Books on Tape

For the last week, I have wandered around looking like Warren from There's Something About Mary. (For those unfamiliar with the reference here is a photo and YouTube Video)

In the dining halls, through the quad and on the 1.4 mile jaunt to and from school, I walk along with the disconnected yet pleasant grin of a post-lobotomy patient. Instead of listening to the Top Gun soundtrack on repeat, as I expect Warren or a heavily medicated psychiatric patient would, I am captivated by the words of Jack London, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner or Ernest Hemingway through the headphones of my Presidian portable cassette player.

Procuring a stash of good literature was the easy part. Colby boasts an extensive library full of books, movies, periodicals and most importantly, books-on-tape. Nestled between its peers of technologies of yesterday, I found a two- to three-hundred cassette collection of audio books and filled my backpack with anything I fancied.

Finding a working cassette player, however, was a task for the intrepid. I spent the better half of Sunday searching through strip malls inquiring about the whereabouts of this once common technology. I almost gave up when the fine people at Walmart told me to go fish. I finally found one at a small thrift shop. Since Sunday, I have crushed The Great Gatsby, The Old Man and the Sea, and The Call of the Wild and am now working on Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. Being in my own world is fun.

Here are some more links,
Books on Tape (Picasa),
Presidan Cassette Player.

Things To Look At While in the Loo

For my birthday I asked for books to look at when I was on the loo. Here is my reading material.

In the American West by Richard Avedon is my favorite photography book.

Vanity Fair: The Portraits: A Century of Icon Images has some really cool portraits by Annie Leibovitz, like this one of Jack Nicholson and Hunter S. Thompson.

Native Land Native People Form The Edward S. Curtis Collection needs no introduction.

Shopping for Porcupine: A Life in Arctic Alaska by photographer/writer Seth Kantner. This memoir describes his rural upbringings in Northern Alaska and his quest to find acceptance in modern society.

Relaxing and seeking inspiration while in the loo. Here is a self portrait of me looking at portraits.

Links for the loo:
In the American West (Amazon),
Vanity Fair: The Portraits: A Century of Icon Images (Amazon),
Native Land Native People Form The Edward S. Curtis Collection (Amazon),
Shopping for Porcupine: A Life in Arctic Alaska (Amazon).

Books: As Seen In Vogue

A large library at your finger tips is major plus of attending college. A couple weeks ago, I stumbled across "As Seen in Vogue: A Century of American Fashion In Advertising" while procrastinating on Thursday night. As stated in the title, the book discuses the history of fashion advertising, but also offers an interesting overview of the origins of periodicals and print advertising. Even if you're not interested in female fashion, I recommend this book as background study of the role of advertising in subsidizing periodicals. Here are some original ads from the Vogues from the forties and earlier.