in well-organized sections that begin with a map that indicates each artwork under discussion in that section. Each piece of art is given one third to one quarter of a page that includes a small but clear photograph, the name of the piece, the year it was installed and a little about how it came to be where it is. And so you have, for instance, the iconic Girl in A Wetsuit from Stanley Park. We’re told it was installed in 1972 and that there was initially talk “of recreating the Little Mermaid from Copenhagen’s Harbour, but luckily, a West Coast image was used instead. Many people refer to her as a mermaid, but she is a scuba diver with flippers.”

This is a fantastic, well conceived and executed book. I hope TouchWood is planning on adding other cities and making it a series.

Biography: Stitches: A Memoir by David Small

David Small’s Stitches: A Memoir (McLelland & Stewart/W.W. Norton) is fantastic. As good or better than the most celebrated graphic novels that it will inevitably be compared to. Stitches is all the more compelling because it is not a novel at all. Rather, it is a graphic telling of author and illustrator David Small’s early life.

This is David through the Looking Glass as seen by David Lynch or perhaps Tim Burton, a dark and often disturbing graphic glimpse at a childhood that many of us might have thought was best left alone. Small takes us through the dark corridors of his childhood in Detroit in the 1950s, the son of a radiologist father whose constant x-raying ultimately gives the boy cancer. And things go downhill from there.

Stitches is a huge distance from the work Small is best known for. He has illustrated over 40 children’s books and won the most prestigious awards available to him in the process. It’s not hard to see why: Small is hugely talented and his understanding of visual storytelling is complete. Stitches is undoubtedly one of the best books of 2009.

Non-Fiction: Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada by Stephen Schneider

On the world stage, Canada has a certain reputation. In general, Canadians are known to be quiet, self-effacing and the country itself is often seen as a vast, pastoral wasteland, but for the six months in winter when the country is covered in snow.

The reality, of course, is different. But just how different is it? Maybe we’ve never come closer to knowing than we can with Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada (Wiley).

Well-researched and skillfully put together, Iced is an even better book than one might at first think. Author Stephen Schneider is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Because of these deep and real creds, I anticipated that Iced would be dry and textbookish, an idea helped by the fact that publisher John Wiley & Sons does have a textbook division. But while I imagine Iced may well function in that capacity at some point, lay people with an interest in this topic will find much here to enjoy. It’s easy to feel confident that Schneider has done his homework, but he never leaves his reader feeling as though they’d just like their six hours back. This is no doubt due Schneider’s skill, but the material here is just terrific.

Though some aspects are well worn and widely known -- the role Canada played during the United States’ Prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s, for instance -- much, much more of this material will be unfamiliar to most Canadians. From pirates operating off Canada’s east coast in the 17th century, to the contemporary gang violence that over the last two decades has accelerated to its highest point in history.

All the way through there are interestingly told anecdotes and careful documentation and, especially in the case of contemporary incidents, well considered ideas on what should be done and what isn’t being done and what needs to be done if only certain politicians would rise off their hineys.

Iced is a very good book. Readers with an interest in these topics will find a great deal to enjoy here.

Non-Fiction: The Pursuit of Perfect by Tal Ben-Shahar

If, in the course of reading a towering stack of books intended to make you perform better, faster and stronger you discover you have pushed yourself too close to perfection, then The Pursuit of Perfect (McGraw Hill) may well be the book for you.

After a decade of teaching Happiness classes at Harvard (one gets the idea of a class of grad students sitting around blowing bubbles, but I don’t think that’s it) author, philosopher and psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar came to understand that most people aspire to more than mere happiness. Whether or not they realized it, people wanted perfection in their lives.

The result should be obvious (but does not seem to be until it is pointed out). If you crave and search for perfection, you will inevitably be disappointed -- both in yourself and the world around you. If you need perfection in your life, you’ve failed before you get out of the gate. The Pursuit of Perfect is the answer to that discovery, with Ben-Shahar guiding you through the idea of looking for attainable self-fulfillment rather than setting unrealistic goals that can’t fail to do anything but disappoint.

In addition to teaching the topic at Harvard, Ben Shahar is the author of the bestselling Happiness, so he knows this topic from many angles. He writes engagingly and is an accomplished thinker who says much that is worthy of attention. The Pursuit of Perfect is a must-read for the overachiever in your life.

