Art & Culture: The Rude Story of English by Tom Howell

In author Tom Howell’s opinion, before he got to it, there were two main problems with the officially stated story of the English language. First, because of a development time that stretches over hundreds of years and many countries, there is no central hero. Two, previous histories had been too busy being polite to get down to the nitty gritty essential to doing the story justice.

In The Rude Story of English (McClelland & Stewart) Howell fixes both errors. And judging from the sparkling result, he was just the right guy for the job because it is, in many ways, a flawless book. Taking what in other hands has often been tedious, uninteresting and even (by way of omission) inaccurate, Howell creates a book not only dead interesting, it’s also Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy funny. Howell knows how to tell a story. For one thing, he begins at the beginning:

The story of the English language is actually quite cool. It contains some sad parts, but these are well dispersed among moments of beauty, hilarity, pauses for thought, lessons for us all, and ambiguous moral themes. It is, as the saying goes, all over the place.

Howell takes care of the lack of a central hero for his story in the style of the very best storytellers: he makes one up. We meet Hengest in 449 AD, a fearsome Germanic warrior who trips onto English soil… and swears. We meet Hengest throughout history, a familiar character in the always changing landscape of language.

Even if you think you know something about the history of the English language, you’ll learn a lot from Howell’s book. More: you’ll learn it with enjoyment and even laughter. ◊


David Middleton is the art and culture editor of January Magazine.

Art & Culture: Sign Painters by Faythe Levine and Sam Macon

I’m a graphic designer, so it’s easy for me to create a sign. With a computer and the right program, I can reproduce images and letters, over and over, with no loss of fidelity and no mistakes. Perfect every time. But in the old days (though really not that long ago) signs were actually painted by hand and though each letter may not have been computer perfect, the sign’s distinct personality was revealed in those imperfections.

We’ve seen these hand-painted signs. We’ve photographed and Instagramed them. We’ve bought reproductions of them and hung them on our walls. We love their weathered patina. The pealing and chipping of the paint. The faded colors and rough, indistinct edges. We’ve made an industry of reproducing these signs of yesteryear to hang and admire in our homes or to upload to various social networking sites, yet on most storefronts we see nothing but clean lines and bland, clinical order. For the most part there is nothing wrong with that, but there is something beautifully ornamental about a handlettered and painted sign. It’s the imperfections that bring personality, that draw you in for study. Perhaps even make you go into the store being advertised (which is the sign’s primary function).

In short: A hand-painted sign has character.

I have a friend who is in the sign business, as was his father. He shows me old books and examples of the sign painter’s trade. Gets a bit misty eyed about the past and frustrated when he talks of clients wanting nothing but styleless black lettering on white backgrounds.

As I read Sign Painters (Princeton Architectural Press) by Faythe Levine and Sam Macon, I began to understand what my friend has been going on about.

Sign Painters talks to more than two dozen first class tradespeople who practice the art of the hand-painted sign and they all have something in common: passion. A passion for something done by hand and a love of what they do. Each one of them undeterred by the advent of modern technology and proliferation of computer perfect, vinyl cut lettering. Each of them embracing time honored methods and appreciation of quality and craftsmanship.

Sign Painters is about a once vibrant industry that has been sublimated by the sterility of the computer, but it also of a resurgence of this once highly valued art form. How the men and women who do it, do it for the enjoyment of taking time to create and craft something that’s genuine and beautiful and at the same time functional. 

Filled with examples of their work, some simple some highly detailed and complex and all of them real art, Sign Painters is an ode to a bygone era that still has some teeth and to the men and women who are helping to keep the art form from being completely forgotten. ◊


David Middleton is the art director of January Magazine as well as a highly acclaimed photographer and graphic designer.

Non-Fiction: Making Habits, Breaking Habits: Why We Do Things, Why We Don't, and How to Make Any Change Stick by Jeremy Dean

Making Habits, Breaking Habits (DaCapo LifeLong) is a much better book than you’re expecting. The title puts one in mind of pop psychology and change for the sake of change -- but really, nothing could be further from the truth.

