Books!

Hooray 4 the BOOKFAIR today!

8th Annual!

3rd one attended!

Always worthwhile!

Here's a round up of the books I now have!!!



2 hard covers about Dutch Artists for 50 cents a piece. The life of Rembrandt and Lust for Life about VanGogh


These zines: Cometbus the wildly prolific, self-documenting, hand-written punk zine master was first introduced to me by the awesome staff at Quimby's in Chicago. And my friends at Books4Prisoners let me take away this slick CrimethInc. book for only two dollars which goes to fund their postage costs in sending books to prisoners.


These nicely bound how to books from the anarchists at the IronRail Bookstore (where I just recently picked up even more fabulous reading supplies earlier in the week from their local zine author's table. How cool is that???) These three were respectively $5, $2, and $10. Spending the big bucks today! Pulling out the stops before I skip town!!
Only thing I know about this one was that it was free! Hee hee! Into the book basket it goes!
This one. Oh yes. YES! The first purchase of the day for 5 dollars to start the day off right. I just recommended this book to a friend after I learned she was going to King Con in Brooklyn. Generally I don't/ can't read the same book twice no matter how good it is. But I had recently been thinking about The Fortress of Solitude again and I'm now ready to break that policy.

When I began getting interested in graffiti back in high school and felt totally vexed by my lack of peers who felt the same way I did about vandalism I had two things to comfort me. One were the books I found in the libraries around town that fanned the flames of inspiration and provided me with the insight I hoped to someday receive personally by meeting other writers. BOmb the Suburbs by Upski, Getting Up by Craig Castleman, Subway Art by Chalfant and Cooper, and The ARt of GetTing OveR by EspO are all unbelievably important in the cannon of my self-education on vandalism.

The second thing was writing on the walls when I got bored with the status quo as it appeared to me and my irrefutable teenage opinion. This behavior coupled with a mega-Gaf mentalitly about staying anonymous landed me in the offices of not just a few of the high administrators. It is a testament to how cool the school was that I attended that they never did follow thru with their threats of expulsion.

In fact the whole incident just provided me with multiple opportunities to discuss my budding thoughts about graffiti with the most respected men in the administration. They were more than curious to try and understand what the hell I was thinking and I was eager as hell for an audience to pay attention to me. The head of the school recounted a story of another former student/graf-head he'd encountered addicted to the text from Philadelphia. Philly being the true birthplace of street scrawl and the home to multiple distinct local styles and types, I found this fascinating and encouraging (not what he had intended I get from the story). The vice-principal was even more outright in not discouraging me and told me stories straight out of the pages of Fortress of Solitude. That was cool. I didn't even realize how cool until a couple years later after graduation when I read it for the first time.

This is a great book about graffiti, growing up, comics, and Brooklyn. And once again things come full circle leading back to my new favorite writer & blogger, this guy