Mary: Spirit Woman of the Old West


Janis Hoffman - 2016
    There are many corrections and many notes stuck between the pages, and the ink and pencil are faded and often difficult to read. I have had to guess at the meaning a few times and hope I haven’t done too much harm to her intent. Many changes were made in punctuation, spelling, paragraphing and chapters, and I’ve updated a few words, like Black Feet to Blackfoot. She made a few mistakes I did not correct, like mixing up the locations of the Little Blue and Big Blue rivers. The name Mary Faraday Huntington does not appear in any of the old records. Whoever wrote the words was neither shy nor humble, has a very foul mouth, and shamelessly talks about things rarely mentioned in stories of the Wild West. Her story is the way it was long ago, not the sugar coated fairly tales of book and film. Her story reminds me of something Jamake Highwater wrote: “The outward rusticity of primal behavior makes Western people devise a self-serving ideal of themselves as civilized, which sets them widely apart from other peoples and from nature. Their withdrawal from an awareness of their place in nature is nearly complete…primal peoples live among animals and vegetation constantly in close contact with the sources of nourishment and death, understanding their environment and expressing their ideas and feelings in terms of the natural world. In contrast, people in the West have created an idealization of their relationship with nature which has neither life nor spirit.” ADVENTURES IN THE WILD WEST OF LONG AGO Mary Faraday Huntington I’ve led a wild life and had a hell of a good time. I still have my nose, all my fingers and my scalp thanks to my high intelligence, strength, quickness, excellent judgment, and a little help from all my many, many friends. I promise not to lie too bad. If you are a prissy little thing, best to pass on by. If you are a refined gentleman, pass on by. 1. You’re just a girrrrrrl 2. The Under Water People 3. Fort Childs 4. Rising Wolf 5. The second best whorehouse in town 1 YOU’RE JUST A GIRRRRRL “You can't race. You’re just a girrrrrrl!” I bounced him a good one and he shrieked and jumped up and down with blood spurting out of his big, ugly nose. Oh my, how he did carry on. I got on my pony and went to the line. The flag dropped and off we went. No problem, I promised Charlie 3 cobs if we win. He got his corn and I got a shiny silver dollar and a tin can full of chewing tobacco. I traded the can for a bunch of fancy ribbons at old man Bailey’s haberdashery. ____________________ My name is Mary Faraday Huntington and I was born in 1834 at Independence, Missouri. My mother died when I was 9 months old and an Indian woman working at a whorehouse was the only one Christian enough to take me in. Don’t know who my father was but he must have been big, strong, and sharp as a whip. Probably an army man having a little fun. Sure they call me a bastard, but they learned quick enough not to do that to my face. Jennie is a Blackfoot spirit woman and a real good mother who cooks and cleans at Polly’s Paradise. We have a little room in the basement. Her real name is Aokii’aki, Water Woman. She taught me sign and Blackfoot, how to live off the land, and how to fight with my hands and feet and knife. And she is teaching me the ways of a spirit woman.

Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America


Chris Arnade - 2019
    Arnade's raw, deeply reported accounts cut through today's clickbait media headlines and indict the elitists who misunderstood poverty and addiction in America for decades.After abandoning his Wall Street career, Arnade decided to document poverty and addiction in the Bronx. He began interviewing, photographing, and becoming close friends with homeless addicts, and spent hours in drug dens and McDonald's. Then he started driving across America to see how the rest of the country compared. He found the same types of stories everywhere, across lines of race, ethnicity, religion, and geography.The people he got to know, from Alabama and California to Maine and Nevada, gave Arnade a new respect for the dignity and resilience of what he calls America's Back Row--those who lack the credentials and advantages of the so-called meritocratic upper class. The strivers in the Front Row, with their advanced degrees and upward mobility, see the Back Row's values as worthless. They scorn anyone who stays in a dying town or city as foolish, and mock anyone who clings to religion or tradition as naive.As Takeesha, a woman in the Bronx, told Arnade, she wants to be seen she sees herself: "a prostitute, a mother of six, and a child of God." This book is his attempt to help the rest of us truly see, hear, and respect millions of people who've been left behind.

