Andy Warhol, Prince of Pop

Tracing this strange and damaging history, starting from Kant's aesthetics and Mary Shelley's horrified response in Frankenstein, Steiner untangles the complex attitudes of modernists toward both beauty and the female subject in art. She argues that the avant-garde set out to replace the impurity of woman and ornament with form -- the new arch-symbol of artistic beauty. However, in the process of controlling desire and pleasure in this way, artists admitted the exotic fetish objects of "primitive" cultures -- someone else's power and allure that surely would not overmaster the sophisticated modernist. A century of pornography, shock, and alienation followed, and this rejection of feminine and bourgeois values -- domesticity, intimacy, charm -- kept the female subject an impossible and remote symbol. Ironically, as Steiner reveals, the feminist hostility to the "beauty myth" had a parallel result, leaving Western society alienated from desire and pleasure on all sides.

In the course of this elegantly constructed and accessibly written argument, Steiner explores the cultural history of the century just ended, from Dada to Futurism, T. S. Eliot's Wasteland and Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon to Pumping Iron II: The Women and Deep Throat, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Outsider Art, Naomi Wolf and Cindy Sherman, Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo, ranging across art and architecture, poetry and the novel, feminist writing and pornography.

Only in recent years, Steiner demonstrates, has our culture begun to see a way out of this damaging impasse, revising the reputations of neglected artists such as Pierre Bonnard, and celebrating pleasure and charm in the arts of the present. By disentangling beauty from a misogynistic view of femininity -- as passive, narcissistic, sentimental, inefficacious -- Western culture now seems ready to return to the female subject and ornament in art, and to accept male beauty as a possibility to explore and celebrate as well. Steiner finds hints of these developments in the work of figures as varied as the painter Marlene Dumas, the novelist Penelope Fitzgerald, and the choreographer Mark Morris as she leads us to a rediscovery and a reclamation of beauty in the Western world.

Caleb Watson is not like the other children at his Washington, D.C., private school. Having skipped a grade—and being younger and smaller than the rest of the boys—he finds that his Southern accent and sensitive, reserved nature set him even further apart. Caleb simply does not belong.

But on a field trip to the art museum, Caleb discovers his hero—his icon—when he is exposed to the art of Andy Warhol. In the beauty of the things that don't fit, in the art and philosophy of Pop plus the glorious camp of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and its creatures of the night, Caleb will find sanctuary, transforming himself and the eccentric friends he meets along the way into his own little version of Warhol's Factory.

He'll smoke you twice before you hit the ground.

"Blood soaked and terse, J.T. McCutchen is an epic anti-hero in the making."

"It's about time the world gets a reefer-smoking, lotus-sitting, Texas Ranger bad ass!"

WARNING:
Fans of Walker, Texas Ranger may be offended by the action depicted within this digital short. Although, I'm sure Chuck Norris would personally approve.

Product Description
Ranger J.T. McCutchen is as black and white as they come. He likes his law with a long arm and short trial. And he delivers the verdict via Colt .45, up close and personal. But protecting his Texas borderlands against the increasing turbulence of the Mexican Revolution pushes him to the brink.

South of the border and alone he's blindsided and left for dead. Fractured, both physically and emotionally, the once singular man is forced to either reinterpret himself or the world around him. His decision will imprint the history of nations.

Note from the Editor
The Truth in History Society (THS), commonly known as lost file conspiracists, have beat their drum for nearly a dozen years. I, like most, ignored them. Unlike most, I was kidnapped. While initially ticked off by this, not getting exploded (another story altogether) ultimately balanced the scales.

Since then I have rigorously set about curating and editing all known Lost DMB Files while maintaining as scientific of an approach to these pulpy stories as possible. Now I count myself among the zealous believers in their authenticity, not simply as pulp fiction, but as journalistic tales preserving historic fact.

My promise to the reader is to seek out these Lost DMB files and present them to you unabridged and unaltered from their original intent for as long as I am able. I also vow to do my best to allow you to draw your own conclusions as to their historical value and contemporary commentary. (I'll refrain from my preachy tendencies as best I can!)

Finally, be forewarned. Becoming lost in these "lost files" and the world they reconstruct is difficult to resist. May what once was lost be found.

Professor Jim "Buck" Buckner

All Currently Known Lost DMB Files (including assumed gaps)
Reefer Ranger (#9)
Del Rio Con Amor (#14)
Fistful of Reefer (#17)
The Austin Job (#18)
Hell's Womb (#22)
Get Doc Quick (#24)
McCutchen's Bones (#25)
Twitch and Die! (#26)
Paraplegic Zombie Slayer (#35)
Fourth Horseman (#43)

Sleek. Chic. Notoriously guarded. Welcome to the secret world of Gabrielle Chanel.

The story of Chanel begins with an abandoned child, as lost as a girl in a dark fairy tale. Unveiling remarkable new details about Gabrielle Chanel’s early years in a convent orphanage and her flight into unconventional adulthood, Justine Picardie explores what lies beneath the glossy surface of a mythic fashion icon.

Throwing new light on her passionate and turbulent relationships, this beautifully constructed portrait gives a fresh and penetrating look at how Coco Chanel made herself into her own most powerful creation. An authoritative account, based on personal observations and interviews with Chanel’s last surviving friends, employees and relatives, it also unravels her coded language and symbols, and traces the influence of her formative years on her legendary style.

Feared and revered by the rest of the fashion industry, Coco Chanel died in 1971 at the age of eighty-seven, but her legacy lives on. Drawing on unprecedented research, Justine Picardie brings her fascinating, enigmatic subject out of hiding and uncovers the consequences of what Chanel covered up, unpicking the seams between truth and myth in a story that reveals the true heart of fashion.

Reality television is the ultimate guilty pleasure -- a nonstop parade of cast members and scenarios that make fictional ones seem downright dull. Increasingly absurd challenges, hair-yanking catfights, and hot tub makeouts dripping with yet-to-be-acknowledged regret are only part of its appeal.

In this collection of wry and moving essays, bestselling authors explore the programs we obsess over, cringe at, and occasionally feel inspired by. From a Real World casting call and American Idol tattoo to a look at the appeal of Big Brother, Survivor, The Real Housewives, and more, a vibrant mix of literary luminaries examine the form of entertainment thats dominated our TV screens for more than a decade.

Entertaining and insightful, Reality Matters is a must-read for anyone who adores reality TV, wants to know what kind of an impact its having on our society, or simply wonders just how real any of it actually is.