Author Elizabeth Farrelly kicks off Blubberland with something of an extended mea culpa:

I, like you, drive too much. I buy too much—of which I keep too much and also throw too much away. I overindulge my children, and myself. Directly as well as indirectly I use too much water, energy, air, and space. My existence, in short, costs the planet more than it can afford.

Farrelly’s concerns here are spatial, aesthetic, social, political, and environmental, and the questions she delicately poses and answers at considerable length are poignant ones: Why do we First-World denizens insist on owning ugly houses and cars that we don’t really need? Similarly, why do believe that buying useless stuff will make us happy? Why won’t world leaders legislate in favor of sensible ecological co-existence with nature? Why are we so pathetically out of shape? Why are we so desperate to isolate ourselves from others, and how can we break the vicious cycle of narcissism?

Here, Farrelly, a University of Sydney adjunct architecture professor and Sydney Morning Herald columnist, supposes that , ‘Blubberland’ isn’t so much a place as it is a state of mind that champions an out-of control sense of self-entitlement. When it comes to suburban sprawl and energy conservation, she explains, governments are like overly permissive parents who allow their children (constituencies) to have whatever they want. Furthermore, she argues, this more-and-now mindset has us in a double-bind because parenting trends have followed a similar course in the last several decades:

This compulsion to desire-fulfillment has democracy in a trap. If we want to eat meat, with its huge eco-footprint, we do it. If we want to sprawl our cities across the landscape, live in a McMansion, drive an SUV, leave the lights or the hose or the TV on all night, we do exactly that. Even governments are intimidated to the point of being frightened to regulate. If it can’t be achieved by the market, they weakly presume, it can’t be achieved.

This culture of permission has spawned the notion that what’s unpleasant or painful about life can—and should be—surgically removed or made plain. Even places of worship aren’t immune, according to Farrelly: “Everywhere, under every log and rock, nice old churches are being melted down into imitation dry-cleaning shops, nightclubs, and ad agencies while the new, bursting-at-the-seams versions have the common-or-corporate look so down pat it’s hard to pick them from the general hight-street lineup.”

Farrelly envisions monotonous suburban sprawl as both key villain and deadening aftereffect here, a geographic phenomenon that encourages social disconnects by allowing us to be separate from one another and necessitating long, isolation-chamber drives to work: “Forget yoga. Forget acupuncture, hypnosis, and mindfulness therapy. Bested only by television and alcohol, the car is one of the most effective anaesthetics ever discovered.”

Drastic urban renewal, she believes, is the key to our selfish malaise, noting that life expectancy is higher in cities than suburbs and that city living encourages people to “share energy, share transport and share space to a degree that is inconceivable in any other situation”.

Blubberland‘s final chapter, however, imagines a Utopian future in which famines, oil shortages, and droughts confine masses to walled cities: everyone walks to work, on-break employees exercise on machines that help power their office buildings, everyone’s healthier because nobody can afford to drive. Farrelly may just be onto something there; whether or not world leaders will arrive at similar conclusions and act courageously before our selfishness hits a crisis point is an open question that’s almost too depressing to contemplate.

—Raymond Cummings

Robb Kendrick has a great passion for the tintype photographic process. In Still, he uses this process to document the lifestyle of authentic, modern American cowboys—those people who actually ride horses as part of their job, working the big cattle ranches. He has spent decades driving across the United States with his darkroom in tow and the result of his travels is a gorgeous, rich feast of portraiture. These are real working persons who span a wider range of nationalities, ethnicities, genders, languages, and ages than we were ever taught by Hollywood’s depiction of the Wild West. One of the cowboys even serves the photographer a meal of lamb, an unthinkable deviation in beef country! The subtle variation in costume is also well-recorded.

My beef, though, involves Kendrick’s careful posing of his subjects so as to never reveal any trace of the modern era. There is a conspicuous lack of cell phones, pick up trucks, bulldozers, Ipods and other ubiquitous tools of 21st century life. We see the occasional pair of glasses, a bottle, rifle, or contacts. The feeling is hard to shake that much like a stage set, a measure of reality and authenticity were sacrificed for aesthetic reasons. A typical city-dwelling observer glancing through Still may be hard pressed to differentiate between Kendrick’s reverential documentation of reality and a bunch of modern guys trying out for a themed Ralph Lauren commercial. Sometimes, Still‘s photographs appear more sophisticated versions of those souvenir, sepia-toned novelty photos people bring back from vacations at the dude ranch.