An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar


Taryn Simon - 2007
    She has photographed rarely seen sites from domains including: science, government, medicine, entertainment, nature security and religion. This index examines subjects that, while provocative or controversial, are currently legal. The work responds to a desire to discover unknown territories, to see everything. Simon makes use of the annotated-photograph's capacity to engage and inform the public. Transforming that which is off-limits or under-the-radar into a visible and intelligible form, she confronts the divide between the privileged access of the few and the limited access of the public. Photographed with a large format view camera (except when prohibited), Simon's 70 color plates form a seductive collection that reflects and reveals a national identity. In addition to this monograph, there is also an exhibition of Simon's work opening at the Whitney Museum of American Art in March 2007.

Unnatural Talent: Creating, Printing and Selling Your Comic in the Digital Age


Jason Brubaker - 2013
    While the publishing industry struggles to adapt to the rapidly changing digital world, independent artists now have the ability to build a successful and lucrative brand completely on their own with a little hard work and some Internet savvy. Now there's nothing stopping you from getting your book in front of thousands or even millions of people. Suddenly you can't blame anyone for not giving you a chance. You can only blame yourself for not trying. So roll up your sleeves, sharpen your pencils and fire up your Internet because we are about to make and sell comics! Jason Brubaker's graphic novel reMIND raised over $125,000 in pre-order sales on Kickstarter, won the Xeric Award and made ALA's Great Graphic Novels for Teens List. This book is a collection of his thoughts, strategies and practical lessons developed during his experience writing, drawing and self-publishing reMIND.

The Japanese Bath


Bruce Smith - 1905
    In Japan, one goes there to cleanse the soul. Bathing in Japan is about much more than cleanliness: it is about family and community. It is about being alone and contemplative, time to watch the moon rise above the garden.Along with sixty full-color illustrations of the light and airy baths themselves, The Japanese Bath, delves into the aesthetic of bathing Japanese style and the innate beauty of the steps surrounding the process. The authors explain how to create a Japanese bath in your own home. A Zen meditation, the Japanese bath, indeed, cleanses the soul, and one emerges refreshed, renewed, and serene.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to RVing


April Maher - 2001
    An updated and revised guide for the more than 30 million Americans who are living the RV lifestyle and the millions of others who have considered it but have not yet taken the plunge, The Complete Idiot's Guide® to RVing, Second Edition, includes the following: Basic facts about the different types of RVs-camper, van, motor home, bus, or tow rig-and the advantages of each; Advice on buying your RV, from dealer negotiations to acquiring the proper insurance; Driving tips for piloting your RV; Information on how to choose a campground with an eye for water, electricity, propane, wastewater dump, hookups, phone, cable, and campground rules.

Prebles' Artforms: An Introduction to the Visual Arts


Patrick L. Frank - 2005
    We form Art. Art forms us. The title of this book has a dual meaning. Besides the expected discussion of the various forms of art, the title also reflects the fact that art does indeed help to form us as people. As we create forms, we are in turn formed by what we have created. Several years ago, the title was changed to "Preblesa Artforms," acknowledging the pioneering contribution of the original authors, Duane and Sarah Preble, to the study of art. Their vision and spirit have touched hundreds of thousands of students who have studied this book. "Artforms "grew out of a desire to introduce art through an engaging visual experience, and to expose students to a culturally diverse canon of work. It is written and designed to help readers build an informed foundation for individual understanding and enjoyment of art.By introducing art theory, practice, and history in a single volume, this book aims to draw students into a new or expanded awareness of the visual arts. Beyond fostering appreciation of major works of art, this booka s primary concern is to open studentsa eyes and minds to the richness of the visual arts as unique forms of human communication and to convey the idea that the arts enrich life best when we experience, understand, and enjoy them as integral parts of the process of living.

