Click here to view the embedded video.

Directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman reconstruct the poem that defined the Beat Generation in their new film, ‘Howl’. The influential poem takes centre stage alongside the film’s main protagonist, American poet Allen Ginsberg, played by James Franco. Here, the directors talk about making the film and why Franco is the perfect Ginsberg.

For more videos like this, log on to Crane.tv, the video-magazine for contemporary culture.

Whether you’ve come home exhausted from seeing shows at Fashion Week or the Design Festival or just need a break from your DVD box set-watching marathon, wind down with some soothing tunes from Australian band Tame Impala.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Set in Tuscany over the course of a day, this comedy of sorts (both of errors and of manners) is about the questionable relationship between an English author and a French antique shop owner.

It all begins with a book: Certified Copy. James Miller (played by newcomer and opera baritone William Shimell), a visiting author from England is in Tuscany to give a lecture on his book and his Baudrillardian theories on reproductions in art: a copy is not merely a reproduction of the original; it is a thing of value in itself at par with the simulated.

It is with this theme that Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami navigates the film—from its premise down to its very close resemblance to Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset (2004).

“She” (played by Juliette Binoche) an antique shop owner is invited along to the lecture. Visibly taken by the dashing author’s risqué views on art, her quick-witted son teases her that she may possibly have a “crush.”

The next day, she ends up giving the author a tour of the town. He proves to be a slightly difficult but otherwise entertaining guest. They philosophise about costume jewellery, Coke bottles and Cypress trees with the overzealousness of Fine Art undergraduates before embarking on more earthly topics: She’s son and family life. This is where the plot begins to become slightly murky. When a café owner mistakes the couple for a real one, She doesn’t correct her. James’s and she’s relationship shifts from interested strangers to an intimate couple. Are they merely role-playing? Like Before Sunset perhaps they have met before? It never quite becomes clear.

The exchanges are a bit laboured but it may be down to the dialogue working very hard to communicate emotion convincingly in three languages — English, French and Italian. There is a sense that for all its intellectual rigour, the script lacks a fundamental element: a practical sense of the way people genuinely interact in real life. But, the breakdown in communication works well as a metaphor for the breakdown in their “copy” marriage.

The role of “copy” husband is played with aplomb by newcomer William Shimell. An opera singer by training, this is Shimell’s first straight acting role. His James is suitably arrogant and dry and humorously impatient at times. Juliette Binoche’s performance on the other hand is inspired and elicits just the right reactions from the audience. But it can also be at moments tiring – giddy with excitement one moment, palpably upset two minutes later. Still, they work well together. And anyone in a relationship or has been in one will find humour in their “quarrels.”

As for execution, there is an easy manner to the directing and everything is shot in minimalist fashion even the in-car conversations where the focus is on the splendid journey rather than on the passengers.

Despite curiously mixed reviews in the press, this is an often thought-provoking, sometimes frustrating but always charmingly clever film that leaves one upon the rolling of the credits, undecided but generally satisfied. Like Before Sunset of which the film may well be a “copy” (but like Miller’s book, follows the logic that it is a copy as valuable if not more so than its original), we can project our own desired ending.

Poster via Filmofilia

I really can’t complain much about the weather this summer. On the whole, it’s been fairly cooperative and hasn’t shied away from us at all.

But when it threatens to return to its normal state of schizophrenia – sunny, wet, sunny, wet, dry with sunny periods and some rain for good measure – I fear the end of summer and grumpily concede (if preemptively) that autumn/winter may be upon us.

So ever so slowly, I’ve been trying to stock up on sensible clothing for the cooler months ahead (sales come in handy here).

Now I know I said I’d write mostly about books but I couldn’t help but admire the bookish but stylish look the French fashion and music label Kitsuné created for their Autumn/Winter 2010 collection which they’ve fittingly called Ivy League.