Author-psychologist Jeremy Dean is interested in the way we process things and why we love the things we love. He’s the founder of the popular PsyBlog, which sees over a million readers each month. Dean launched the blog because he found there just wasn’t enough smart writing for those who liked psychological insight backed up by science with their news. Making Habits, Breaking Habits was born of a question that was perhaps too long to be answered in a single blog posting ... or even a string of them. “This book started with an apparently simple question that seemed to have a simple answer,” Dean writes. “How long does it take to form a new habit?”

There is popular wisdom on the topic, but Dean contends that it’s all wrong. (As is the 21-day answer you’ll get if you Google on the topic, which is what Dean did at first.)

And, of course, since this is a book and not a blog posting, Dean gets the luxury of examining the topic thoroughly, which is where Making Habits, Breaking Habits actually does move into self-help mode, but not with the cloying cheerfulness we’ve come to associate with many books of that ilk. Though Dean is currently working towards a doctorate in psychology, his voice is casual, friendly and smart. More importantly for a book of this nature, he knows how to break his material down and present it in a way that is not only logical, but also stays interesting and connected: quite often not the case with books of this nature.

In the end, Making Habits, Breaking Habits is an entertaining and deeply interesting book. And a huge bonus for some readers: it actually has the potential to totally change your life. ◊

David Middleton is art director and art & culture editor of January Magazine.

Holiday Gift Guide: Florence: Art and Architecture and Venice: The Golden Centuries

If various reports are to be believed, the recession is drawing to a close. Even so, money is tight, gifts are precious and travel is dear. That might mean a lot of the things, but to me it means that gorgeous, elegant and rich books about wonderful places are going to be among the top holiday time gifts this year. How could they not be? Even an expensive book is a tiny fraction of the cost of a trip… and it can last ever so much longer.

Two great gift giving candidates come to us this season from H.F. Ullman. Florence: Art and Architecture and Venice: The Golden Centuries are both massive, impressive, filled with wonderful information and both books are relative bargains: pound for pound, these two might just be the best book bargains out there!

Neither of these books are contemporary travel guides which, in many ways, make them much better gifts. The information contained herein is not time sensitive or dependent. These are art books and, considering the topic at hand, both deal with the artistic history of the city under discussion. Noted scholars and historians contribute chapters to do with their own areas of expertise, while hundreds of images in each book complete the full illustration of two of the most artistically important cities in history. ◊

David Middleton is art director and art and culture editor of January Magazine.

Holiday Gift Guide: 100 Grey Cups: This Is Our Game by Stephen Brunt

100 Grey Cups (McClelland & Stewart) strikes me as the very portrait of a gift book. It’s good. Sure it is. But, more than that, it’s embracing. You get that even non-readers would love this book, provided they love the topic. 100 Grey Cups is gorgeous, well-designed, but also comprehensive, a balanced, interesting and maybe even a perfect look at that most esoteric of topics: the 100 times the top honor for football has been awarded in Canada.

The book begins with a bit of cheerleading from CFL commissioner, Mark Cohon. “We Canadians are proud of our heritage,” Cohon begins, “and the Grey Cup is one of our country’s most enduring icons.”

While I’m not sure I would agree with the sentiment, I will grant that whoever gets this book as a gift likely will, and maybe that’s all that counts, making the reader proud that, in Cohon’s words, the Cup is “bigger and better and stronger than ever,” a claim that the balance of the book makes you realize is something worth stating.

Author Brunt (Gretzky’s Tears, Searching for Bobby Orr) knows sports inside and out and is the perfect tour guide for this intense look at the Grey Cup’s first 100 years. We see the broad strokes of a game that has often played second fiddle to its big American cousin south of the border as well as the fine details of important players, moves and games over the years.

