The Woman is Orange (and Lenticular)

When Julian Schnabel's movie biopic of Jean-Michel Basquiat was released, art critic Robert Hughes memorably described it as “a film about our worst dead artist, made by our worst living one.”

When I see this new production from Taschen, a collection of photos by Mario Testino with a lenticular picture of Lady Gaga on the front, it is the collision of the most overrated living photographer with the most overrated living pop singer that is striking.

I can't imagine who would want such a horrible object in their house. The book looks pretty vile, too. (Boom-tish!)

(By the way, anyone who has recently suffered massive head trauma can buy a special edition of this book, in a plastic injection-moulded box, for the princely sum of £450.)

Grimm

I got the latest Taschen catalogue last night, full of their usual mix of high art and ridiculously exensive porn. I assume there's someone out there who thinks $69.95 is a reasonable sum to spend on a book of photos of Kate Moss, but I hope my life never intersects with theirs. However, one book in there that I do need to own is Noel Daniel's upcoming fancy-pants edition of The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm.

What Daniel has done is comb through 150 years of different Grimm editions and translations from all over the wrld, and chosen the best illustrations for the best stories, presenting them all together in one big book. It's a great idea which, like many ideas, I'm amazed nobody had before*.

Some innards:

This is also as good a time as any to post one of my other favourite covers, a sexy and ornate interpretation by Vania (or Ivan) Zouravliov for Vintage Classics.

* My own great ideas are never so great. The other night, waking up at 2am, I had what seemed at the time a bolt of inspiration: start a Tumblr called 'Books' Ends: The Last Word in Great Books', and each day I would post the last word from a great book, somehow revealing the natures of said books and their authors through their well-chosen final words. I have not yet done this, because the world doesn't really need another pointless Tumblr blog, but I'm still tempted.

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.