The number of working cowboys is unknown, but one of the subjects in the book notes they are “kind of a dying breed”. Thus, there is a tragic feel to some of the shots, that this part of history may soon be lost entirely. Despite Kendrick’s stated efforts to capture unadorned ordinariness, the pictures do have an undeniably romantic and individualistic aura. The subjects are also almost exotic in their descriptions of the joy of being outside, being cold and hungry, or perhaps smelling something nice, as opposed to being on a couch, near a television or computer, or in an air-conditioned shopping mall.

Some of the pictures appear worn and damaged. The artist obviously knows his stuff and this begs the question of whether or not deliberate scratches and scrapes were applied to artificially distress the photographs. Perhaps the marks and imperfections occurred naturally, though, because there is no reason for Kendrick to make them look older than they really are, or to suggest to the viewer that he is a less competent technician than he is. Not to be churlish, but Kendrick’s skill in presenting the subjects in an intriguing light makes me wish that the tintype camera process were able to allow him to use his considerable technical and artistic skills to document these characters doing what they really do, in an even more realistic environment: working, not standing still.

The cowboys themselves, as revealed in their clothing, the looks in their eyes, and the descriptive essays scattered throughout the book, seem genuinely interesting people. Still makes me wonder what their modern lives are really like. 

—D.M. Edwards

I love books about books. You know the ones I mean—The Western Canon, Books of the Century—those indispensable tools for bluffing my way through dinner conversations with other English majors who paid more attention and probably more money during their education than I did.

These metabooks are so authoritative, so full of imperatives: Here are the greatest novels ever written! The poems you must read before you die! The short stories that changed life for every person on the planet! If these PhD holding gentlemen—they are almost always gentlemen—are to be believed, it’s unlikely that any of the world’s civilizations would have endured without Hamlet.

1001 Books for Every Mood blows a big raspberry in the face of every other book-on-books I’ve encountered. Author Hallie Ephron has taken the unusual approach of assuming that rather than being told what to read her audience might appreciate a bit of choice in the matter. And, furthermore, sometimes her audience likes reading crap.

Ephron’s is a goofy guide to one woman’s egalitarian library, where The Da Vinci Code is just as valid a selection as Lolita. The pages are smattered, too, with occasional “quizzes” to match fictional lovers or literary siblings. From its cerise color scheme to its convoluted symbol system, the whole endeavor is a bit of a mess, albeit a well-meaning one.

Still, some of Ephron’s choices and selections leave more than a bit to be desired. One thousand and one titles was not enough space to acknowledge works by Dostoyevsky, Edith Wharton or—ouch—Shakespeare. I don’t know quite what to make of Oscar Wilde’s exclusion, especially in light of a “Revel in Wit” section. (Mark Twain isn’t in that one, either.)

For those who want to rub salt in these wounds, know that Paul Coelho gets three out of four stars for literary merit, the same as Kafka and Orwell. Poor Henry James, who only gets two, could apparently could learn a few things from Dave Eggers’ “virtuoso performance” in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

With that kind of table talk, no English major will have the appetite for a meal. 

—Monica Shores

From the well-traversed urban centers of Venice and Rome to out of the way and rarely visited vineyards producing incredibly robust wines in the northwest Le Langhe region, every reader will come away with a new destination atop their travel list.

As with Unexpected France, the reader is quickly drawn into this fascinating collection of articles from Travel + Leisure magazine. Useful maps, suggestions for lodging, dining, and occasionally, reading material (such as poetry from a famous writer native to the Le Marche region on the northeast coast, or world-class literature inspired by visits to Naples) accompany each section. The focus of each traveling journalist is different, from experiences centering around a single city to the wearying journey around an entire region in search of the boldest Borolo.

Michael Gross describes his quest to find an island getaway more satisfying than touristy Capri, and encounters the Madonna sott’acqua off Lampedusa, an island so far south as to be nearly in Africa. He writers, “We dive down to the ghostly yet benevolent Virgin, who is gazing up from her silent blue sanctuary.” The statue is set in a stone arch nearly fifty feet below the surface of the water.

A journey through “hidden Rome” reveals more than any vegetarian (and possibly most carnivores) would ever want to know about the old slaughterhouse district of the city. True epicureans will revel in the descriptions of various traditional and modern recipes for the “fifth quarter” of certain farm animals.

I noted with curiosity that the entire “Places to Stay” section was contributed by the same Christopher Petkanas, but quickly became enamored of his quick-witted observations and inclusion of unusual elements, not to mention his willingness to be rather critical of service if warranted. Observing historical villas with an artist’s eye, both flaws and impeccable details are pointed out.