Make no mistake, 100 Grey Cups is the football book in Canada this year. If you’re buying a gift for someone who loves Canadian sports, you won’t go far wrong with Brunt’s latest. ◊

David Middleton is art director and art and culture editor of January Magazine.

Holiday Gift Guide: Illustration Now 4 and Illustration Now: Portraits edited by Julius Wiedermann

Illustration Now 4 and Illustration Now: Portraits, both published by Taschen and edited by Julius Wiedermann, showcase some of the best and the brightest in contemporary illustration.

Often as fascinating as the illustrations themselves is the variety of media with which they are produced. It’s interesting to note that 15 years ago -- perhaps even 10 -- it would not have been necessary to specify a piece of art as a “hand drawing.” But with so many up-and-comers out there these days there are almost as many ways to produce art as there are artists. The full range is represented here from pencil to 3-D to digital and lots of combinations of all.

It can be difficult to talk about books like this as there is almost an overload of stimulation. With page after page of different illustrations and artists it can be overwhelming. But that’s what these books do best: overwhelm. In the best way possible. Everywhere you look another brilliant visual in an unexpected medium by a talented individual. Illustration Now 4 and Illustration Now: Portraits are books you will come back to again and again as a resource or just for raw inspiration. Classic and timeless. ◊

David Middleton is art director and art & culture editor of January Magazine.

Holiday Gift Guide: Beer Quest West by Jon C. Stott

Though it covers a relatively small region, it does so with amazing depth. If you’re looking for a gift for someone from or in Western Canada who has a passion for beer, Beer Quest West (Touchwood) will answer all the questions… and then some.

According to author Jon C. Stott, Canada’s two westernmost provinces are home to more than 70 microbreweries. Compare this with the ten breweries that operated in the region in 1980. Of those ten, only four still exist: the large, faceless breweries replaced with a legion of much smaller operations mostly making handcrafted brews.

Beer Quest West is a field guide to those new breweries and brewpubs that have sprouted in the last 30 years. It discusses the many different styles of brews being made in the West and features mini-profiles of a lot of the people behind those beers and ales. Just as important, the book includes tasting notes on a lot of the beers those outfits are making.

If the person you’re buying for not only loves beer but has a thirst to know more about it, Beer Quest West will answer many questions. ◊

David Middleton is art director and art & culture editor of January Magazine.

Art & Culture: Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yarm

Twenty years after Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s debut, Ten, Blender senior editor, Mark Yarm, delivers Everybody Loves Our Town (Crown), the perfect remembrance/celebration/recollection of an era that some would say never was and others say never left us. After all, as Yarm tells us early on, even the grunge label itself is entirely subjective:

We could argue forever … about what bands are grunge, because the label is entirely subjective. Are Alice in Chains grunge or heavy metal or both? Were 7 Year Bitch punk or grunge or Riot Grrrl? How about contemporary Canadian arena rockers Nickelback: Post-grunge? Neo-grunge?

But whatever grunge is -- or isn’t -- no one has ever examined it with as much depth and affection as former Blender senior editor Yarm does in Everybody Loves Our Town.

To create the book, Yarm conducted interviews with grunge’s key players and contributors: over 250 musicians, producers, managers, journalists, and many others. Even wives and ex-lovers have not been left out and Courtney Love appears in several places with startling -- though not always credible -- revelations.

If you remember grunge or, like Chuck Palahniuk offers in a blurb for the book, your “memories of the era [are] a little hazy,” Everybody Loves Our Town brings it back, in some ways larger than life: a moment in time when Seattle erupted as the center of the universe… and the music industry was never quite the same. ◊

David Middleton is art director and art & culture editor of January Magazine.

Biography: Nica’s Dream by David Kastin

Nica’s Dream: The Life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness (Norton) is one of those books that you wouldn’t find credible if it were fiction. It has everything a good story requires. And more. A glamorous baroness from a famous family. She is a pilot, mother to five children and a former fighter in the French resistance. Then she hears jazz music and is entranced: terminally. The music -- and the people who make it -- will alter the course of he life. She styles herself as a patroness of the arts which, in the case of jazz music at the middle part of the last century also means she becomes a fighter in the rights of racial equality.

