cA look at books for CfTristmag
The Album Cover Album
edited by Hipgnosis and Roger Dean
($10.95, A&W Visual, paper)
ou who've been buying rock, jazz
and pop records during the past 10 years will
hardly be surprised at the concept of Album
Covers As Art. What may surprise you is the
number of goodies — sublime, raunchy,
bizarre and otherwise — you've never seen.
Designed by two big guns in the field, it is
spare on text; a short history of the craft be
fore. a concise essay on the business and
techniques of the trade aft give ample space
to That Inbetween — some 140 pages of fine
graphics arranged both for visual flow and
surprise. In short, a mass produced art book of
mass produced art. Beautiful, rich and
strange. One could wish for more full and
half-page reproductions, and a few more of
the more esoteric classical albums than of
fered, but those are the closest things re
sembling faults one can find here. If nothing
else, you can get off on the colors ...
The Changing Countryside
Jorg Muller
($9.95, Atheneum, paper)
F
-■k- irstof
irst of all, this is not a book, but there it
was in the bookstore, impressive ... You can
easily dub it a series of visual poems if you
like. Even if you don’t, these seven large
foldout paintings should grab you some
where. Portrayed here is an anonymous,
perhaps fictional landscape enduring the
changes of 1953-1972, and those changes
are very real and undeniable. Muller is good
enough to take us through the seasons as
well as the years, and anyone who has lived
in the affluent rural parts of this country will
find something familiar going on here. (There
is an accompanying set, The Changing City,
but this one is closer to home.) The much
discussed accelerations of history, technol
ogy and population are silently witnessed
here. Neither cheerful or depressing, this is
apt education for all of us.
Field Guide
to North American
Birds
The Audubon Society Field Guide to North
American Birds: Western Regions
($7.95, Alfred A. Knopf, cloth)
T
JLhis is one handful of pure delight.
Clear color photos (with inset thumbprint
silhouettes) of 627 birds, arranged by color
and shape, fully precede a text arranged by
habitat that is number-keyed to the photo
graphs. The photos are beautiful and well
chosen, the text concise and complete, and it
has an index (both common and scientific
names) that can serve as a record of birds
you have seen already. Whether you tramp
through woods and field, look out the window
! at the bird-feeder crowd, or just hang out at
the duck pond (90 entries here on duck-like
birds'), this book will serve you well, be you
novice or accomplished watcher.
The Second Ring of Power
Carlos Castaneda
($8.95, Simon and Schuster, cloth)
JL Ml flat, barren mountaintop on
the western slopes of the Sierra Madre in
central Mexico was the setting for my final
meeting with don Juan and don Genaro and
their other two apprentices, Pablito and
Nestor... I was indeed seeing don Juan and
don Genaro for the last time. Toward the end
we all said goodbye to one another and then
Pablito and I jumped together from the moun
tain into an abyss."
So begins yet another installment in
Castaneda's tales of sorcery south of various
borders, and if none of the above names
mean anything to you, ask the person you
give this book to, to loan you a copy of The
Teachings of Don Juan and start from square
one: you won't regret it. For those who do
recognize the above, suffice it to say that
Pablito's mother has become one powerful
sorceress, transformed by don Juan for
reasons unknown, and it is she who opposes
Carlos further into regions unknown, and
that’s only the first chapter. Fact or fiction or
both, we are confronted here with a commun
ity where don Juan s ways are the order of
the day. where we are shown the arts of
dreaming and stalking, further techniques in
the sorcerer-warrior s way Those who have
approached this or that abyss with Cas
taneda thus far will need no encouragement
towards this one
Coyote Was Going There: Indian Literature
of the Oregon Country
Compiled and edited by Jarold Ramsey
($14 95, Univ. of Washington Press, cloth)
JLJ
regin with the right setting. It is
deep winter night along the Columbia River
on the Oregon shore . . . There is little for The
People to do but stay indoors and try to keep
warm. It is the season of stones
And this book is full of such stories, delight
ful stones to be read aloud around the fire or
the silenced TV set, by yourself before bed or
on grey days. Dozens of stories about the
many figures mythic and historical the In
dians of this region wove around the land sea
and sky. Central to them is Coyote, the Trick
ster, the Transformer who is alternately
amusing, annoying and occasionally obs
cene, always at the task of establishing and
ordering the world for human habitation.
