Before Alexa and the iPhone, there was the large and unwieldy mainframe computer. In the postwar 1950s, computers were mostly used for aerospace and accounting purposes. To the public at large, they were on a rung that existed somewhere between engineering and science fiction. Magazine ads and marketing brochures were designed to create a fantasy surrounding these machines for prospective clients: Higher profit margins! Creativity unleashed! Total automation! With the invention of the microchip in the 1970s came the PC and video games, which shifted the target of computer advertising from corporations to the individual. By the end of the millennium, the notion of selling tech burst wide open to include robots, cell phones, blogs, online dating services, and much, much more. Do You Compute? is a broad survey featuring the very best of computer advertising in the 20th century. From the Atomic Age to the Y2K bug, this volume presents a connoisseur’s selection of graphic gems culled from museums, university archives, and private collections to illustrate the evolution of the computer from its early days as a hulking piece of machinery to its current state as a handheld device. Accompanied by two essays―one by cultural anthropologist Ryan Mungia and the other by graphic design historian Steven Heller―and including five different decade-long timelines that highlight some of the most influential moments in computer history, this fun yet meaningful volume is a unique look at the computer and how it has shaped our world.

Do You Compute: Selling Tech from the Atomic Age to the Y2K Bug 1950-1999

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Hat & Beard Press

Hardcover, 148 pages 9 × 12 in. 22.86 × 30.48 cm. 
 Pheromone Hotbox, the first monograph from Los Angeles–based photographer Amanda Charchian (born 1988), brings together work shot by the artist between 2012 and 2015. Working around the idea of the “Pheromone Hotbox” that occurs when a woman photographs another woman―a title Charchian lent to a 2014 group exhibition at Stephen Kasher Gallery in New York―Charchian photographs her female artist friends in dramatic locations across the globe, including in Iceland, France, Costa Rica, Morocco, Israel, and Cuba. Simultaneously dreamy and erotically charged, Charchian’s photographs capture the intensity and intimacy of the interaction between artist and model. In addition to exhibiting her fine art photography in galleries internationally, Charchian is also well known for her fashion and commercial work, which has appeared in numerous international publications, including Vogue, Huffington Post, i-D, Interview, Garage, and Purple.
 Edited by J.C. Gabel and Jessica Hundley Designed by Brian Roettinger Split release with Dilettante Paper Hat &amp; Beard Press #2

Pheromone Hotbox

Photography & Video

The legendary punk and new wave alternative weekly magazine Slash was founded in Los Angeles in 1977 by Steve Samiof, and published a total of 29 print issues before its demise in 1980 (though it had a second life as the punk label Slash Records, which was eventually bought by Warner Bros. Records in 1999). In its brief run, Slash defined the punk subculture in Los Angeles and beyond with the comic strip Jimbo by Gary Panter and photographs by Melanie Nissen, the cofounding publisher and longtime photo editor. Writing by Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Chris D., Pleasant Gehman and Claude “Kickboy Face” Bessy explored reggae, blues and rockabilly in addition to punk and new wave. Slash diagnosed the nascent punk scene’s challenge to the music industry and established its own oppositional voice in the editorial of its very first issue, staking a position against disco, Elvis and concept albums, and declaring: “Enough is enough, partner! About time we squeezed the pus out and sent the filthy rich old farts of rock ’n’ roll to retirement homes in Florida where they belong.” Slash: A Punk Magazine From Los Angeles, 1977–80 pays homage to the magazine’s legacy with facsimile reproductions of every cover from the publication’s run and reprints of some of the magazine’s best articles and interviews. These are interspersed with new essays, reportage and oral histories from Exene Cervenka, KK Barrett, Gary Panter, Vivien Goldman, Richard Meltzer, Cali Thornhill DeWitt, Chris D., Bryan Ray Turcotte, Chris Morris, Ann Summa and Allan MacDowell, among others, telling the story of this critical chapter in the history of American media.