Instead of a preppy or Young Fogey aesthetic one might expect from such a title, the collection is a thoughtful, fresh and charmingly quirky take on what otherwise might have been a look taken straight from Brideshead Revisited (or off the racks of Brooks Brothers).

The collection has some very strong individual and sensible pieces that you may well find in your wardrobe for years to come. From well-tailored suits and blazers and smart shirts to comfy knitwear and grandpa cardigans, this is a collection that will help you transition your wardrobe nicely and painlessly into autumn/winter. Now off you go.

Website: www.maisonkitsune.fr/clothes/

For women, have a look at the Kitsune Autumn/Winter 2010 look book here.

For men, have a look at the Kitsune Autumn/Winter 2010 look book here.

Stockist in London: Dover Street Market

“Friendly Guidance for the Aspiring Englishman” does sound like a book Debrett’s might publish or a satirical journal targeted to new immigrants to the country. But it is in fact part of the title of a pamphlet distributed by the German Jewish Aid Committee to refugees during World War II to help new settlers assimilate.

Natasha Solomons stumbled across the leaflet (originally titled Useful Advice And Friendly Guidance To All Refugees) while doing research at the British Library and it formed the framework of her debut novel, Mr Rosenblum’s List subtitled Friendly Guidance for the Aspiring Englishman.

Warm and humorous, the debut is light-hearted in tone but beneath the seemingly whimsical narrative lies a thoughtful and empathetic take on the theme of exile and the tribulations faced by immigrants trying to get on and fit in. It tells of a refugee couple from Germany who come to England in 1937, and the dilemmas they encounter while navigating their strange new world. Jack Rosenblum does everything in his power to transform himself into a “proper” Englishman, including, in no particular order, changing his name from Jakob to Jack and later on, on his daughter’s suggestion, changing his surname from Rosenblum to Rose, compiling the definitive compendium of the customs and habits of England, reading The Times [oops, paywall] (and finishing the crossword in under two hours), buying a Jaguar, getting a bespoke Henry Poole suit and hopelessly attempting to gain membership into a golf club. When he fails in the last task, he decides to do the seemingly impossible: build his own golf course…in Dorset. But despite his enthusiasm and unwavering self-belief, he faces unforeseen obstacles, including his wife, Sadie.

Sadie is rather confounded by her husband’s overzealous efforts to become an Englishman. But all he really wants is to blend in and not be seen as a ‘class B enemy alien’. She knows that their neighbours call Jack a “deliberate assimilator” behind his back. But while he “sausages through” their new life with aplomb, Sadie never quite feels at home in Britain. After a traumatising bus ride during her first few months in England (upon being asked by the conductor where her ticket is, she replies “The Lord above, he will pay,” referring to Jack who is upstairs looking for seats on the double-decker), Sadie never quite recovers and stops trying altogether. She’d much prefer to bake Baumtortes to drown her sorrows and to remind her of her happy life “before.”

Meanwhile, their daughter Elizabeth is getting on just fine. She is the epitome of Englishness – from her faultless accent and Cambridge education to her pale, rosy skin. Jack is extremely proud of her but it takes a while and a little bit of baking before Elizabeth finally and fully returns the favour.

Solomons’s clever use of conceits and leitmotifs – the golf course and the German tortes – ensures the narrative is more complex than it initially appears to be. The building of the golf course is a seamless metaphor that tracks Jack’s journey to his self-devised road to Englishness and without knowing it, to forming friendships. Meanwhile, the Baumtortes, which we associate with Sadie are reminders, memories of places and things past but they’re also what help Sadie forge relationships with her new English friends and revive her relationship with her daughter. Her past – the past Jack is so intent on erasing to pave way for the future – is what helps make way for hers.