Kathleen Annie Pannonica (“Nica”) Rothschild de Koenigswarter’s life of privilege was challenged when Charlie Parker was found dead in her suite at the Stanhope Hotel. When Nica’s husband, the Baron de Koenigswarter, got wind of the scandal, he asked for a divorce and all of this seemed only to underline what popular society felt about jazz music at the time:

From the moment jazz first infiltrated mainstream popular culture, it was perceived as a serious threat not only to the prevailing social order but to the integrity of Western culture itself…. Of course, it was precisely such sentiments -- along with the music’s intoxicating rhythms -- that captivated young people on both sides of the Atlantic.

Music historian and educator David Kastin (I Hear America Singing) brings a deep knowledge of music and a storyteller’s passion for his tale to Nica’s Dream. “Whether frozen in Weegee’s tabloid flash,” Kastin begins, “or shrouded in the murky chiaroscuro of the era’s low-budget movies, New York in the 1950’s is a city in black and white.” And we’re entranced.

This is not only the biography of a deeply interesting woman but in many ways, it’s the story of the birth of bebop and the maturation of cool. A fantastic story and a great book. ◊

David Middleton is art director of January Magazine as well as editor of the art and culture section.

SF/F: The Fecund’s Melancholy Daughter by Brent Hayward

I have been consistently impressed by the books I’ve seen from upstart Toronto-based publisher CZP. Their playlist has developed into a sort of dark buffet of things you don’t imagine would get much airplay anywhere else -- at least, not in full novel form. Thoughtful, convoluted works that push at the boundaries of genre and sometimes even literature. I’ll be the first to admit that not all of what I’ve read from them has been terrific, but certainly all of it has been interesting.

You don’t need a crystal ball -- and possibly not even the ability to read -- to know that Brent Hayward’s The Fecund’s Melancholy Daughter will fall into that interesting category. The title alone sets the stage. After all, a book with that title: what could it be about? Several days after reading it, I’m still not entirely sure. And yet, here I am, trying to explain it to you. Here goes nothing.

Four apparently only mildly related threads of story eventually come together (somewhat) in the futuristic mediaeval city of Nowy Solum where some unnamable technological failure has had a profound effect on the day-to-day. “There’s more to a story than events taking place in one location, to one person.” So wisely spake the title’s Fecund, the feminine monster locked away in the bowels of the palace that overshadows Nowy Solum.

Rolling lazily, laterally, the fecund let out a sigh. She half-closed one red-tinged eye. Her cascading body, strung with the weeds of her cell, was clearly swollen. Ready, it seemed, to burst.

The Fecund’s Melancholy Daughter is not a book that will appeal to all readers. Despite the fact that I liked it very much and that so much about author Hayward’s use of language is appealing, I’m still not totally sure I understand the story and what it was meant to mean. A part of me wonders if that, too, is not the point. That you are intended to be left asking questions -- big ones -- and not given answers. Again, not all readers wants to be handled in that way. But for those who do, The Fecund’s Melancholy Daughter is a thoughtful, if not entirely satisfying, read and Hayward has written another book (after his debut: 2008’s Filaria) worthy of asking questions about. ◊

David Middleton is art director of January Magazine as well as editor of the art and culture section.

Cookbooks: Esquire: Eat Like A Man edited by Ryan D’Agostino

As anyone who has spent serious time around a large number of cookbooks can tell you, the whole home chefing thing is a pretty sexist place. Not the world of professional chefs, obviously, where a large number of the big honchos in well known kitchens are male, for whatever reason. Even so, by and large, the idea remains that home kitchens are for girls and, since boys are stupid, they’d best stay out of there anyway. I’m just sayin’.

