The Ganzfeld
#3
edited by Dan Nadel &
Peter Buchanan-Smith
Featuring the work
of: Alfred Hitchcock
(yes, really), Julie Lasky, Lawrence Weschler,
Michael Benson, Blexbolex, Paul Cox, Adam Dant , Renee French, Geoff
McFetridge, Jim Nutt, Brian Ralph , Ron Rege, Jonathon Rosen, Karl
Wirsum , Fred Tomaselli, Peter Buchanan-Smith, Rick Moody and...
Peter Blegvad!
The Ganzfeld
is an
uncategorizable, one-of-a-kind publication and #3 is, for our money,
the crowning achievement of the series. The editors bring
together a wild hodge-podge of material here, yet manage to make it all
cohere, forging an uncannily perfect balance of content and creators
with this disparate group of artists, writers, designers, illustrators
and cartoonists. The result
is a triumph of eclecticism like no other which we unreservedly
recommend.
The
major
highlight
of the book, for us, is, by far, Peter Blegvad's cataclysmic
contribution: "Constellations from the Milk Museum," a highly
innovative
piece that is, literally, a stellar work of genius.
"Constellations" accomplishes what neuroscientists have been
spending billions of dollars on research and technology to
achieve: the mapping of consciousness. Starting with a
random encounter with illuminated milk (you'll understand once
you read it) in Truffaut's definitive interview/study of Hitchcock,
Blegvad goes on to relate -- in a mere twelve pages, through a unique
hybrid form of comics, illustration, montage, charts and maps -- how,
in his mind, meaning gradually, and seemingly of its own accord,
accreted around this encounter over the subsequent thirty years, and in
the process manages the improbable feat of delineating the
manner in which information becomes knowledge, which transforms
consciousness and, ultimately, creates identity. Whew! You
simply have to experience this one
to understand; but once you have, you will, and things will never be
quite the same again.
The
Ganzfeld #3
also puts the spotlight on history: profiles include
the
inventor of the Macy's Parade Balloons (who also happened to be an
amazing illustrator who did the definitive study of 1920s NYC in Up
and
Down New York); a special 40-page section
devoted
to the Chicago-based art collective, The Hairy Who, by Dan Nadel; and
articles on
Bruegel and deep
space
photography. It features a unique
art/fiction collaboration
between Rick Moody and Fred Tomaselli and a new picture story by
designer
Geoff McFetridge. Also:
a humorous series of black & white drawings which comprise a
picture essay on color theory; an illuminated manuscript on where we
go
when we die; and a short piece on the lost genre of blank books.
AND cool comics by Marc Bell, Ron Regé Jr., Brian Ralph and
Blexbolex. And there's more! (including an essay on the craziness
involved in filming Rope
-- the first Hollywood feature film to take place in real time -- by
none other than its director, Alfred Hitchcock) all
bound
together and accentuated by impeccable graphic design to form an
organic whole that manages to capture some key bits of energy from the
"American Century" and slingshot it over the horizon and into the
dawn of the new millennium.
Now available at a special price.
Edited/Published/Designed
by Peter Buchanan-Smith
and Dan Nadel
Published by Monday Morning
ISBN 0-9713670-1-9
8 x 9.65", paperback; 208 pages,
160/color,
48/black and white.
retail price - $24.95
copacetic
special
price -
$11.77 (over
50% off!)
prices and
availability
current as of 10 April 2012