The Cruise of The Snark at LibriVox

The first book I ever read featuring the topic of surfing is going to be available as a free audiobook at LibriVox. It’s The Cruise of The Snark by no other than the great Jack London. I am listening to the surfing chapter A Royal Sport right now.
I must say, since English is not my first language, while I can understand all the spoken words, it’s still hard to follow. He’s reading a little fast, and doesn’t get you  into the mood too much. I hope these free offers don’t discourage professional efforts. I would think surfing literature would make great audiobooks.

A Royal Sport
audio (Jack London)

The Cruise of the Snark at Amazon

Surf Art! by Rodney Sumpter

surf art book rod sumpter

Surf legend Rod Sumpters guide to the art and graphics of surfing. Hundreds of images of everything from old movie posters, logos, surf shop signs spanning decades and providing a great resource for designers, collectors or anyone interested in the graphic history of surfing. Items include valuations.

Surf Art! at Amazon

Bachelor Pad Magazine

Bachelor Pad Magazine/

Booze, Babes & Burly-Q!
“For Mature readers”

Two lines on the cover of the premier issue of Bachelor Pad Magazine. Java of Java’s Bachelor Pad ventured out to create this very welcome addition to cool mag racks, in the handy, slightly smaller than A5 size. To add flesh to the quotes above here are some names:
Bernie Dexter – picture set of classic pin-up poses
Heidi van Horne – a day in the life of… (actress & pin-up model)
Kay O’Hara – centerfold and more classic pin-up poses
Cherry Capri – lifestyle advice
Lily von Schtupp – burlesque producer
Thrillville’s Will Viharo – the classic Vegas flicks on DVD

There’s also plenty of funny cartoons in the fine tradition of attempting to loosing you up again.
You probably got it now, this is about pin-ups, burlesque and the bachelor pad lifestyle that comes with cocktails, fezes and tikis.

Jimmy Vargas writing on the hopeful, young burlesque dancer and her boyfriend is hilarious and far out – very entertaining. Everything is written very entertaining in fact and if you miss this early issue you might kick yourself later! Did I mention the cocktail recipes and entertaining tips yet? Essential!

Los Angeles – The 50s and 60s

Maverick’s Flat 1966

Dumb Angel Blog is delivering the goods here. The next best thing to being there at the time is knowing all the good stuff.
All the themed night-clubs. The recording studios and labels. The Doo-Wop groups, the R&B and soul acts. The garage bands who covered them. The cool jazz-acts. Early Doors, artists and mindblowing interior design. Pheww… You owe it to yourself to check out this update of the Dumb Angel Blog.

Tiki News Website

Where would Tiki be without Otto von Stroheim’s Tiki News?

Established in 1995, Tiki News is a printed magazine containing 84 + pages packed full of historic and current Tiki information. The first magazine to solely cover Tiki!

The same folks bring you Tiki Oasis each year!

The original Tiki weekender! This August 16-19 join us in San Diego for the seventh Tiki Oasis! Experience top Exotica and Surf bands, the best DJs in the country spinning vintage vinyl, vendors selling unique Tiki trinkets and idols, relax poolside or dance the night away at the Hanelei Hotel! Come and enjoy three nights and three days of fun in the sun!

New Sven Kirsten Book Tiki Modern

After the groundbreaking book on Tiki Pop-Culture of the mid-20th century Tiki Modern follows up with the perfect companion, focusing even more on the interior design aspects of modern Tiki during his heyday.

Deutsch Kurzbeschreibung von der Buecher.de Seite:

Kurzbeschreibung: Dieses amüsante Buch bringt zwei der jüngsten Retro-Trends zusammen: Das Faible für die 1950er und 60er sowie den Tiki-Style. Mit einer Mischung aus Enthusiasmus und Ironie zeigt Autor Sven Kirsten, wie Naivität und Moderne Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts Hand in Hand gingen. Im wahrsten Sinn des Wortes schrecklich moderne Möbel verbanden alten Kitsch und neue Heldenverehrung zum Beispiel Kreationen aus dem Hause Witco; dem Unternehmen, das Elvis Presleys ‘Jungle Room’ und Hugh Hefners Playboy-Pool schuf. Eine wahre Hoch-Zeit des Designs!

hier geht’s zum Buecher.de Shop

Beatnik Beach Film Night at the Egyptian Theater

beats

Domenic Priore from Dumb Angel writes:

(It’s all about the ocean, mannnnnnn…… — Dom)

It’s been a while since I contacted everyone about a blog or somethin’ cool, but this time, it’s for real….