Naturally, and of course, all of this is a lot of hooey. There is simply no reason on Earth that men can’t be competent in the kitchen. As proof, if proof were needed, I could go back to the whole professional chef example. But I won’t. I became a fair hand in the kitchen back in my single days, and I remain calm and competent to this day. At the same time, I remember workplace lunch times when I was single. The people I worked with would marvel aloud at the concoctions I’d cook up for myself, sometimes even professing that they didn’t believe I could be doing it myself. And since my job was in the art department and I got paid to make stuff, I never really understood this. How did they figure I could manage to execute a complicated design to the specifications of their clients and salespeople, yet not manage a simple -- albeit beautiful -- sandwich?

All of this came back to me when I sat down with Esquire: Eat Like A Man (Chronicle ) a book which, despite its sexist premise and blow-hard execution is filled with the kind of food most men I know would certainly eat and enjoy. Created by the Esquire editorial team, the recipes come from chefs said team respects. “And each of the recipes was also tested by Esquire’s male editors,” writes editor in chief, David Granger, “at home in their modest kitchens for their friends and families.”

And I gotta say that, of all the books skewed in this way that I’ve ever seen, this one is the most manly. This is big, robust food. And there’s lots of meat so manly vegetarians will likely want to find their own book. Each recipe includes a difficulty scale, which makes it easy to see at a glance if the recipe you’re looking at is appropriate for your skill level. The book would also seem to be geared at the guy who cooks occasionally and so is not thinking a whole lot about health or fitness while working with the book. At least that’s the idea I got from recipes like Duck-Fat Potatoes (a quarter cup of duck fat to cook a pound of potatoes), Bourbon and Brown Sugar Salmon, Coca-Cola-Brined Fried Chicken, and a whole bunch of sandwiches so decadent, it’s hard to choose just one or two but certainly the French Toast BLT with Roasted Garlic Vinaigrette is close to the top of the heap. Stuffed Meat Bread (pretty much as it sounds) comes an easy second.

As time goes by, I don’t know how much I actually use Eat Like A Man, but I’m going to keep it around. It’s actually a very good all around cookbook, with strong versions of American classics and the kind of food a lot of us wish we could eat every day… if we weren’t keen on watching our girlish figures! ◊

David Middleton is art director of January Magazine as well as editor of the art and culture section.

Non-Fiction: Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred: Seriously Geeky Stuff to Make with Your Kids by David Erik Nelson

Ever sat around and said, “Wow: I wish I could help my kids make an electro-didgeridoo.” Or, why think small? Why not a whole Electro-Skiffle Band? And, sure, not all of us are into music. So maybe you’ve always wanted to make a water rocket with your children, but you just didn’t know how.

I’m kidding, of course. Most of us would never even conceive of making any of the stuff in David Erik Nelson’s Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred (No Starch Press), let alone involve our poor, unsuspecting kids. Yet Nelson makes it all seem not only accessible, in many cases, he makes it look easy.

In truth, some of the projects author and former high school teacher Nelson outlines are more complicated than others. The cross-stick boomerang is simple. The Putt-Putt Boat that explores elementary locomotion is somewhat more difficult, yet Nelson puts even that within reach:

… the Putt-Putt Boat maneuvers around a bathtub or swimming pool under its own power with no moving parts, driven by a simple, valveless flash boiler made from a coil of copper tubing and a rudimentary alcohol burner.

Never mind the kids at this point, right? A flash boiler? I wanted to make this one myself!

Robots, marshmallow muzzleloaders, screen printing, an electric guitar. This is seriously not your average do-it-yourself-with-kids book. This is the stuff that magic and dreams are made of in childhood, at least for those kids who have the idea that magic can be handmade. Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred is a seriously cool book. ◊


David Middleton is art director and art & culture editor of January Magazine.

Art & Culture: The Tribes of Burning Man by Steven T. Jones

When the counter-culture was but a gleam in a few proto-stoner’s eyes, this is what they dreamed of. A glimmering city of art and ideas in the desert. Not Las Vegas, but something near it, yet utterly different. This is only right, Steven T. Jones tells us in The Tribes of Burning Man (CCC Publishing), because Burning Man and contemporary American counterculture share common roots.