The Ruins Of Detroit


Yves Marchand - 2010
    city. Its buildings were monuments to its success and vitality in the first half of the twentieth century. At the start of the twenty-first century, those same monuments are now ruins: the United Artists Theater, the Whitney Building, the Farwell Building and the once ravishing Michigan Central Station (unused since 1988) today look as if a bomb had dropped on Motor City, leaving behind the ruins of a once great civilization. In a series of weekly photographic bulletins for Time magazine called "Detroit's Beautiful, Horrible Decline," photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre have been revealing to an astonished America the scale of decay in Detroit. "The state of ruin is essentially a temporary situation that happens at some point, the volatile result of change of era and the fall of empires," write Marchand and Meffre. "Photography appeared to us as a modest way to keep a little bit of this ephemeral state." As Detroit's white middle class continues to abandon the city center for its dispersed suburbs, and its downtown high-rises empty out, these astounding images, which convey both the imperious grandeur of the city's architecture and its genuinely shocking decline, preserve a moment that warns us all of the transience of great epochs.

I Will Never Forget You: Frida Kahlo and Nickolas Muray


Salomon Grimberg - 2004
    Now back in print by popular demand, the classic volume I Will Never Forget You collects more than 50 striking portraits of Kahlo as we know and love her, wearing traditional costumes, heavy jewelry, and flowers in her hair. Archival letters and photographs that tell the story of Kahlo and Muray's touching relationship accompany these stunning plates and make for a truly unique celebration of one of the 20th century's most beloved artists.

Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us


Paul Koudounaris - 2015
    In Western society, death is usually medicalized and taboo, and kept apart from the world of the living, while in much of the rest of the world, and for much of human history, death has commonly been far more integrated into peoples daily existence, and human remains are as much a reminder of life, memento vitae, as of death, memento mori. Through photos taken at more than 250 sites in thirty countries over a decade, Paul Koudounaris has captured death around the world. From Bolivia's festival of the little pug-nosed ones, where skulls are festooned with flowers and given cigarettes to smoke and beanie hats to protect them from the weather to Indonesian families who dress mummies and include them in their household routines; from naturally preserved Buddhist monks and memorials to genocide in Rwanda and Cambodia to the dramatic climax of Europe's great ossuaries, Memento Mori defies taboo to demonstrate how the dead continue to be present in the lives of people everywhere."

Cut It Out


Banksy - 2005
    Full color, and including some of most famous/notorious works to date, including 'exhibiting' his work at the Tate Gallery in London. Quite superb.

The Dresden Dolls Companion


Amanda Palmer - 2006
    This Boston-based alternative pop/German-like cabaret duo hand-designed this book which includes art, photos, commentary and 11 songs from their 2004 release. Songs included are: Bad Habit * Coin Operated Boy * Girl Anachronism * Good Day * Gravity * Half Jack * The Jeep Song * Missed Me *Perfect Fit * Slide * Truce.

Betty Page Confidential


Stan Corwin Productions - 1994
    Betty Page Confidential includes a biography of the reclusive goddess, an official Betty Page trivia quiz and 100 photos.Betty Page Confidential is the ultimate book on this 1950s icon.

On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks


Simon Garfield - 2012
    Now Garfield takes on a subject even dearer to our fanatical human hearts: maps.Imagine a world without maps. How would we travel? Could we own land? What would men and women argue about in cars? Scientists have even suggested that mapping—not language—is what elevated our prehistoric ancestors from ape-dom. Follow the history of maps from the early explorers’ maps and the awe-inspiring medieval Mappa Mundi to Google Maps and the satellite renderings on our smartphones, Garfield explores the unique way that maps relate and realign our history—and reflect the best and worst of what makes us human.Featuring a foreword by Dava Sobel and packed with fascinating tales of cartographic intrigue, outsize personalities, and amusing “pocket maps” on an array of subjects from how to fold a map to the strangest maps on the Internet, On the Map is a rich historical tapestry infused with Garfield’s signature narrative flair. Map-obsessives and everyone who loved Just My Type will be lining up to join Garfield on his audacious journey through time and around the globe.

SignLanguage


Viggo Mortensen - 2002
    With an essay by Kevin Power.