I’m reading this

05.09.08 The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky - Ellen Meloy

You might think that I’d get a little tired of all this reading about the history of colour, but I just don’t. When I first picked up “The Anthropology of Turquoise” I was expecting the same sort of thing, but discovered something much different. This isn’t so much a historical examination as an artistic, spiritual road-trip. Meloy, a well-known artist, environmentalist, and naturalist, delves deep into the poetry and psychology of our human connection to colour, landscape, the natural world, and into our own emotions and imaginations. I’ve never read anything so perfectly succinct and complete as her descriptions of how human being are drawn to the blue of water, the blue of the sky. This book is absolutely exquisite.

Once I started researching her, I was sad to hear that Ellen Meloy passed away suddenly in 2004: in her home, in the Utah desert, which she so clearly loved.

03.11.08 A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Hunt for the Colour of Desire - Amy Butler Greenfield

I’m starting to get addicted to these books about the history of colour. Now that I know everything there is to about the history of mauve, I’ve moved on to red. After the Spanish Conquistadors discovered cochineal in 1519, the bright red dye created a rich cloth that was the most coveted in all of Europe. And that’s as far as I’ve read.

02.25.08 In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan

If you haven’t yet read Michael Pollan’s brilliance in either “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” or “Botany of Desire”, then you’re missing out big time. His latest is not a study of nutrition, but of how we’ve socially warped our ideas of “food”; do we see bread or do we see carbs? Why, after generations of trusting out instincts and eating what our bodies told us too, did we suddenly put our nutritional faith in the government - and how has that governments suggestions been affected by things like, oh, the ranching industry…? I’m only two chapters in and I’m totally hooked.

01.15.08 Mauve: How One Man Invented a Colour that Changed the World - Simon Garfield

I would like to say that I’m really not so much of a colour dork that I’m not reading this book. But then I’d be lying… “Mauve” is the amazing account of how an 18-year old chemisty student named William Perkin accidentally invented the first synthetic colour in 1856. Up until then pigments were still made from organic sources: roots, leave, elephant urine (no joke) and that sort of thing. Colours were never consisent. Perkin’s discovery led to the development of all synthetic colours. By making colour chemically consistent, so that exact shades could be dependably re-produced with a formula, he completely revolutionized art, fashion, design and everything else involving colour as we know it. And that’s a pretty big deal.

01.02.08 Into the Wild - John Krakauer

I’m not normally one for reading books after seeing the movie, but I’m a massive Sean Penn fan and so I ended up in the theatre before reading the book. Now I’m hooked. The movie, written and direct by Penn, isn’t quite like any other movie I’ve ever seen before. It’s stark and slow and doesn’t make it easy for anybody. You have to actually watch the movie and work at liking it. It doesn’t give things away and it doesn’t make easy choices for you. It requires you to engage in it and to learn as you go, just as the lead of the film learns himself.

If you don’t already know, it’s based on the real life story of Christohper Johnson McCandless, a young man who, shortly after graduating from college, disappeared from his own life. He burned his money, destroyed his ID, and without a word began a penniless trek around North America - the culmination of which was a principled, if foolhardy, solo navigation into Northern Alaska.

Inspired by the movie I’m now reading the book since this is where all the details will lie.

12.12.07 Color - Victoria Finlay

This is my second time reading this fascinating book on not just the history of colour, but how colours have affected history. It may sound boring at first, but as you read the account of how author Victoria Finlay travelled the world and visited everywhere from Central American villages where women still wear skirts dyed purple the tears of sea snails to India where she investigates the mystery of a yellow that supposedly made by force-feeding mango leaves to cows (and then collecting their urine) this book proves to be anything but.

12.10.07 Hoopla (A Book About Crispin Porter + Bogusky) - Warren Berger

When it comes to ad agencies, Crispin Porter +Bogusky is pretty much the shit right now. They inspire a global adoration and rabid fan base similar to the Pope or Ghandi or Madonna. The book is very visual, and I’m not really sure what it’s purpose is yet. That’s because it’s replaced The Gum Thief as literary decoration while I actually read The Gum Thief. The one thing I can say for now is that Hoopla looks really incredible sitting on your coffee table.

12.05.07 The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland

(Update! 12.10.07) I’ve started actually reading The Gum Thief. Like any Coupland book, it doesn’t make much sense for about the first 50 pages. It’s entertaining and metaphoric - but I’m still digesting.

I guess I shouldn’t really say I’m “reading” this, because I’ve got it but it’s still sitting on my bed side table. So I guess right now I’m “decorating” with it. But as as soon as I start reading it I’ll keep you all posted…