Book picks similar to
The Logic of the Lure by John Paul Ricco


queer-theory
queer
art-and-art-history-‎
art

Red Book


David Shrigley - 2009
    This all-new collection of his addictively entertaining work welcomes the uninitiated and rewards the faithful with a fresh dive into Shrigley's dark, strange world.

Bad Kitty Makes Comics . . . and You Can Too!


Nick Bruel - 2015
    She is so bored, in fact, that she even considers playing with that slobbering mutt Puppy, who lives in her house. Nah. Instead, she thinks she'll take a nap. That is, until there is a knock on the door . . .Strange Kitty is here to guide both Kitty and Kitty's fans through the world of making comics. Like to draw? Great! Here's your chance to show off your skills! Don't know how to draw? That's okay! Through guided exercises you will learn all about how comics work, including sections on panelling, sound and visual effects, word balloons and so much more!With such fun activities and a hilarious story to boot, this is bound to be a Bad Kitty favorite!

Sanpaku


Kate Gavino - 2018
    It says that seeing the white around the iris of your eyes is a bad omen. But it’s everywhere Marcine looks—her grandmother has it, some classmates at Catholic school have it, JFK had it . . . even Marcine might suffer from this odd condition. Eating a strict macrobiotic diet and meditating is supposed to help, but no matter how much Marcine wants it to, it can’t save her grandmother, or bring back pop star Selena, or make her life at school any easier.  From cartoonist Kate Gavino (Last Night’s Reading), Sanpaku gives voice to the insecurities that abound in teens of all cultures, while exploring this Japanese theory through her own Catholic, Filipino background.

I'm Very into You: Correspondence 1995-1996


Kathy Acker - 2015
    

Keith Haring Journals


Keith Haring - 1996
    Kept from his teens until his death from AIDS in 1990, these illuminating journals reveal Haring's conscious, committed drive to extend the boundaries of art. Photos & drawings throughout. Radio news feature.

Stokes Beginner's Guide to Birds: Eastern Region


Donald Stokes - 1996
    Is that butterfly outside your window a Monarch or a Giant Swallowtail? What's the best kind of feeder for attracting birds to your backyard? This pocket-size, brilliantly colorful, simple-to-use guide is an ideal introduction to the birds of the Eastern United States. It contains dozens of full-color photographs that enable readers of all ages to identify the most common species; range maps; tips on attracting and observing birds; information on habitat needs, life cycle, food preferences; and much more. Special features include:Coverage of 100 speicesUnique organization by birds' plumage colorsUser-friendly color tab index for quick referenceBrilliant full-color photographs of each species, plus separate images of male and female when plumage differsUseful tips for attracting birdsInformation on voice, habitat, nest, eggs, incubation time, population trends, behavior, birdhouse and feeder preferences, and much more

Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage, a Chicana Punk Story


Alice Bag - 2011
    barrio to Hollywood is as close as a short drive on the 101 freeway, but the cultural divide is enormous. Born to Mexican-born and American-naturalized parents, Alicia Armendariz migrated a few miles west to participate in the free-range birth of the 1970s punk movement. Alicia adopted the punk name Alice Bag, and became lead singer for The Bags, early punk visionaries who starred in Penelope Spheeris' documentary The Decline of Western Civilization.Here is a life of many crossed boundaries, from East L.A.'s musica ranchera to Hollywood's punk rock; from a violent male-dominated family to female-dominated transgressive rock bands. Alice's feminist sympathies can be understood by the name of her satiric all-girl early Goth band Castration Squad.Violence Girl takes us from a violent upbringing to an aggressive punk sensibility; this time a difficult coming-of-age memoir culminates with a satisfying conclusion, complete with a happy marriage and children. Nearly a hundred excellent photographs energize the text in remarkable ways.Alice Bag's work and influence can be seen this year in the traveling Smithsonian exhibition "American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music."

Púrpura profundo


Mayra Montero - 2000
    Sebastian, a close friend and head of the entertainment section, encourages him to write his memoirs. As Sebastian enthusiastically devours the pages written by the music critic, the reader is dragged into Agustin's amorous world, his multiple affairs with Virginia Tuten, the violinist whose exotic Caribbean fire almost burned his marriage to the ground, with the pianist Clint Verret, who was not the only man in his life, with Clarissa Berdsley, a diaphanous horn player... Every musician with whom he became involved touched a new chord in him. And when he conquered a new musician, he got more than their bodies--he believed he had their deep purple, that inner melody that all of us strive to achieve.

Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime


Alex Espinoza - 2019
    Combining historical research and oral history with his own personal experience, Espinoza examines the political and cultural forces behind this radical pastime. From Greek antiquity to the notorious Molly houses of 18th century England, the raucous 1970s to the algorithms of Grindr, Oscar Wilde to George Michael, cruising remains at once a reclamation of public space and the creation of its own unique locale—one in which men of all races and classes interact, even in the shadow of repressive governments. In Uganda and Russia, we meet activists for whom cruising can be a matter of life and death; while in the West he shows how cruising circumvents the inequalities and abuses of power that plague heterosexual encounters. Ultimately, Espinoza illustrates how cruising functions as a powerful rebuke to patriarchy and capitalism—unless you are cruising the department store restroom, of course.