“The People are almost here," he whispers
to the animals and spirits.
The People came, and there are stories of
them, and then the white folks came, and
there are stories of that transformation, and
then those of times long, long before when
monsters, chaos and elemental nature ruled
the land. Stories, all bound together by what
ever unity Oregon as a place, a region can
offer. Though a bit high-priced, it is a unique
collection, a thorough and probably definitive
document, and after all. it is the right time, the
right setting ..
X
YV 88 An Ecofiction of the Future
Christopher Swann and Chet Roaman
($7 95. Sierra Club, paper)
JL echnology," Stew Brand once
wrote, ‘ Goes either through you or over you
ft's part of the flow that just won t go around
you YV 88 is a book affirming this notion in a
most interesting way
Offered to us by the Sierra Club, it is dif
ficult to evaluate It owes much to Stew
Brand's work, as well as to Ernest
Callenbach s Ecotopia and Richard
Grossmger s lo. particularly the issue on
Vermont One could hope for as professional
and cohesive a work here, but that aside,
what is it9
The authors: YV 88 is not necessarily
what the Sierra Club envisions as the future
of Yosemite Valley It is the authors vision of
opportunities we may have to live more har
moniously with our environment and to use
technology to make this possible
What we have here is a chromcfe of the
1988 maiden journey of a solar-powered
train carrying people from Merced to Yose
mite From this central fact radiates a profu
sion of historical-technical-geographical
ecological information about a given region
Using the near future as a frame-of-reference
from which to view our own present, it be
comes a low-key, but extremely political
scenario. It is a quiet, diffuse statement of
possibilities that seem feasible and not that
far away.
“Machines," wrote Cocteau, “should not
be our slaves or our masters Rather, we
should collaborate with them Include wil
derness or nature" in that and you have YV
88, one version of a common vision
Paul Bocuse's French Cooking
($20.00, Random House, cloth)
T
his is possibly the best of the lot: a
total book It would stand out anywhere
There are those who think French cooking
effete and decadent This book is not for
those, nor is it for those who are not up to
spending considerable time and care on
food. Chef-author Bocuse may or may not be
the world's best, as some contend, but he
has provided those of us who love the art of
cooking and eating (not to mention the art of
cookbooks) a rare treat 1,150 recipes from
the best of French cooking Oh my.
But purist and elitist it is not, for Chef Bo
cuse has adapted his work to utilize ingre
dients easily available in the United States
Each section, in addition, has a gracefully
written general introduction on this or that
sort of food preparation Each recipe in its
turn is given to us in a similar nontechnical
(but no less exact) manner He sees this
book as a novel, to read for enjoyment and
he has a good eye
Visually, this book is also a pleasure Eleg
antly and simply iaid-out. realized in browns
and black, it winds up with the requisite
breath-taking photos and an intelligently de
tailed index Five hundred-plus pages of
civilized endeavor, this is a book that won t be
dated for some time to come
A Sense of the Future
Jacob Bronowski
($12.50, MIT, cloth)
JKL n the best sense of that difficult
word, science is a democratic method. That
has been its strength, that and its confidence
that nothing can be more important than what
is true.” This is a voice that went away when
Jacob Bronowski died in 1974, brought to us
again in a new book of essays.
The man who brought us The Ascent of
Man was a rarity, and becomes even more so
these days, his kind. Though he tends to
castigate all manners of borderline methods,
from astrology to parapsychology to Zen, in
one category, his sense of science and re
lated manners of creatively rational ways is
acutely needed. As one writer put it, science
is our culture's yoga, our central method by
which to yoke together the disparate facts
and facets of our experience. It is the open
ness of science that Bronowski sees as its
chief claim to such primacy.
"To listen to everyone: to silence no one; to
honor and promote those who are right —
these have given science its power in our
world, and its humanity. This from a man
who chose, with other physicists and
mathematicians, to move their work to the life
sciences rather than work on atomic
weaponry. Science, though, is not atomic
bombs or power plants; it is the understand
ing that makes such things possible
For science is not a book, either of facts or
rules; it is the creation of concepts which give
unity and meaning to nature . .. created by
the human mind for the human mind; they are
not God-given ordinances." This book is a
similar creation, and is an invitation to build
our own civili7ed future.