Slash: A Punk Magazine from Los Angeles: 1977-1980

Graphic Design

An unofficial history of Jamaican dance hall music told through its graphic design, Serious T’ings Gonna Happen brings together more than 200 original posters and signs from the early 1980s through today, drawn from the poster collection of Jamaican film and television producer and director Maxine Walters. Jamaican dance hall emerged out of reggae in the late 1970s and brought with it a new visual style characterized by bright colors and bold, hand-drawn lettering. One-of-a-kind, hand-painted posters advertising local parties and concerts have become a ubiquitous part of Jamaica’s landscape, nailed (illegally) to poles and trees across the island. Over the past three decades Walters, who has been called “the queen of Jamaican dance hall signs,” has amassed a collection of some 4,000 of these street posters, advertising local "bashments" held at bars, on beaches and in primary schools. Treated by most Jamaicans as simply a fact of life, the dance hall poster has until recently received little careful, critical attention; this volume begins to rectify that with essays by Vivien Goldman and others, alongside the posters themselves, reproduced one to a page in full color. The book also includes liner notes by and interviews with Muta Baruka and Mikie Bennett of Grafton Studios, and Tony Winkler, author of The Lunatic, as well as a compilation of original dance hall tracks curated by Mikie Bennett and Rory of Stone Love.

Serious T'ings a Go Happen: Three Decades of Jamaican Dance Hall Signs

Walters, Maxine

Cerro Gordo is a photographic study of Los Angeles, California, created over the span of a year. Inspired by depictions of the city in motion pictures of the 1970s and early 1980s, photographer and director David Black (born 1980), noted for his work with musicians such as Daft Punk, Cat Power and Kendrick Lamar, explores various noir themes that cut through Los Angeles’ sunshine veneer. Black’s photographs examine the complex existence between light and dark and its role in our modern mythologies, visually appraising Los Angeles’ archetypes and identity in popular culture and exposing the city’s paradoxical bent as a land of dreams and disillusionment. Cerro Gordo is Black’s first monograph.

David Black: Cerro Gordo

LAMBERT, Gavin

Hardcover, 304 pages 6 × 9 in. 15.24 × 22.86 cm. 
 During his first major sit-down with the music press in 1977, between claiming all his songs were about guilt and revenge, Elvis Costello casually remarked, “I don’t really listen to Lou Reed’s records, but I never miss an interview with him.”
 Indeed, for all his publicly expressed loathing of the press in general and music journalists in particular, during his long career as a rock artist, Lou Reed was never less than entertaining in his dealings with the Fourth Estate. In fact, one could go so far as to claim that, for Lou, the press became as much an implement of expression as singing, composing, and playing music. In a style at times very much informed by his mentor Andy Warhol, Reed could play the media like a Marshall-amped Stradivarius.
 To the majority of his fans, the apotheosis of Reed’s relationship with the press, and most prominently regarded to this day, was the series of combative tête-à-têtes between Lou and the late great music journalist Lester Bangs, published in CREEM Magazine during the 1970s.
 My Week Beats Your Year: Encounters with Lou Reed features 30+ interviews spanning his solo career, from the golden era of print rock-journalism, to the first online blogs. The compilation is one fan’s humble attempt to move beyond the Bangs canon, and delve deeper into the distance and intimacy, cactus and mercury, that constituted Lou’s post-Velvet Underground public media image.
 This anthology will be an intimate portrait of Reed who, in addition to being notoriously prickly (to put it mildly), was also intelligent, articulate, and deeply passionate about what was important to him, both as a person and as a creative artist.
 Edited and with texts by Pat Thomas Compiled by Michael Heath Foreword by Luc Sante Designed by Philippe Karrer Cover photograph by Mick Rock Hat &amp; Beard Press #13