And for those wishing to truly commune with great art, a section on Florence details how it is possible not just to observe, but to sign up for amateur figure sketching classes and draw (so to speak) on the inspiration of centuries of painters. The hands on style of this entire book helps it stand out from the normal rank and file of travel guides. Turning a mundane trip into the experience of a lifetime just got a bit easier for those not totally comfortable with venturing into totally undocumented territory, yet wanting to avoid the well-worn pathways of major cultural centers.

With such a promising start to this series of books in Unexpected France and Italy, the first ever compiled and released by the magazine, I definitely hope to see more of these country-specific collections of inspirational articles and stunning photographs. 

—Lara Killian

Maybe it’s true that Canadians are just simply nicer. While American graphic novels of late have been concerning themselves with abject self hatred (Adrian Tomine), vampire slackers (Jessica Abel), and the like, Michel Rabagliati just goes on creating work that’s just as inherently decent as ever. In Paul Goes Fishing, his third graphic novel—Paul Moves Out and Paul Gets a Summer Job being the previous installments—Rabagliati continues his penchant for crafting delicately hued graphic autobiographies that are just as winning as any of the grimmer and self-lacerating work being produced in the lower 48 states, but often just as psychologically astute. Nice doesn’t have to mean clueless.

A Montreal-based illustrator and family man with practically no experience in the outdoors, Rabagliati spends the first part of his newest volume learning how to go fishing, of course. Using the structure of a summer vacation at a lakeside cabin with some friends, Rabagliati spins off from that basic conceit to explore his relationship with his father, his childhood (sparked by his re-reading in the cabin of Catcher in the Rye, a favorite from his moody youth), and the painful process he and his wife endure in a series of difficult pregnancies. He also finds the time to provide a short history of the graphic arts industry’s transition from hand-work to personal computers that beautifully skewers the designers’ cult of the Macintosh (“between 1987 and 1995, I handed over more than $40,000 to Apple & Co. for equipment that was practically obsolete before I’d even unpacked it.”)

Through all this, Rabagliati keeps a basically upbeat mood, with his freshly energetic black-and-white illustrations and cast of characters who are pretty much always (with a few obvious exceptions) smiling. Rabagliati’s approach verges on Archie comics simplicity at times (when characters cry, it’s actually rendered as “boo hoo”), but it somehow never seems fake, and that’s the beauty of this book. For all their troubles and occasional emotional outbursts, Rabagliati’s cast seems a supremely decent and nice group who anybody would consider themselves lucky to know. To create that kind of world, and to do it in a way that is far from insulting to one’s intelligence, takes a rare kind of talent, something that Rabagliati has in spades. Must be the Canadian in him.

You can view a preview (in .pdf form) of Paul Goes Fishing over at Drawn & Quarterly’s website here.

—Chris Barsanti

Let’s get the obligatory mention of the duct tape corset out of the way straight off.

With the small sacrifice of an old tee and possibly the help of a close friend you can craft your own perfectly fitted and ‘slightly sinister’ corset. Besides this project, there are several other excellent features in Anticraft: Knitting, Beading and Stitching for the Slightly Sinister. The photography is sensational, even when the showcased project isn’t overly exciting. Black and white backgrounds provide a fabulous contrast to colorful (think ebony, blood red, and “ichor green") projects frequently adorned with skull motifs. The settings are invariably dungeon-inspired hangouts with antiqued decorations. Just flipping through and looking at the great pictures might keep you from noticing that a simple skull-accented hat is edged with faux FunFur. Which I didn’t realize came in black. I can’t actually picture this one on any self-respecting goth-chick, but the appeal of The Anticraft is not limited to those with yarn stashes exclusively containing various shades of black and red. All the better for the book sales, really.

A couple of favorite patterns of mine include ‘The Whilameenas,’ a crocheted two-headed rat, and ‘Three Owls,’ a mini-parliament of felted and embroidered feathered friends. There are many goth-leaning crafters out there (witness the success of The Anticraft website, now on issue number nine), and each of them can find something fascinating among the collection’s 25 projects.

The extra material in the book is a big plus. One feature is the ‘mood enhancer’ paragraph the accompanies each project, in the usual manner of listing materials and tools needed to complete it. Here the authors recommend music, movies, or books to match the mood of the project. Themed recipes and comic strips featuring the authors are also great touches. And the whole book is illustrated like an art project, with vine-like doodles, Victorian-style wood-block prints, and explanations of pagan symbols. At the back there is the customary crafting techniques section, although this one contains illustrated instructions on creating your own chain mail. On the whole, the book is a pleasure to flip through, but most of the projects are either too intricate or too impractical to really bother making.

The point is more about the inspiration and finding a place in the community of Anticrafters.

—Lara Killian