Thursday 11 March 2010

Split Faces

An unnerving effect can be achieved simply by combining two disparate faces, split neatly down the middle. Here are two alarming examples, the first from a book by excellent Canadian writer and blogger Brian Busby...



..and the second from a huge and entertaining Taschen book on films (though it weirdly includes Face/Off as one of the 100 greatest movies).



Speaking of Taschen, here's a weird recent release of theirs: Norman Mailer's MoonFire, in the hideously expensive "lunar rock" edition. You get a sort of box/table thing with legs like a Lunar lander and a lid like a topographic Moon map, plus a bit of the Moon. Yours for only 60,000+ euros. I sort of admire the massive scale of the thing, while also shuddering at its general vibe of vulgar hideousness.



This folly reminds me inevitably of one of the other daftest manufactured book 'collectibles': The Stephen King short story My Pretty Pony, printed as a book with metal covers and a cheaparse digital clock glued to the front. Yours for $5000.


And getting back to Taschen madness, how about their £9000 edition of GOAT (Greatest Of All Time), a big book about Muhammed Ali that comes, naturally enough, with a box, a stool with a tire rammed over it, and an inflatable dolphin.

10 comments:

Craig D. said...

includes Face/Off as one of the 100 greatest movies.

Ha.

Yours for only 60,000+ euros.

Ha.

Yours for $5000.

Ha.

their £9000 edition of GOAT (Greatest Of All Time)

Ha.

Wait, all of this bullshit is real?

JRSM said...

It's a strange and frightening world in which we dwell, Craig.

Anonymous said...

Fly like a dolphin, sting like a tyre?

Deb said...

There's just too much disposable income in the world...

...and I ain't got any of it.

But if I did have some money burning a hole in my pocket, I'd rather spend it on a Damien Hirst frozen animal in formaldehyde than one of these books--and I LOATHE Damien Hirst.

Anonymous said...

The steel cover with the digital clock is the worst. Uh, let's glue this cheas-ass clock I got in the gumball machine to these oven liners and slap a book in-between!

Emma said...

I work for a bookstore in London that got saddled with one of these, and managed to flog it a few months ago. There are a lot of things I'd spend £9k on. Inflatable dolphin ain't one of them.

JRSM said...

I'm guessing it wasn't returnable to the publisher, either--I suspect whoever ordered it in was sweating for a while.

Matthew Adams said...

These books might just be crazy like a fox type investments if you know you are going to get divorced in a few years.

"Here you go honey, you can have this book with the inflatable dolphin, it's worth more then the rest of the library. I will have the rest of the library."

And tying this in with your previous post, hows about a fantasy book with an inflatable, chainmale clad, double d endowed, sword swinging example of female empowerment as part of the package.

Hell, I would be satisfied with just inflatable breasts as part of the cover.

And in case you are wondering, yes, I am misogynistic breast fixated pervert.

JRSM said...

Mathew, you've reminded me horribly of some action figures I saw in a comic shop once--they were of the scantily-clad female characters from some Japanese cartoon or comic, and they boasted on the packaging that they had 'soft, real-feel breasts'. Which is more than the Star Wars figures I played with when I was 7 had.

Bob Fingerman said...

Taschen does some great stuff, but methinks these are a tad overdone. Just a tad. A smidgen.