He explains the genesis of Burning Man in his introduction:

The essential history goes like this: After a few years of this weird little summer solstice beach party called Burning Man, the San Francisco police cracked down, so its staggers and supporters moved the event out to the Black Rock Desert in rural Nevada …. And there, it grew and grew and grew, every year, eventually morphing from scattershot frontier filled with freedom-loving freaks into a dynamic city of about 50,000 colorful souls -- Black Rock City -- that burns brightly for a week in late August and then disappears into dust after Labour Day.

That is, of course, the bare bones of the thing: the sketch of Burning Man’s history. Award-winning San Francisco journalist Stephen T. Jones delivers an insider’s vision of what has grown to be an important cultural and counter-cultural annual event.

Burning Man, Jones contends, is important and has grown beyond Nevada, reaching out into its community in myriad and surprising ways, including Burners Without Borders, the Burning Man alumni who offered their hands and experience in building cities out of nothing after the Katrina catastrophe of 2005. Though the organization gelled for Katrina, it has offered willing hands in international catastrophes since: the massive earthquakes in Peru in 2008 and Haiti in 2010.

The Tribes of Burning Man offers a very trenchant look, not just at Burning Man, but at all the event has come to mean and the reverberations it still may have. “Because,” Jones offers, Burning Man “isn’t a counterculture as much as a space that reflects and helps shape a wide variety of distinct subcultures, ultimately giving these disparate groups a bit of shared culture, uniting them into a new American counterculture.” ◊

David Middleton is art director and art & culture editor of January Magazine.

Art & Culture: Zombies!: An Illustrated History of the Undead by Jovanka Vuckovic

Say what you like about zombies, the undead have never been quite as popular as they are right now. Between books -- mash ups and other kinds -- television shows, movies and more, just about everywhere you look in entertainment and the arts, a zombie can be found.

So what could the enduring charm of the undead be, to warrant such faithful followings? In her new book, Zombies!: An Illustrated History of the Undead (St. Martin’s Press) this is the question that writer and documentary filmmaker Jovanka Vuckovic strives to explore:

They are lifeless, gloomy, and sometimes smell worse than a meat-rendering plant after a month-long power outage. Some lumber about aimlessly with vacant stares while others sprint -- blackened teeth gnashing -- in hot pursuit of our brains. They are zombies. And despite their offensive odor and relentlessly poor fashion sense, they’ve managed to worm their way into the hearts of the living all over the world.

Vuckovic, who has appeared in zombie movies by Zack Snyder and George Romero, not only explores the cultural phenomena that is the zombie, arguably “the most beloved mythical monster in mainstream popular culture,” she also looks closely at the films, books, television shows and other popular media that have brought us zombies over the last several decades. And George Romero, who also writes the foreword, gets a whole chapter: “Romero’s Flesh-Eater Renaissance and Spanish Zombies of the 1970s.”

Zombies! works on every level. Beautifully illustrated and carefully rendered, you won’t realize until read it how much zombies have infected our lives. ◊

David Middleton is art director and art & culture editor of January Magazine.

Biography: Endgame: Bobby Fischer’s Remarkable Rise and Fall by Frank Brady

Though he was once considered to be the Mozart of the chess board, by the time he died at the age of 64 in 2008, chess champion Bobby Fischer was widely considered to be a kook who died notorious and maybe crazy in Iceland.