New This Week: Either You’re In or You’re In the Way by Logan and Noah Miller

Filmmaking twin brothers Logan and Noah Miller have a single car, mobile phone and computer between them. It’s not that they wouldn’t each like their own but, as they tell us in the opening paragraphs of Either You’re In or You’re In the Way (Collins) “right now money is tight. So, for now, we share. And are blessed to have someone to share it with.”

That’s pretty much the sentiment that floats us through the book. It’s a charming, witty and in some ways fascinating story that’s part memoir and partly the story of how -- against all odds -- the brothers wrote, produced, acted in and directed a feature film -- starring no less than Ed Harris -- in less than a year with little between them besides 17 credit cards.

That would be sufficient story for the book, but then the resulting film, Touching Home, was nominated for 26 Academy Awards and took home 11 of them.

Either You’re In or You’re In the Way is, in some ways, a Cinderella story in perfect Hollywood style with all the bittersweet details and plot twists such a story demand. And, all things considered, it’s no surprise that they can write, too. Those who love movies and/or a touching family story will enjoy this book. It’s a very worthwhile read on so many levels.

New This Month: Shut Up, You’re Fine: Poems for Very, Very Bad Children by Andrew Hudgins

Hush now -- don’t cry, my wayward son.
You couldn’t see you were becoming
someone who’d study “Manual Arts” --
rough carpentry, not even plumbing.

Mother smelled, and Father too,
the cigarettes you’ve been bumming.
We searched beneath your bed and found
the dirty books you’ve been thumbing.

The first two stanzas of “Had it Coming,” the first poem in Shut Up, You’re Fine (Overlook Press) do a pretty good job of illustrating the very specific taste required to enjoy this compelling and hilariously offensive little book.

Illustrated by the distinguished artist Barry Moser, Shut Up, You’re Fine is mostly comprised of degenerate nursery rhymes crafted by the talented hands of a writer who has been nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

This is not a book that everyone will enjoy and it would not surprise me if some readers were deeply offended. Put it this way: if you think South Park is the height of humor, you’ll like Shut Up, You’re Fine... and you’ll think again.

New This Week: Variety’s “The Movie That Changed My Life” by Robert Hofler

It seems to me that Robert Hofler’s Variety’s “The Movie That Changed My Life” (Da Capo) is a fairly impossible book not to like in that it offers up something for everyone. Well, everyone who likes movies. And celebrities. It’s a good idea that has been well executed. I couldn’t put it down.

The idea is astonishingly simple: Hofler, who is also the author of The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson, asked 120 celebrities to (from the sub-title) “Pick the Films that Made a difference (for Better or Worse).”

Hofler doesn’t just plunk down their answers, but rather puts together brief profiles that places their choices for life-altering movies in context. Novelist Michael Connelly “calls Chinatown his absolute favorite detective film,” and goes on to say that his own novel, Echo Park, “gives a nod to Chinatown.”

Though he loved both versions of The Manchurian Candidate, Senator John McCain says that “Viva Zapata! influenced him more than any other film” because seeing the movie introduced him to the historical figure and sent the young McCain on a journey of learning.

Jack Nicholson saw On the Waterfront “twelve or fifteen times. [Brando] was the guy of my high school generation.”

Kirsten Dunst, Rosario Dawson, Ben Affleck, Tim Burton, Dr. Phil, Deepak Chopra (who loved Ben Kingsley in Gandhi. Surprise!) and Donald Trump (another surprise: he loved Citizen Kane): Hofler’s book offers up a concise and vivid image of what goes on in the heart of contemporary celebrity. It’s a tremendously enjoyable book.

Art & Culture: Falling in Love Again edited by Stacey Abbott and Deborah Jermyn

For those who insist their Valentine surprises have deeper meaning and perhaps a bit more meat, Falling in Love Again: Romantic Comedy in Contemporary Cinema (I.B. Tauris) is surprisingly fresh, on-target and deeply interesting.

Falling in Love Again points out that while romantic comedy has long been a staple at the movies, they’ve not often been taken seriously. In this anthology, an international list of contributors take that serious look at all aspects of contemporary comedy in film. And yet, that look is not too serious: we’re left with an expert view at an often artically underappreciated medium.

Both editors are senior lecturer in film and television at Roehampton University in the United Kingdom and both have contributed to or edited other film-related books for I.B. Tauris. Stacey Abbott is the author of 2007’s Celluloid Vampires while Deborah Jermyn is the author of Crime Watching: Investigating Real Crime TV, also from 2007.

Falling in Love Again was published in the UK late in 2008 and will be published by Macmillan in the US next month.