My Week Beats Your Year: Encounters with Lou Reed

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Hardcover, 224 pages 7½ × 10¾ in. 19.05 x 27.305 cm.
 Acclaimed biographer and Bradbury scholar Sam Weller spent more than a decade interviewing Ray Bradbury, who admitted, “Sam Weller knows more about my life than I do.” Revealed in Weller and Bradbury’s conversations, collected in Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews, is a vivid portrait of the author. A creative genius, an opinionated and occasionally contrarian thinker, “and a nostalgic futurist,” Bradbury longed for yesterday even as he looked toward tomorrow.
 During the process of conducting research for the book, noted Los Angeles photographer Zen Sekizawa photographed Bradbury’s home and decades of his accumulated possessions. Her photographs present an alternate portrait of Bradbury―one that is more poignant now that his personal possessions have been sold at auction and his home of more than half a century razed.
 Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews is the definitive collection  of interviews with this American icon, illustrated with Sekizawa’s stunning color photographs (including previously unpublished images). Originally issued as a paperback in 2010 by Stop Smiling Books and Melville House Publishing, Listen to the Echoes is now available as a full-color, larger-format hardcover edition with a new final chapter by Weller about Bradbury’s legacy since his death in 2012, and dozens of new photographs from the Bradbury archive. Also new to this edition are essays by Margaret Atwood and Frank Darabont.
 Ray Bradbury (1920–2012), the poetic and visionary author of such classics as Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and The Illustrated Man, was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Bradbury’s sway over contemporary culture is towering―Mikhail Gorbachev, Alfred Hitchcock, and David Bowie all counted themselves as fans, to name only a very few.
 Limited Edition The limited version comes in an edition of 300, is printed on silver foil, and wrapped in a clear poly book jacket. It includes a “library card” signed by contributors Margaret Atwood, Frank Darabont, Black Francis, and Sam Weller. 
 Edited by J.C. Gabel Foreword by Black Francis Afterword essays by Margaret Atwood and Frank Darabont Designed by Benjamin Woodlock Original photography by Zen Sekizawa Hat &amp; Beard Press #10

Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Crystals are living beings at the beginning of creation. -Nikola Tesla Forged by fire and fluid-and the slow, heavy press of the earth's surface-crystals are nature at its most miraculous, science as it veers into the mystical. The debut book in our New New Age Series, Crystals provides an elegant page-by-page overview of the healing, emotional, and spiritual attributes of nearly 50 different stones. Featuring stunning original photography, Crystals is a concise and modern guide-a new look at an enduring and ancient practice.

The New New Age Series: Crystals

Jessica Hundley

Softcover, 160 pages 4¾ × 7½ in. 12.065 × 19.05 cm. Poetry, when encountered unexpectedly, can be unexpectedly loved. One might love it accidentally. -Mandy Kahn Using the ancient Japanese art form of haiku as his weapon of choice, author Johnathan Rice dissects and disrupts, blasting our collective feed with razor sharp socio-political satire and insightful culture commentary. From the chaotic state of American politics to the labyrinthine emotional landscape of a Tinder date-his debut book of poetry addresses all the vacuous ennui of the modern world. A singer-songwriter signed to Reprise Records in 2003, Rice has been recording and producing music ever since. In 2016 a shift in his life led him to move from a leafy home in Laurel Canyon to a rougher, weirder existence in Echo Park. Spending hours on Instagram, Rice eventually came to see it as a form of social hieroglyphics. This ignited a personal creative experiment, as Rice began populating his feed with words, all on an app usually reserved for images. The result was a series of what he dubbed his "dystopian haikus" and what became a cathartic, therapeutic method of using humor and poetry to comment on what he feels may be a disintegrating culture ... and his own complicity in it. Farewell, My Dudes is a specially curated selection of Rice's 2016-17 Instagram posts, each of them a three-line, structured syllabic wonder. Sly, witty, and unexpectedly poignant, Rice's dystopia is simultaneously insightful and hilarious. It is an assortment of keenly observed statements about life, music, art, social media, brunch-and of course love. Edited by Jessica Hundley &amp; J.C. Gabel Introduction by Mandy Kahn Designed by Taylor Giali

Farewell My Dudes: 69 Dystopian Haikus

Johnathan Rice

In a Pickle is a warmly told children's tale about a precocious little boy and his schoolyard predicament. It is delightful in its simplicity yet enchanting in the way it mischievously unfolds. The title quandary involves a classic case of bullying, yet is elevated with a clever solution and ends on a touching bon mot. Bright and warm watercolor illustrations are a visual treat throughout, on par with vintage children's books of yore. In a Pickle is both a classic and modern tale. It is for any reader looking to be enchanted by a plucky little boy and his clever dad. With your purchase ofIn A Pickle, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Horizons National, whose mission is to close gaps of opportunity and access for students in under-resourced communities and empower choice-filled lives.

In a Pickle

Children's Books

Martinko, Martinko

Growing Up & Facts of Life

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