No one is better equipped to tell this story than Frank Brady. The founding editor of Chess Life, Brady has written biographies of two other large and eccentric personalities: Orson Welles and Aristotle Onassis. At least as important, Brady and Fischer knew each other well. They met when they were children and, as adults, their lives and professions often intersected. This actual familiarity with Fischer results in a book that often has a fictional tone, though in fairness, that’s part of Brady’s style: using source material to recreate scenes that the author could not possibly have seen. “At his seat,” Brady writes at one point, “Bobby studied the stage from the audience’s perspective, seeing it as they must have seen it for two months, when they’d watched the combatants in profile.” It mostly isn’t irritating, except for when it is. I know these little visions are meant to be artful, but quite often I find them jolting: an unwelcome reminder that the author couldn’t possibly have seen or felt quite what is being claimed.

Despite the occasional roughness in tone, Endgame (Crown) is compellingly good. Brady, who is an experienced biographer, is working with some fabulous material here. Most of it quite close to his heart. One can’t imagine a better biographer of the eccentric chessmaster than Endgame. ◊

David Middleton is art director and art & culture editor of January Magazine.

Holiday Gift Guide: Tapping the Source by William Gladstone, Richard Greninger and John Selby

There are certain people for whom seeking the answers to all the questions is more or less a hobby. They watch television programs about it. Subscribe to magazines. Buy books on the topic. They’re looking for a path and, at the same time, they’re looking for the next big thing. For those people, Tapping the Source (Sterling Ethos) might well be the perfect gift. While it is not, yet, the next big thing, it has the potential to be. And if it does move into that spot, you will be in the position of having found and shared the secret. You’ll be a hero forever, at least in your own mind. Because if I’m any judge at all of this sort of thing (and, obviously, I fancy that I am) then Tapping the Source has All the Right Stuff. From the introduction:

Everything you ever wanted can be yours. Everything. Not just wealth, health, and material abundance but also true eternal happiness.

And what’s not to like in all of that? But don’t think it’s going to be a walk in the park. First, you have to read the book. Second, you have to do the exercises mentioned. And you have to do them with your whole heart, which I obviously did not do because otherwise I’d be so busy cashing huge cheques and sitting around feeling smug and happy that I wouldn’t even have time to write this review.

Tapping the Source is based on the principles laid down by the Master Key System for Abundance and Happiness. Mean anything to you? It didn’t to me, either but, apparently, it’s a big, hairy deal to people who follow such things, making it the perfect gift for person on your list looking to do some self-renovations. ◊


David Middleton is art director and art & culture editor of January Magazine.

Holiday Gift Guide: Make Art Mistakes: A Creativity Sketchbook

Though Make Art Mistakes (MOMA Modern Kids) is definitely aimed at children, I know a lot of grown-ups who would either enjoy this book or benefit from it very much. Perhaps both. In many cases, more than some kids. This is because, as pop artist Peter Max said (and it’s in the book, so I don’t even have to go look for the quote): “Don’t worry about mistakes. Making things out of mistakes, that’s creativity.” And though most kids would not put it quite that way, it’s something they are born understanding. Something many of us lose along the way.

There are other quotes in Make Art Mistakes. Great ones, too: from Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Andrew Wyeth and other household names. And those quotes add to the book, but they’re not the main point here. That main point involves getting the book into a less than pristine state. “What would a lazy line look like?” asks a nearly blank page. “How about an angry line?” the page says lower down. “An excited line?” and so on. Later in the book, in a section dealing with color, “What would three colors at play look like?”

All through the book are nearly blank pages printed with textures and colors and some instructions. The idea is to get the creative juices flowing. Last time I checked, there was no age limit on that. ◊


David Middleton is art director and art & culture editor of January Magazine.

Holiday Gift Guide: 50 Years of the Playboy Bunny

It’s no secret that the Empire that Hugh built has been struggling of late. And it’s not just the recession. After all, porn has gotten to be somewhat mainstream. In a world where the harsh stuff is as close as your computer screen and the type of titillation that arrives with readable articles comes in the form of a magazine you can take to the office or read on the subway without embarrassment (think Maxim), the idealized and bared titties of Playboy seem a little camp and out of place.

