Hand-Drying in America
And Other Stories
Published on 5. March 2013
Book
Hardback
160 pages
978-0-307-90690-8 (ISBN)
Description
**Time Magazine's Best Books of the Year 2013**
**NPR's Best Books of the Year 2013**
WITH BEAUTIFUL FULL-COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS THROUGHOUT
From one of the most original and imaginative American cartoonists at work today comes a collection of graphic narratives on the subjects of urban planning, product design, and architecture-a surrealist handbook for the rebuilding of society in the twenty-first century.
Ben Katchor, a master at twisting mundane commodities into surreal objects of social significance, now takes on the many ways our property influences and reflects cultural values. Here are window-ledge pillows designed expressly for people-watching and a forest of artificial trees for sufferers of hay fever. The Brotherhood of Immaculate Consumption deals with the matter of products that outlive their owners; a school of dance is based upon the choreographic motion of paying with cash; high-visibility construction vests are marketed to lonely people as a method of getting noticed. With cutting wit Katchor reveals a world similar to our own-lives are defined by possessions, consumerism is a kind of spirituality-but also slightly, fabulously askew. Frequently and brilliantly bizarre, and always mesmerizing, Hand-Drying in America ensures that you will never look at a building, a bar of soap, or an ATM the same way.
**NPR's Best Books of the Year 2013**
WITH BEAUTIFUL FULL-COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS THROUGHOUT
From one of the most original and imaginative American cartoonists at work today comes a collection of graphic narratives on the subjects of urban planning, product design, and architecture-a surrealist handbook for the rebuilding of society in the twenty-first century.
Ben Katchor, a master at twisting mundane commodities into surreal objects of social significance, now takes on the many ways our property influences and reflects cultural values. Here are window-ledge pillows designed expressly for people-watching and a forest of artificial trees for sufferers of hay fever. The Brotherhood of Immaculate Consumption deals with the matter of products that outlive their owners; a school of dance is based upon the choreographic motion of paying with cash; high-visibility construction vests are marketed to lonely people as a method of getting noticed. With cutting wit Katchor reveals a world similar to our own-lives are defined by possessions, consumerism is a kind of spirituality-but also slightly, fabulously askew. Frequently and brilliantly bizarre, and always mesmerizing, Hand-Drying in America ensures that you will never look at a building, a bar of soap, or an ATM the same way.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Random House USA Inc
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Paper over boards
Illustrations
FULL COLOR ILLS. THROUGHOUT
Dimensions
Height: 312 mm
Width: 296 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
1428 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-307-90690-8 (9780307906908)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
BEN KATCHOR is the author of The Cardboard Valise, The Jew of New York; Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: The Beauty Supply District; and several works of musical theater with the composer Mark Mulcahy. He teaches at Parsons The New School for Design and has contributed to The New Yorker, The Forward, and Metropolis. The first cartoonist to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, he is the subject of the documentary The Pleasures of Urban Decay. He lives in New York.