Jack makes friends with the unlikeliest of people, particularly with an elderly local called Curtis who helps him build his golf course. He believes or at least pretends to believe everything the old man says – including the existence of the mythical Dorset woolly-pig, which locals attest is the culprit behind the unraveling of his fairways. Allusions to local fables and folklore lend a sense of light-heartedness and fun to the novel but like everything else in this debut, it serves a specific purpose. Item one hundred and fifty one, the last item on Jack Rosenblum’s long and comprehensive compendium to Englishness states, “This last item supersedes all previous list items. If you see a Dorset woolly-pig you are a true Dorset man. And any noggerhead or ninnywally knows, the Dorset man is the best of all Englishmen.” Whether or not Jack does in fact see a woolly-pig is beside the point (and also you may like to find out for yourself). In the end, everyone thinks Jack to be what he’s always desired – but he discovers that’s no longer the most important thing in the world.

This thoughtful and funny debut tackles a somewhat trying topic with great verve and humour, and also shows us that in order to rediscover and learn to love what we have, sometimes we have to momentarily lose them.

:: Mr Rosenblum’s List or Friendly Guidance for the Aspiring Englishman by Natasha Solomons is published by Sceptre, priced £12.99. Available now.

Photos taken by me. Book: Creamier: Contemporary Art in Culture (Phaidon, 2010)

Note: For illustrative/preview purposes only. You should be able to see the layout (but not necessarily the text).

‘Author as curator’ isn’t entirely a new concept. In fact, many authors can probably well argue that they “curate” work all the time – creating mood boards and collecting and selecting objects designed to inform a work in progress.

Novelist J.G. Ballard took this idea to a whole new level with his novel Crash. Before writing it, he set out to test his ideas for the novel by holding an exhibition of crashed cars in the New Arts Laboratory in London in 1970. More recently, at the Gagosian Gallery, an exhibit entitled Crash named after his 1973 novel, paid homage to the British novelist. It featured works by artists who influenced his writing including Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon.

Another novelist who literally has an exhibit in his book – and in real life (the New York Times reported that he bought a building in Çukurcuma to house the project) – is Turkish author and Nobel laureate Orham Pamuk.  In Museum of Innocence, the protagonist Kemal curates an exhibit dedicated to his beloved, Füsun – the museum filled with objects and ephemera that evoke memories of her.

But the idea of ‘book as museum or gallery’ does not just crop up in fiction. In the art world, picture books have for years served as catalogues of an artist’s work or of a group exhibition.

Creamier: Contemporary Art in Culture – out in bookshops this month – takes this one step further and hosts an actual exhibition in a newspaper. 10 international curators – from Tate Modern’s Catherine Wood to Hiroshima City Museum’s Yukie Kamiya – handpick 100 of the most innovative emerging artists today.

Printed in matte paper stock in Financial Times-pink, this is a truly beautiful book, erm or should I say newspaper – each page a joy to look at and turn. The range of artists selected are a diverse lot, from their hometowns (from Argentina to Poland) to their preferred mediums (from sculpture to video).

At £24.95, this is an exhibition worth going to – and keeping.

At the nearest bookshop near you.

:: Creamier: Contemporary Art in Culture: 10 Curators, 100 Contemporary Artists, 10 Sources is published by Phaidon. Available now.

To see the book in context:

Publisher’s Contemporary Art Commissioning Editor talks about the new book:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Publisher’s Associate Art Director talks about its creation:

Click here to view the embedded video.

A good bookshop is like a good café – the thoughtful staff remember your morning order or in this case, perhaps your literary tastes. Rarely would one find this personal service in a large high street chain.

This week, we celebrate those bookshops so integral to communities – in local villages, towns and cities around the country. Independent Booksellers Week, which runs from 14-21 June, heralds both long-established and new generation bookshops that are independently operated. Various events – from author readings to competitions – are being held around the country. To find events and participating bookshops near you, log on to Independent Booksellers Week.

In the past two years, 100 or so independent bookshops in the UK have opened. Despite the economic downturn and a decrease in consumer spending on books, the sector has reported a 1% rise in sales.

To mark this remarkable achievement, we look at one of the few beloved bookshops in London that’s inspired a cult and loyal following: John Sandoe Books.