50 Years of the Playboy Bunny (Chronicle Books) seems almost to celebrate these ideas. Even the cover is a terrific example of classic 1970s design. What the book is really about, in a way, is the world of Playboy beyond the magazine. In a foreword, Hugh Hefner writes, “This book is a celebration of half a century of Playboy Club and Bunny culture. A celebration of a certain mystique.”

Bunny culture. Words that would invite controversy in some quarters but which, here in context, make a certain, nostalgic sense. You see inside “Disneyland for Adults,” the start and rise of the famous Playboy Clubs. You see, also, the “Making of a Bunny” including reference to the famous Bunny Manual which helped fledgling bunnies become part of the bunny army. Interesting, also, to see some famous alumna in full bunny regalia, including Debbie Harry and Lauren Hutton as well as Gloria Steinem, undercover for the magazine article that would make her career, but looking every inch the part.

50 Years of the Playboy Bunny is like an especially good issue of the magazine during its heyday: fantastic, well reproduced photos and some really great written material. This would be a terrific gift for the person on your list who enjoys the campier part of mid-century nostalgia. And boobs. ◊

David Middleton is a graphic artist and the art & culture editor of January Magazine.

Holiday Gift Guide: The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm by James Napoli

The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm (Sterling Innovation) is perfectly described on its own first page. “You have been waiting patiently for a dictionary like this to come along. And now it is here. Not that you give a crap.”

The book pokes sarcastic fun at just about everything and everybody in a field guide format in textbook style. Here’s the entry for “Canada”:

Free health care. Low crime. Birthplace of William Shatner. Two out of three ain’t bad.

And here’s “inbox”:

A place to store things you have no intention of ever dealing with.

And I love the entry for “photograph”:

An irrefutable visual record of the fact that between the ages of eleven and fifteen you looked like a total dork.

You get the idea. No one needs The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm, but it’s certainly a book you can have some fun with and a good thing to carry around if you’re trying to look intelligent, until someone gets close enough to read the title. ◊


David Middleton is a graphic artist and like any real and true fan of Star Trek doesn’t endlessly bore his friends or colleagues with his love or knowledge of the show. Unless they ask. You’ve been warned.

Holiday Gift Guide: Star Trek: The Original Series 365 by Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann

I am a Star Trek fan (I’ll wait while you finish mocking me). I have always been a fan of the original series, mostly because it wEas the one I grew up with. Captain Kirk, Mister Spock, Doctor McCoy, Mister Scott and the rest of the crew were the paragons on which I based a lot of who little me wanted to become. And while bombing around in a space ship and shooting ray guns at multicolored aliens was cool and everything, it was really the message that Star Trek imparted as much as the setting that influenced me.

Now, I need not go into how Star Trek was a ground breaking series and how it influenced a generation of, well, of everything. If you don’t know about Star Trek or its various offshoots, explaining it here will do little to help.

Star Trek: The Original Series 365 (Abrams) by Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann touts itself as a definitive guide to the original program. But, really: how can anything about a show that has survived in one incarnation or another over 44 years be that definitive? There is bound to be more Star Trek stuff to come which could be just as definitive. No matter. This book on the original Trek is quite fascinating. It is also what a fan of the original series will love. It not only contains a synopsis of each ot the 79 episodes but also includes behind-the-scenes histories combined with what any true Trekker (or have we gone back to being called Trekkies; I can’t keep up) loves to hear: never-before-seen images -- as well as really cool before-seen ones.

As a side note: I’m Scottish, my father was an engineer and the guys at work called him “Scotty.” Now as foolish as it seems, I only got the joke about a year ago. The main difference between Trek’s Scotty and my dad, other than he didn’t fix things in interstellar space: my dad had a real Scottish accent.

Neither sappy nor overly romantic, Star Trek: The Original Series 365 is really just a wonderful little book about an iconic television series. True fans will love it. ‘Nuff said. ◊


David Middleton is a graphic artist and like any real and true fan of Star Trek doesn’t endlessly bore his friends or colleagues with his love or knowledge of the show. Unless they ask. You’ve been warned.