« 6-foot-6 cow | Main | Folksinger, anarchist, presidential candidate Utah Phillips dies in sleep »

May 22, 2008

Rousseau toy, cult books, Cat Stevens (Hollywood '73)

Just as the weight of passing facts and information (glioma, Celona, Madonna) threatens to dry us up, the holiday weekend that kicks off summer is just ahead. Barbecue! Plant tomatoes! Parade! Drink beer! Beaches! Oldies! Visit graves! Geraniums! Indiana Jones...!

To kickstart the feeling, a shift to vacation brain:

To accompany a 2006 exhibit titled Henri Rousseau: Jungles in Paris, the National Gallery of Art created a cool Shockwave toy: NGAkids JUNGLE. Starting with elements cast in the artist's instantly recognizable style, it's hard to make a bad "painting" here.

The instructions are clear and useful, sizes and positions of its elements can all be changed. A screenshot of my test drive is pictured above.

Alt-canon: Just in time for summer reading lists, 50 best cult books at the Telegraph (U.K.)

What is a cult book? We tried and failed to arrive at a definition: books often found in the pockets of murderers; books that you take very seriously when you are 17; books whose readers can be identified to all with the formula " whacko"; books our children just won’t get…

Some things crop up often: drugs, travel, philosophy, an implied two fingers to conventional wisdom, titanic self-absorption, a tendency to date fast and a paperback jacket everyone recognises with a faint wince. But these don’t begin to cover it.

Cult books include some of the most cringemaking collections of bilge ever collected between hard covers. But they also include many of the key texts of modern feminism; some of the best journalism and memoirs; some of the most entrancing and original novels in the canon.

Since the Telegraph published this list a few weeks ago, commenters have at least doubled it. Some are in high dudgeon over omissions, others immediately grasp that the list has found a spot in which to grow and simply list more titles.

I have read an embarrassing number of them, cultist that I am...

When I was 15 I cut out such a list from a guest column in Glamour magazine that sneered "read these or stay a bimbo" and carried it in my billfold for two years of library visits until I had read every one of them. Colin Wilson's The Outsider, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Ayn Rand are on the Telegraph's list, too.

Miss Lonelyhearts and The Education of Hyman Kaplan are not.

Remember when... Cat Stevens: Hollywood 1973 .[no label, 1CD] Live at the Aquarius Theatre, Hollywood, CA, November 9, 1973. Upgrade of a radio broadcast

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 7:27 AM | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Elizabeth on May 22, 2008 4:58 PM