Thursday, December 30, 2010

A Waste of Time/A Learning Experience

"Suck It, Wonder Woman" by Olivia Munn and Mac Montandon St. Martins Press 270 turgid pages $23.00

Munn is a 30 year old sorta-model; sorta-comedienne, self-described Nerd Girl. She is clearly greatly enamored by her appearanced. She has a program entitled "Attack of the Show!" on a channel called G4. Her book is a mismatched collection of anecdotes, copious photos of Our Star and cartoons (of her) drawn by her adoring fans. As a paean to one's own glory, it would be hard to beat.

Besides being vapid, her language is atrocious. I'm sorry, but by the time you're 30 - as she is - it's time to discard the toilet tongue, potty mouth.

"50 American Artists You Should Know" by Debra N. Mancoff Prestel 157 pages No price in or on book

Now this is an interesting book. I'm fairly hip on the major art names, but very weak on our American artists. Oh sure, Mary Cassat, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat...are a few that come to mind, but nothing like the number presented in this book.

All are presented in in order of appearance. The early guys were very often drawn to painting from another field (saddlery, lawyering and so forth.)

Intelligently presented with a timeline for each artist (and with no bad language whatsoever in stark contrast to You Know Who) it is a good read. After absorbing as much as I can, it's doubtful I'll ever be able to merely glance at an oil and knowledgeably say, "Oh, yes, that's a Charles Wilson Peale" but it's an enjoyable book, well presented and lavishly illustrated.

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