Unpublished Coffee Table Books
November 23, 2014 8:43 AM   Subscribe

Over the years I have taken countless photos perhaps under the deluded belief that if I don’t visually document everything then those very things won’t exist because I have a magic camera and enchanted iPhone. Or maybe because I just like to take pictures. Either way, it has resulted in me having an untold number of images that I have time and time again organized into coffee table books that remain unpublished because of The Man (or because my own publisher wishes to remain profitable).
posted by Lexica (23 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
Some of them are really funny -- my favorite.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:01 AM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


There's no there there.

I was hoping some of those might be an actual collection of photos; not a funny title on a poor photo.

Unpublished Coffee Table Books = a blog nowadays.
posted by CrowGoat at 9:05 AM on November 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


Not really what it says on the tin.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:20 AM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Eh, vaguely amusing at worst. If Shark Cats makes the cut this certainly does.
posted by mr. digits at 9:43 AM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I've long been a fan of adding amusing captions to found photos; I gather he actually took these himself, but the premise is the same. I like the absurdity of them, and the implication that there are a book's worth of, say, camera-shy pumpkins, is icing on the cake.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:00 AM on November 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


Tough crowd. I liked this.

(I cross my fingers that one day he at least secures funding for Melodramatic Cats and An Admittedly Brief History of Pointillism Monkeys)
posted by billiebee at 10:05 AM on November 23, 2014


You may laugh - or sigh - but the surprise best-seller of the season in Scotland is this....
posted by Devonian at 10:05 AM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I’m a fan as well... maybe not the cats and dogs so much, but many of the others made me laugh. “Chased by a Thousand Jesuses” especially appeals to me.
posted by LeLiLo at 10:15 AM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


There's lots of good stuff on the "about the author" link. I especially like Why Cats are Not Doctors and excerpts from "I Could Pee on This And Other Poems by Cats" such as "Why Are You Screaming?"
posted by billiebee at 10:28 AM on November 23, 2014


You may laugh - or sigh - but the surprise best-seller of the season in Scotland is this....

That made me wince, because baling twine is killing a lot of ospreys in this area. (The link has a disturbing photo, so click with care.) I would love to see it be replaced by something biodegradable and that doesn't attract the birds in the same way.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:46 AM on November 23, 2014


I too would like to make it clear that I am not experiencing joy.
posted by mhoye at 11:08 AM on November 23, 2014


(I actually enjoy these. I'd hate to live a life that has no space for lighthearted whimsical humor in it as much as I'd hate that being the only kind available, I think.)
posted by mhoye at 11:10 AM on November 23, 2014


I would buy several coffee tables if these were actual books.
posted by el io at 11:44 AM on November 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


Chased by a Thousand Jesuses made me laugh!
posted by Omnomnom at 12:08 PM on November 23, 2014


I don't think it was a Top Ten list, but I do remember a Letterman bit (during his NBC days) of "Least Favorite Coffee Table Books" and my favorite was "Get Off the Damn Stage! An Illustrated History of Opening Acts for the Rolling Stones."
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 12:15 PM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm a longtime Francesco fan, originally from his all-purpose satirical comic strip Medium Large. When I saw that he was replacing the original writer on the Sally Forth comic, I said "good for him", but wondered what he would/could do with it. Well, among other things, he developed the character of Sally's husband Ted from the stereotypical "dumb dad" to an entertaining pop-culture geek who, among other things, made The Star Wars Holiday Special into a 'family tradition'. But for this year's 'Thanksgiving story arc', he has gone surprisingly serious, turning Ted's awkward relationship with his much more serious father into one of frightening unprompted hostility. Scarily relatable.

I was also happy for him for the success of his parody of 'cute cat books' (and its sequels), just for the joy of seeing the words "I Could Pee on This" on a best-seller list. But, of all his schticks, my favorite is his Holiday Season Tradition, the Angry Santa Elf. May all your Christmases be White and all your Fridays be Black.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:32 PM on November 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


Mistakes were made.
posted by arcticseal at 1:53 PM on November 23, 2014


These are fab.
posted by turbid dahlia at 1:57 PM on November 23, 2014


Jesii
posted by telstar at 2:25 PM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


When I saw that he was replacing the original writer on the Sally Forth comic...

What happens to you when you wake up one morning and realize that *you* write Sally Forth. It must be some kind of mental break...
posted by ennui.bz at 2:59 PM on November 23, 2014


I followed this tumblr for a while, but then it seemed to turn into constant advertising for his cat book. Wish the was a version with nothing but these covers.
posted by blue_beetle at 3:41 PM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


We had a copy of I Could Pee On That at the bookstore I worked at and I did some ~dramatic readings~ of the poems when we were bored and they were pretty entertaining. Not exactly a work of lasting genius, but it'd be a good book to put next to the toilet.
posted by NoraReed at 12:52 AM on November 24, 2014


the latest from the author: "I Think I Just Destroyed American Literature… "
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:43 PM on November 24, 2014


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