10 Blacklands Terrace, SW3 2SR

Nearest tube: Sloane Square

020 7589 9473

www.johnsandoe.com

Location: Tucked away in a side street off of the King’s Road, this is a hidden gem – immaculate on the outside and in the inside, a pleasantly surprising jumble [of books]. Housed in a lovely Georgian building, its history harks back to 1957.

Selection: Delightfully comprehensive despite the size of the shop. Every genre and subject features – from the usual fiction suspects to non-fiction titles spanning psychology through to ornithology. They also stock a range of poetry and new writing journals like Vendela Vida’s The Believer and Ambit.

Upon entering the shop, one is greeted by a front table stacked with relatively recent titles – from David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet to Martin Amis’s The Pregnant Widow. To the left of the ground floor is where the magnificently well-informed shopkeepers hold fort.

The surrounding shelves are stacked with backlist titles, mostly arranged alphabetically.  To the left of the register is a backroom that houses all the art titles from Phaidon and Taschen but also from lesser-known publishers.

Clambering up the steep spiral staircase (hopefully without falling over teetering piles of books) leads on to an attic-like space fitted with a concertina shelving system – where more backlist titles hide coyly behind other books. When I was here, I had the room all to myself so I ambushed the solitary chair and leafed through my selection, including the travel books, which are also to be found on the first floor.

The basement, on the other hand is where all the children’s books are – from Dr. Seuss to childhood favourites like Roald Dahl and J.R.R. Tolkien. It’s seductively presented and there’s a chair where I imagine a storyteller might be seated while children cross-legged on the floor might look up at her in awe as she reads The Witches (or perhaps something slightly less disturbing).

This is also where all the plays and poetry books are and books on gardening and birds.

Interiors: The books are the furniture. And except for the battered chairs and a few wooden shelves, you’ll hardly notice the interiors. But the atmosphere is easygoing and agreeable.

Staff: Ah, wonderfully helpful and impressively (scarily?) well read. Whether you’re looking for a book for a friend, for an aunt or a grandmother, they can point you to the right direction.

Plus points: Fine, so I went in there with a Daunt Books canvas bag (promise, I didn’t mean to). But they also have classy bags of their own in black with white typography.

Verdict: There is something reassuring about the organised entropy in this wonderful bookshop. It incites the same familiarity one might feel at one’s grandparent’s – in the nicest possible way: comforting, as if nothing in the world could go wrong within its premises. The selection’s impeccable too and despite its loyal client base, you somehow feel you have the bookshop all to yourself.

Photos taken by moi.

The Swedish design duo Maria Larsson and Maria Olevik behind In Every Tree looked to books for inspiration for their latest project, the Art of Writing. Some of the pieces were featured in their recent exhibit Porcelain Castle at Anthropologie’s gallery on the King’s Road.

Using moulds made of actual books, the sculptures were cast in bone china lending them an ethereal quality when lighted.

An unusual addition to any bookshelf or a quirky display on your coffee table, these are books we can honestly call ‘compelling’ and ‘beautiful’ without ever having opened them.

To contact the artists, visit In Every Tree.

Photos from Twelve South

Is it a book’s inconspicuous place on a bookshelf or simply its unassuming exterior that’s made it a favourite tool for minor subterfuge? Case in point: book safes. Hide everything from your salary to your bottle of whisky in the unlikeliest of books, the preferred choices being the Bible or Das Kapital.

For one of your most prized possessions, your laptop (okay, don’t lie and tell me it isn’t especially if you’re using a Mac), what better way to keep it safe than to pretend that it’s a book (one of those pretty but boring antiquarian looking ones that no one would actually want to steal).

Twelve South have come up with a solution: BookBook. Fine, so it’s not the most creative of names but it does what it says on the label: it conceals your MacBook by disguising it as a book.

