Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of the first "required reading" books for school that I actually enjoyed. The teenage angst-y goth in me really identified with the monster and his feelings of sadness, anger, and isolation over not being able to fit in. "I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other."
Okay - I know I'm holding THREE books up, but they're all about the same person: Man Ray. After seeing Man Ray's photographic work in the Art Institute of Chicago and feeling really inspired, I immediately bought a book in the gift shop, which is the Taschen book in the front of the bunch that I'm holding. I got my hands on several books about his involvement in Dada and Surrealism shortly thereafter. I was in college at the time I discovered him, going to school for photography. Those were still the days of the darkroom. The images I had in these books prepared for classic photographic college assignments. I thought about each of my images' journey; I documented each click's F stop, speed, made notes about the location and/or subject, thought about contrast, shadow, and in those same moments, planned what I would do in the darkroom with the little time I had scheduled there. This all seems like common sense for a photography student, but I became obsessed with wanting to make my images as iconic as my many heroes. I took my camera everywhere and documented almost everything for years. Outside of the Taschen book which is primarily photographs, the second and third books I am holding up (Man Ray's Montparnasse and Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention) delve into his time in Paris and give you a timeline of his life, respectively. I love surrealist era work and the people involved, and these books capture different events of that time. I don't photograph much anymore, but there are gifts he's left in my thought process when I pick up an actual camera.
“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” Ever since my introduction to Frank Zappa by a friend in High School, I’ve been fascinated with his ability to meld a perfectionist vision with the gift of cultivating the spontaneous. His compositions were arranged meticulously, frequently in odd meter, and with a touch of what he cultivated from the likes of Doo-Wop, Guitar Slim, Igor Stravinsky, and Edgard Varese. His eclectic and experimental approach to creating pushed the boundaries of recorded music and was lyrically unapologetic, satirical, and confrontational. He could tell it like it is, which I admire, because it is something I struggle with. Like his famous quote above, he knew that rocking the boat, and taking the path less travelled was essential to facilitate growth. Frank Zappa worked hard to establish his unique voice in music history, and fought for what he believed in protect, including protecting the power of free speech, and fighting fear driven censorship. This book shares the stories of origin, struggle, inspiration, oddity, spontaneity, vision, setback, and triumph of one of my heroes. I’ll never forget the first time I heard Frank Zappa. I was sitting on the floor of my bedroom in my parent’s house with a Sony Discman listening to “Apostrophe/Over-Nite Sensation.” Like the comedy of George Carlin, and the paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat, his songs were like something I had never experienced before. His music expanded my scope of what was possible, and showed me that anything I wanted to achieve creatively was viable. He taught me not to be afraid. I’ll leave you with the final line of the book, “It’s been a pleasure talking to you--and don’t forget to register to vote.”