Dig, The American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theater is letting us do our “Beatnik Beach Film Night” this Friday night. We did one last summer at Sponto Gallery in Venice, then in December we brought it to the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. Now, everybody’s been asking us for months to “do this in town” (Venice is a long haul for most of you), so we’re doin’ it up right then, and including a truly great piece of Beat cinema from 1961, “Night Tide” (starring Dennis Hopper and Linda Lawson), plus our slide show of Greater L.A. area Beat coffeehouses and jazz joints of the late ’50s and early ’60s, along with two primordial shorts from the Venice West Cafe back in the day.

If you’ve never been to the Egyptian Theater, it was the immediate predecessor to Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. When Sid Grauman opened it in 1922, it had the same elaborate Hollywood flair (it’s gone through a nice rennovation in its current incarnation as the American Cinematheque). This is gonna be a fun night, in the right place, with all the right people, yeh… We are working on some special guests; all three filmakers may very well be there for Q&A, at least. The American Cinematheque’s description below says it better than I can (o.k., I helped write some of it). Thanks for plannin’, and makin’ an evening of it this Friday. We’re gonna have a ball… — Domenic Priore

Friday, March 30, 2007: Egyptian Theatre

The Friday, March 30th program is a 7:30 PM screening of NIGHT TIDE, (1961, 84 min.). Director Curtis Harrington’s debut indie feature is a masterpiece, a haunted, poetic hymn to the dark world of the fly-by-night carnival, lonely midways at dawn and the siren call of eon’s-old passion spawned by the devils of the deep blue sea. In a fond nod to Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur’s CAT PEOPLE, at-loose-ends sailor Johnny Drake (Dennis Hopper) falls in love with sideshow mermaid, Mora (Linda Lawson) who may just somehow be related to the real thing. Shot in and around Santa Monica and Venice Beach in the beat culture’s heyday, the film continues to exert a strong spell, and is brimming with the heady atmosphere of bygone coffee houses, poet hipsters, languid jazz and bongos on the shore. With Luana Anders, Gavin Muir. “…captures an intangible quality of what Santa Monica was like in the early 60s. Quite apart from Los Angeles, it was a quiet residential community. The funfair pier has just the right air of seedy despair about it. Everyone seems to be living ‘just off’ the mainstream.” – Glenn Erickson, DVD Savant Preceded by the shorts: “Venice In The Sixties” (15 min.) directed by Leland Auslender. Originally shot for a television show and never used, this is essentially a full-color look inside the atmosphere of the Venice West coffeehouse, its various sections, activities and people; “The Beat From Within: Reflections of a Beatnik” (10 min.) Produced by Ralph Morin and directed by Tom Koester, this short covers a day in the life of a Venice beatnik in glorious black ‘n’ white.

Plus, following the screening, Authors Domenic Priore and Brian Chidester (Beatsville, Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood, Dumb Angel #4: All Summer Long) will present a unique one-hour slide show documenting the Beat Generation’s long stretch over the Greater Los Angeles area between 1956 and 1966, via visuals of coffeehouses and jazz joints from the Sunset Strip to Malibu, Venice and Newport Beach. Legendary locations only heard about in books or in liner notes, from the Gas House and nearby Venice West Cafe, to the Unicorn and Shelly’s Manne-Hole in Hollywood, the Lighthouse and Insomniac in Hermosa Beach, then all the way down to Cafe Frankenstein (owned, operated and painted by Burt Shonberg). Arists from John Altoon to Eric “Big Daddy” Nord gave these places a colourful splash, as did the wide variety of Folk singers and poets who performed on their stages.

P.S. Also, a new Dumb Angel blog is at: http://dumbangelmag.blogspot.com/

Beatnik Beach Film Night

This I found today at Dumb Angel Gazette:
quote from site

Thursday, December 7, 2007. 7:00-11:00 p.m.
Roxie Cinema, 3117 16th Street at Valencia, Mission District, San Francisco, California

Authors Domenic Priore and Brian Chidester (Beatsville, Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson’s Lost Masterpiece, Dumb Angel #4: All Summer Long) will present a unique one-hour slide show documenting the Beat Generation’s long stretch over the Greater Los Angeles area between 1956 and 1966, via visuals of coffeehouses and Jazz joints from the Sunset Strip to Malibu, Venice and Newport Beach.

Legendary locations only heard about in books or in liner notes, from the Gas House and nearby Venice West, to the Unicorn and Shelly’s Manne-Hole in Hollywood, the Lighthouse and Insomniac Cafe in Hermosa Beach, then all the way down to Cafe Frankenstein (owned, operated and painted by Burt Shonberg) in Laguna Beach.

Artists from John Altoon to Eric ‘Big Daddy’ Nord gave these places a colourful splash, as did the wide variety of Folk singers and poets who performed on their stages. Accompanying the slideshow will be a rare screening of Dirty Feet (1965), shot primarily at the Prison of Socrates coffeehouse in Balboa. Special guest speakers TBA, there will be another short Beat film or two (including a color one shot inside Venice West), plus a few new routines by San Francisco’s own Devil-Ettes to jazz the room.