Playing Poker

I have three hobbies: reading, collecting ancient coins, and playing cards.

There is a new set of two books coming out from Dan Harrington, who is widely considered to be the best writer concerning poker strategy. Reading his books goes beyond playing cards, because you start to understand the psychology of brinkmanship, and you also learn how to do a lot of math in your head (to figure out the odds of you making the winning hand versus the amount of money you have to call relative to the pot). So I have benefited from reading Dan Harrington's first three books.

You can pre-order the two new Cash Game no-limit hold-em books on Amazon.com right now click here!

Books

I am reading:

Pudd'nhead Wilson, by Mark Twain. Dan Attoe recommended it. He said that Ed Ruscha said that it was the first Postmodern book. It has a coherant story, and it is very clever. It is a sharp satire of racism and identity.

and

Postmodernism: A Graphic Guide to Cutting Edge Thinking, by 4 or 5 people. This is a very interesting, minimally complicated look at Postmodernism, and it deals with art mostly, and some science and philosophy. It is better than it looks like it should be, it has a pink cover with the Andy Warhol Marlyn Monroe face peeking up from the bottom.

Books I got for Christmas

The Best American Comics 2007, edited by Chris Ware

click here to see this book in the I.S.H. bookshop

I have really enjoyed this so far, I have read the first 4 or 5 comics and they have all been really interesting. There is one from Robert and Aline Crumb that made me laugh out loud.
The R and A Crumb strip is, I think, autobiographical and they visit their daughter Sophie who is basically squatting in a building. Sophie and her boyfriend show the Crumbs about all the nice things people throw away on the street in garbage piles, and after the visit the Crumbs are walking along looking at the garbage for good things. R Crumb finds a box and exclaims that it is chocolate cake and then walks over and opens the box to find out that it is dog shit. It cracked me up.

I also received the third volume of John Richardson's biography of Picasso. I read the first two with a feverish passion, and the third volume really has his best work (except the Dora Maar stuff) so it promises to be really good as well.


click here

I have started reading it and it has taken place in Rome helping Diaghilev put on a ballet production called Parade, if you are a music buff Eric Satie is part of this story. It has a slightly dry beginning, but I am not that interested in theatre compared to painting and drawing so I have a bias.

Looks like I have some good reading in front of me for the next couple of weeks.

Neo-Books

Printed books are about to undergo the same transition that hit painting when photography became popular and widely available in the late 19th century.

At the advent of photography, painting lost a lot of what had made it a viable career, and also seemed to be outdone by the verisimilitude of photography's perfect simulacrums of people in the form of portraits. If some normal person can guarantee you a perfect and lifelike portrait, why do you need an artist?

This sent painting into the identity crisis we call Modernism, and all of its sub-movements, and the denial of picture, image, and eventually object. Which can be seen as a narrative of painting trying to find the place where only it could exist and have value. Eventually we reach Danto's death of history and Postmodernism, where there are no rules - except that everything is a reference and that religion is largely considered bad form.

Well I think McSweeneys Quarterly Concern is the first (wonderful) symptom of a Neo-Modernism of the Printed book, and it foretells all the identity issues, deconstruction, reconstruction, destruction, and reinvention that the photograph meant to painting. When you get a book of short stories and it comes in the form of a batch of misdelivered mail, or folds out and has a playing card and hair comb you can view that as inventive, but you can not dismiss the possibility of a reaction.

If McSweeneys is the symptom, then the Kindle (digital book from Amazon) is the cause. Photography is a good thing, but it shook things up for art. If anyone can get a book cheaper, carry it with less burden, reference any phrase, and buy a new book in their car on the way to the airport a real printed book is going to have to do something new that makes it different.

I predict an exciting and interesting reinvention of the printed book over the course of the next decade. It will have similarities to other reactionary movements like Modernism, or the British Arts and Crafts movement, and the world wide current DIY scene.

I would like to hear from you about this issue.

-Bill

Very Important Post, Book Arts

I was reading through the interviews on the Zine Arcade website for a second or third time, having enjoyed hearing from creative independant publishers so much the first go round. Knowing that my memory is for shit I thought a second read would be interesting and useful.
While reading the Jackie Batey interview I came across (important link---->) a link for the Book Arts at the centre for fine print research. It is part of the University of the West of England, and I do not think I have ever seen a site that could be more rewarding and interesting for a bibliophile, there are links to many independent publishers, which I think could easily fill my spare time for the next 2 weeks, as well as news, explanations, exhibition information, they curate a traveling exhibition of bookmarks every year (I am definitely contributing, I always create my own bookmarks), they publish a bi-yearly journal documenting current book art practices, there is a plethora of promising projects presented, and I gleaned all that info having only found the site half an hour ago!
Ok, enough writing to you about it, I am going to check it out myself.

Book Arts Centre


-Bill

Great Deal at McSweenys

You get 4 issues of McSweenys Quarterly for 20 dollars plus shipping. A years subscription is 55 dollars, and to buy an individual book is 24 dollars. So this is the deal of the century: 4 books for less than the price of one, especially if you are a miserly artist who counts pennies and thinks 9 dollars is alot of money for dinner.

Having said that, I have never read the magazine, a british friend just told me about how awesome the book is and I saw this deal, and I thought, hmm, that will make a good post.

Great Art Book

If you are looking for a great new art book, look no further, Neue Rollen, a catalog of painting by Neo Rauch is an awesome book. <---- click there.

The reproductions are very good, and there is a lot of text, which I am sure is interesting (I have not read anything except the quotes from Neo Rauch that are positioned on opposite pages from the reproductions). The words are secondary in this kind of book.



It has been a while since an artist really captured my imagination, but Neo Rauch does the job. His quotes are provocative in a not overbearing way, but he does not seem to rely on art theory, instead focusing on an almost surrealist motivation (which is the last thing I think I should be interested by, but here I am, interested).

The reproductions are interesting because they cover paintings that the artist is less well known for, and that are obviously less sucessful visually, so there is a narrative that becomes apparent of someone who figured something out, and this something is how to stop making quirky unsucessful paintings and make blockbuster international fame paintings. It is a rags to riches book.



I recommend buying it.






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Working Alot

I have been working alot, which is good, because now I will have money. I will try to think of something creative to stick on here over the weekend.
One thing I recently saw that is interesting and odd, is the website www.secondlife.com Apparently people spend all their waking hours living a virtual life on this page. They buy and sell things with currency from the website, and the currency can be converted to US dollars in the real world like money from a foreign country. Sweden has a virtual embassy, which is bizarre and fascinating.
Secondlife was inspired by a book called Snow Crash, which I have not read but probably will in the next 2 weeks, it is part of the popular cyber-punk genre.
Ok, I am off to bed, I have to work again tomorrow!