New in Paperback: The Book of Dead Philosophers by Simon Critchley

The Book of Dead Philosophers (Vintage) is shockingly lucid, surprisingly good, unexpectedly funny. It’s a book that meets its initial mandate, then passes it by a country mile. Clearly, I liked it a lot. I find it difficult to imagine anyone with even a passing interest in philosophy who would not enjoy it.

Author Simon Critchley looks chronologically at those who dedicated their lives to thinking about intellectual matters of life and death and how they themselves exited the material world. “Very simply stated,” writes the author, “this is a book about how philosophers have died and what we can learn from philosophy about death and dying.”

But it’s more than that, too. Critchley points out that we, as a society, are almost ridiculously frightened of death. And what can we do about that? Critchley has the answer: philosophy.

It was a commonplace in antiquity that philosophy provides the wisdom necessary to confront death. That is, the philosopher looks death in the face and has the strength to say that it is nothing.

That’s in theory. In practice... well, Critchley gives us short profiles of close to 200 philosophers, a little about how they lived and -- more importantly in the context of this book -- how they died. On that journey, we encounter all that life has to offer: wit and wisdom, tragedy and comedy. There are bizarre ends and others that are pathetically unexceptional. In short, he gives us the tools we need to begin to “learn to have death in your mouth, in the words you speak, the food you eat and the drink that you imbibe.”

It’s a remarkable book.

Art & Culture: Dreambook by Mark di Suvero

“Each human saves himself or herself, and no other being can do anything but give insight, show a way, or block. Will, acting across parameters of necessity that are in delicate equilibrium, can change things. History shows this. Those who have changed the course of human history have always believed themselves capable of it. Sadly though, most of the time most humans act from necessity.”

What makes Dreambook (University of California Press) special is that it’s so much more than it might have been. So much, in a way, more than it appears.

Dreambook is said to be “the definitive volume on American sculptor Mark di Suvero” and in some ways it is. Over 200 images track the deep course of his work; the changes it has made; the sharp turns of direction it has taken over the years. But there is very little about di Suvero included which -- taken within the context of the book -- is absolutely right. This is di Suvero’s book. His book of dreams. And so we see his work but, in his own words, we hear his heart. Admired works by other writers are included as well: Walt Whitman, Marianne Moore, Rainer Maria Rilke, many others.

di Suvero was born in China to Italian parents and raised in the United States. Without question, he is one of the most important living sculptors. His work can be found in museums and collections the world over. And though there is a very good biographical section on di Suvero by Francois Barré late in the book, it is only a very small portion of Dreambook.

This is probably not the most definitive book on di Suvero that will ever be. It is, however, purely Mark di Suvero’s book. We get to experience his art, albeit from the distance of photography. Perhaps more importantly, though, through his personal essays and his editorial choices about what other writing should be included in this, his book of dreams, we get to experience his heart.

Art & Culture: Ary Stillman: from Impressionism to Abstract Expressionism

If you spend any time at all studying his work, you wonder at how completely absent his name is from the lists of important artists of his era. Certainly in his own time, Russian/American artist Ary Stillman was considered influential. These days, if his name comes up at all -- which it seldom does -- he is most often compared to Jackson Pollock, something I’ve never understood. Compare him to Mark Rothko. Compare him -- if comparisons must be made -- to Picasso, who worked in a similar era and whose work over time shows similar seismic upheavals of change, but Pollock? No, not that.

Whatever your impressions of Ary Stillman (1891-1967) a new book from Merrell offers an appropriate overview of the life and work of this remarkable artist. Merrell’s books are always well thought out and beautifully executed and Ary Stillman: from Impressionism to Abstract Expressionism is no exception. Essays by seven important experts on Stillman’s work offer a written view that, accompanied as they are by reproductions of the artist’s work, offer a full color glimpse into the life of an artist whose work you probably don’t know enough about.

Review: Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book by Aye Jay

Today, in January Magazine’s art & culture section, contributing editor and January art director, David Middleton, reviews Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book by Aye Jay. Says Middleton:

You don’t tend to think of heavy metal music as a genre that is filled with an overabundance of jocularity or frivolity, but as I flip through Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book I must reconsider my position. Metal can be fun, silly and -- yes -- perhaps even thoughtful and educational. So on page eight, after you have played connect the moles on the face of a prominent member of Motorhead, go to page nine and do a brain teasing heavy metal sudoku -- with all the sixes filled in, of course. Color Glenn Danzig, do the Monsters of Rock Crossword then guide Ozzy Ozborne through a maze in order to get him to Ozzfest.

The full review is here.