Home Work - Hand Built Shelters - Lloyd Kahn

I love this book. I love it so much I actually plan to buy it. With real money and everything. Fantastic, incredible, wonderful, hyperbole, burbbly, wee! Kahn’s book is a massive collection of hand built shelters of every sort of building material possible. And they are truly inspiring. There are fantastic homes built of light concrete (made with pumice) that can be carved into swirling shell shapes, tree houses (complete with power and water), a rock house built by a naked man over a decade of time, a teepee with underground power to run the photocopier, houses that have been off the power grid/running on solar for 35 years, two-story gypsy style caravan houses, adobe, mud, brick, tin, glass, driftwood, hay bale, sandbag, old bus - you name it. The pictures are fantastic and the builders’ stories amazing. I want to build a yurt so bad! No really, a yurt. We’re going to get a build-a-yurt kit. Damn this book is cool.

Crap Cars - Richard Porter

This fantastically snarky book full lives up to its title. Porter lists the (arguably) 50 top bombs and give succinct descriptions of the lemon, along with a nasty little "If this car was…" tagline. #15, the AMC Gremlin "If this car was… a movie, it would be ‘Dude, where’s the rest of my car?’" and #6, the Chevy Vega "If this car was … only a little rusty, it was still on the production line." On the sagging leather seats for #29, the Chrysler TC by Maserati "And just look at those seats.. Ever wonder what it’d be like to see your grandparents naked?" #26, the Renault Feugo "When it came to destroying a car’s reputation on every front there was little else that could have been done, short of paying a big man to stand at the door of every Renault showroom greeting prospective customers with a punch in the face." The old car ads illustration the book are also priceless - a man in polyester suit and helmet hair in his Hyundai Excel (#19) or a couple in knee-high tube socks beaming in delirious delight that they will never have to own a Merkur Scorpio (#46).

A Long Way Down - Nick Hornby

This was an excellent recommendation from Mike H. Reminding me of Douglas Coupland’s writing, the story is wry, funny and depressingly accurate. The plot follows four mismatched people who meet on a rooftop, New Years, to commit suicide. The middle-aged mother with a son in a vegetative state, the former morning -show TV host (fresh out of jail), the very messed up and angst ridden teenager and the former musician with a bad case of CCR. Stunned to find so many other folks with the same idea, they put off their run at death for awhile. The strange group forms a friendship of sorts, bound by their experience. The disparate group fights, argues, tries to help one-another, picks on one another and fights some more. When all is said and done, the book ends up on a slightly up note, of sorts. A great read with some bizarre twists and turns and fascinating, though not necessarily likeable, characters.

Museum of Bad Art

http://www.museumofbadart.org/

After wandering through the Museum of Bad Art’s online gallery, look of abject horror frozen on my face, I HAD to see the book. My god, what were these people thinking?! The museum "is the world's only museum dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and celebration of bad art in all its forms." And man is it bad. I mean, really really bad. No, not like freshman year painting. Well, maybe a bit like it, but yeesh. Note even velvet Elvises are allowed. They are too upscale! Horrible, painful portraits of loved ones (?), a man in a Greek robe and black socks and shoes, grim stick-tree landscapes, scary, angry clowns and more await. Enjoy?