Apart from the aesthetic value, the BookBook is in many ways pragmatic. It follows some form of logic: (a) since no one reads books nowadays anyway why would anyone want to steal a book that looks like the text might be written in Old English, (b) the inside is padded and the outside is hardback (as is the spine) so if for instance you forget that your book is in fact your laptop and you hurl it across the room/at imaginary lover during an impassioned moment, then you’ve nothing to worry about as it possesses a solid level of impact-absorbing protection. Pheew.

Or to put it simply, it’s quite pretty, it keeps your MacBook safe and it’s much, much better than those fuggly orange neoprene laptop sleeves, don’t you think?

Available in black and red and for 13”and 15” MacBook/MacBook Pro. Want to purchase? Have a browse at Dennis and McGregor.

BookBook for iPad coming soon. For more information, sign up here.

Photo of Phonophone from Science + Sons

Photo from Underwood. Sleeve cover design by Emily Chicken. Illustration by Jordan Crane.

Photo from Underwood. Sleeve cover design by Emily Chicken. Illustration by Jordan Crane.

Perhaps it was because I was curious to find out what exactly, as my colleague referred to it, a ‘Listening’ party was that I decided to tag along to the Underwood Launch. Admittedly, it also sounded like all I needed to do was sit down, shut up and listen—which was a slight struggle but not entirely complicated/difficult.

Now this listening party (produced by Underwood)—instead of involving a stage, a mike and authors as I had expected—involved a 12” vinyl record. There it was in front of the room—sitting innocently enough on a turntable displayed reverently on an elevated base. The attendees gathered round it like churchgoers assembling around the pulpit on a Sunday.

On the press release, Underwood claims, “in an increasingly digital age Underwood looks to preserve the short story.”

In many ways, this is surely a novel idea that meets the demands of nostalgia. It’s quirky and delightful. But to say that vinyls preserve the short story, surely this is counter-intuitive? How many people, I wonder, own a gramophone? If one doesn’t own a gramophone or a turntable with which to play a vinyl, then how does one listen to it?

Fortunately, they did have one at the listening party. Appropriately, the slightly gothic set-up was punctuated by bird sounds, which accompanied Clare Wigfall’s recording of her short story “Along Birdcage Walk.” Commissioned by the Royal Parks, Wigfall’s story begins in St. James’ Park in 1664 where her main characters fall in love. But a curious turn of events (I’d hate to reveal anything but as you might have gathered from the story’s title, it involves birds) unsettles the narrator’s once perfect relationship with her beloved.

The experience of sitting in hushed silence (except for wee cries from a baby) reminded me of being in church. No one dared make a sound—not even to cough or sneeze. Whether it was respect for the turntable or the author, I am not quite sure but I was—as many others in attendance or at least seemed to be—doubly attentive.

“Along Birdcage Walk” was followed by Toby Litt’s “The Hare,” a poignantly beautiful if obscure and surreal tale involving adventures in the countryside and the British Library but is ultimately about grappling with the death of a second child.

After the, shall we call it ‘performance’, a Q&A followed. One novelist in the crowd asked how listening to a short story on a vinyl makes it any different from listening to it on your own on an iPod when technology allows sound to be rendered in such excellent quality.

Which is fair enough. A rather delightful woman in the audience even remarked that the whole exercise was “technologically irrelevant.” This had me giggling (embarrassingly geeky) but if thoughtfully considered, she does make a very valid point.

To say that vinyls preserve the short story as a literary format is a bit like saying the Betamax can save the short film from its demise.

But, recording short stories on vinyls and holding an event around it makes for a wonderful communal gathering where people do in fact sit up and pay attention. When most readings at bookshops are not too dissimilar from one another, playing short stories on vinyls in a public space is also a brilliant way for authors—not the short story—to be a little bit different and innovative in promoting their work.

It was also a truly lovely affair and one, which I do hope Underwood will continue to produce and host. As for actually buying the vinyl record, well I’d first need to find someone who’ll lend me a gramophone…

To sign up for Underwood’s email list and receive information about their upcoming events, click here.