The Taster's Guide to Beer
Michael A Weiner
($7 95. McMillan, paper)
(And Malt does more than Milton can
To /ustify God s ways to Man.
A E Houseman)
C
^^^^ubtitled Brews and Breweries of the
World," this book is for anyone with more
than a casual interest in beer drinking.
Crammed with enough history, trivia and
technical information to keep any contingent
of drinking companions in animated conver
sation well into the night, appended with a
check-list evaluation a la Consumers Re
ports of all the world's brews covered in the
text, amply and wittily illustrated, this serious
and delightful book is a gem. No way can you
stay away from a glass while going through
this.
Written by an anthropologist-botanist who
claims his chief qualification is the fact that he
is “an avid beer-drinker," this is an even
handed, unsnobbish work that could well
have been otherwise. In answer to the ex
pected, “Why read about beer?,” Weiner of
fers the enigma of individual taste and its
need for refinement and definiton. Aware of
the suggestibility and even gullibility of
human tastes, he thinks that one's own taste
can better become one's own once identified
and articulated. His book is presented to that
end. From ingredients and nutritional break
down to brewing and storage processes
through the act of drinking, it's all here. Be
come your own expert, and drink hearty!
Music of the Whole Earth
David Reck
($9 95, Scribners, paper)
M
V JKL usic lovers, listeners and makers
— here's one for you: an eclectic, rather ec
centric, extremely accessible introduction to
the music of an entire planet.
A clearly mystical musician, extensively
trained in many aspects of Western and
Eastern music — composing, performing,
conducting and collecting — David Reck
seeks here to enamor us with the many
musics of this planet. For him, music is
primarily an art of contact and fellowship, be it
with the music itself, the music-makers, or
the region and people from which the music
has grown Just so, he shares what he knows
— a good deal — with us.
You say you can t read music? No obsta
cle, for Reck has obliged us by utilizing sev
eral non-standard notations (along with
numerous rough-hand sketches, diagrams
and maps) to clarify and exemplify the text s
wealth of information. Also, he includes in
these home-grown graphics instructions for
constructing flutes, drums, banjos and
zithers. Do it yourself!
The construction and structure, though, of
music itself is his real concern Getting at the
how via the what is the tact he takes, and his
discussions of comparative musical struc
tures is possibly the most enlightening as
pect of the book. Some of this may be at best
speculation but, like all good fictions, is most
helpful in finding your way through new territ
ory.
Not that this book doesn’t require some
effort on the reader’s part. Participation is the
goal here, and Tie provides a high-density
package for it, with many inroads for all.
Whether electronic-experimental or
vocal/acoustic-traditional, however strange it
seems, Reck feels it is all ours, and would
help us to it. Here are your songs for the
asking.
IheBook
The Book of Merlyn
T.H. White
($9.95, Univ. of Texas Press, cloth)
^ ^Lrthur, Guinevere. Merlin, Lancelot,
Mordred . . happily they never leave us.
Ditto T.H. White.
"I have suddenly discovered." wrote White
in a world approaching World War II, 'that the
central theme of Mode d Arthur is to find an
anecdote to war." His reaction to Thomas
Malory s version of Arthur and Camelot fused
with his own reflections and with those on the
modern world on whose fringes White reluc
tantly lived, and became The Once and Fu
ture King It was not published until 1958, and
even then, the ending was omitted. This book
is that ending, and more.
White, you see, was a pacifist, an odd sort
seldom in favor (save, one would hope, at
Christmas time) and certainly not during the
40 s or 50 s or 60 s or... Well, here it is now,
a cantankerous questioning human voice
speaking to us through Merlyn, a man who
can. among other things, make people be
come animals. He also tells of the future,
mainly because he ages in reverse: his direc
tion is from the "future" — our time and then
some — into the past — the present of
Arthur and Camelot. An odd sort...
The Book of Merlyn stands by itself, how
ever, and will hopefully send a new flock of
readers back to White’s other books and his
peculiar view of the world. As were Swift and
Twain in their latter days. White is a bit the
curmudgeon here. Exasperated, yes; bitter,
no. The ideas here are apt this time of year;
would they were all other times.
(Continued on Page 10B)
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