Lot Six


David Adjmi - 2020
    Born into the ruins of a Syrian Jewish family that once had it all, David is painfully displaced. Trapped in an insular religious community that excludes him and a family coming apart at the seams, he is plunged into suicidal depression. Through adolescence, David tries to suppress his homosexual feelings and fit in, but when pushed to the breaking point, he makes the bold decision to cut off his family, erase his past, and leave everything he knows behind. There's only one problem: who should he be? Bouncing between identities he steals from the pages of fashion magazines, tomes of philosophy, sitcoms and foreign films, and practically everyone he meets—from Rastafarians to French preppies—David begins to piece together an entirely new adult self. But is this the foundation for a life, or just a kind of quicksand?Moving from the glamour and dysfunction of 1970s Brooklyn, to the sybaritic materialism of Reagan’s 1980s to post-9/11 New York, Lot Six offers a quintessentially American tale of an outsider striving to reshape himself in the funhouse mirror of American culture. Adjmi’s memoir is a genre bending Künstlerroman in the spirit of Charles Dickens and Alison Bechdel, a portrait of the artist in the throes of a life and death crisis of identity. Raw and lyrical, and written in gleaming prose that veers effortlessly between hilarity and heartbreak, Lot Six charts Adjmi’s search for belonging, identity, and what it takes to be an artist in America.

St. Vincent: Words + Music


NOT A BOOK - 2020
    But it is even more rare that the artist actually possesses the range of gifts to pull it off. St. Vincent is such an artist. And St. Vincent: Words + Music is such an experience. Armed to the teeth with words, wisdom, grit, and wit to spare, St. Vincent’s new addition to Audible’s Words + Music is a deeply personal meditation on an artist’s discovery of their authentic self-tracked through the lyrics and influences of her Grammy-winning catalog of music....

Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal


J. Jack Halberstam - 2012
    Jack Halberstam answers these questions while attempting to make sense of the tectonic cultural shifts that have transformed gender and sexual politics in the last few decades. This colorful landscape is populated by symbols and phenomena as varied as pregnant men, late-life lesbians, SpongeBob SquarePants, and queer families. So how do we understand the dissonance between these real lived experiences and the heteronormative narratives that dominate popular media? We can embrace the chaos! With equal parts edge and wit, Halberstam reveals how these symbolic ruptures open a critical space to embrace new ways of conceptualizing sex, love, and marriage. Using Lady Gaga as a symbol for a new era, Halberstam deftly unpacks what the pop superstar symbolizes, to whom and why. The result is a provocative manifesto of creative mayhem, a roadmap to sex and gender for the twenty-first century, that holds Lady Gaga as an exemplar of a new kind of feminism that privileges gender and sexual fluidity. Part handbook, part guidebook, and part sex manual, Gaga Feminism is the first book to take seriously the collapse of heterosexuality and find signposts in the wreckage to a new and different way of doing sex and gender.

The Complete Peanuts, 1975-1978


Charles M. Schulz - 2010
    Schulz’s astounding half-century run on the greatest comic strip of all time. These years are especially fecund in terms of new canine characters, as Snoopy is joined by his wandering brother Spike(from Needles), his beloved sister Belle (from Kansas City), and... did you know he had a nephew? In other beagle news,Snoopy breaks his foot and spends six weeks in a cast, deals with his friend Woodstock’s case of the “the vapors,” and gets involved in a heated love triangle with Linus over the girl “Truffles.” The Complete Peanuts 1975-1976 features several other long stories, including a rare “double track” sequence with two parallel narratives: Peppermint Patty and Snoopy travel to participate in the Powderpuff Derby, while Charlie Brown finally gets to meet his idol Joe Shlabotnik. And Peppermint Patty switches to a private school, but commits the mistake of allowing Snoopy to pick it for her; only after graduation does she realize something’s not quite right! Plus: A burglary at Peppermint Patty’s house is exacerbated by waterbed problems... Marcie acquires an unwanted suitor...Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty become desk partners... The talking school building collapses... Lots of tennis jokes...and gags starring Schroeder, Lucy, Franklin, Rerun, Sally, and that vicious cat next door. It’s another two years of Peanuts at its finest! Featuring an introduction by comedian Robert Smigel (Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Saturday Night Live).The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978:As the 1970s wind down, the last two recurring Peanuts characters have fallen into place: Snoopy’s brother Spike and the youngest Van Pelt sibling,Rerun. But that doesn’t mean Schulz’s creativity has diminished; in fact, this volume features an amazing profusion of hilariously distinctive new one- (or two-) shot characters! For instance, in an epic five-week sequence, when Charlie Brown, found guilty by the EPA of biting the Kite-Eating tree, he goes on the lam and ends up coaching the “Goose Eggs,” a group of diminutive baseball players,Austin, Ruby, Leland, and —did you know there was a second Black Peanuts character, aside from Franklin?—Milo. Also: a tennis-playing Snoopy ends up reluctantly teamed with the extreme Type “A” athlete Molly Volley... who then reappears later in the book, now facing off against her nemesis, “Crybaby” Boobie. (Honest!) Add in Sally’s new camp friend Eudora, the thuggish “caddymaster” who shoots down Peppermint Patty and Marcie’s new vocation, an entire hockey team, and a surprise repeat appearance by Linus’s sweetheart “Truffles” (creating a love triangle with Sally), all in addition to the usual cast of beloved characters(including the talking schoolhouse and the doghouse-jigsawing cat, who gets ahold of Linus’s blanket in this one), and you’ve got a veritable crowd of characters. Introduction by 30 Rock's Alec Baldwin.It’s another four years of the greatest comic strip of all time, full of laughs and surprises.

Maya Angelou: Poems Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie/Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well/And Still I Rise/Shaker, Why Don't You Sing


Maya Angelou - 1993
    

Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters


John Waters - 1986
    This hilarious collection of essays by the offbeat writer and director is a treat for fans of the "Pope of Trash" and the perfect introduction for those who have not yet discovered his eccentric charms.