Madness and genius collide in American Gothic, photographer-filmmaker-artist Carlos Batts’ answer to Grant Wood’s famous 1930 portrait of the same name: that granite-faced, pitchfork-totin’ embodiment of what this country was three-quarters of a century ago. America in 2005 is a very different matter. Fuse Romare Bearden with Man Ray, and you might come close to Batts’ vivisection of America’s diseased soul. In 128 pages of experimental photography and mixed-media, Batts tortures the negative itself to bring forth frenzied, expressionistic hybrids of horror and beauty. Published in softback and limited edition slipcase editions by Baltimore’s Scapegoat Publishing, American Gothic is Batts’ third book and the one most reflective of the artist himself. To be certain, Batts’ previous efforts for the German publisher Edition Reuss, Wild Skin and Crazy Sexy Hollywood, were distinguished by a unique, readily-identifiable style, one that’s proved immensely popular here and overseas. But in both books there is always the sense that the artist is giving us exactly what we as voyeurs want. American Gothic, on the other hand, is Batts’ pure, unadulterated artistic vision, one not tweaked for the mass-market or meant to satisfy bourgeois tastes. Batts’ work is well-known in the worlds of rock, fetish and fashion and admired by discerning, risk-taking gallerist, such as Merry Karnowsky of Los Angeles’ Merry Karnowsky Gallery. However, with American Gothic, Batts is bursting onto the art scene with a tour de force reminiscent of when Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano first shook the world with their controversial imagery. Following in the photographic footsteps of these innovators, Batts has created an oeuvre impossible to ignore, one that burrows into your cranium and devours your preconceptions of what art and photography are all about. Like seeing a David Lynch film for the first time or a painting by Egon Schiele, the tectonic plates of the possible will shift as you leaf through this book. Afterwards, nothing will be the same. Here is the yardstick by which to measure art. Here is the birth of the new. Contains a full length compact disc by musicians: Mastodon, Pg. 99, Swarm of the Lotus, Pig Destroyer, Dog Fashion Disco, Radiation 4, Daybreak, Buzzoven, Agoraphobic Nosebleed.

AMERICAN GOTHIC

Carlos Batts

Literature & Fiction

Scapegoat

CRAZY STREAK is a twisted excursion into seething sexuality, desperate alienation, incest and conscienceless violence; a book destined to be as controversial as Nabokov's "Lolita." The wreck that really begins the novel is also what ends it. Long past the settling of steel and rubber, the bodies and brains of the travelers are beaten and twisted by hate, lust, booze and the sick heat of the Southern California desert wasteland. This story is brutal in its realism. No fairy-tale romance or overly convoluted plots needed. It's not ironic or kitschy; it's certainly not begging to be loved. CRAZY STREAK is as believable as some of your worst, most confused and visceral moments.

CRAZY STREAK

John Gilmore

Arts & Photography

MOTEL BIZARRE

Last, First

ANSWER Me! is a big black slab of trouble. Originally released as a series of magazines, then a collected edition which sold thousands before going out of print, ANSWER Me! has been blamed for a White House shooting and a triple suicide. It has been banned in several countries and put on trial for obscenity in the USA. Chock full of well-written rants, interviews, and articles on topics ranging from music and subcultures to sex, love, hate, murder, serial killers, and suicide, this fat, gorgeous anthology contains the legendary rant-zine’s first three issues in their entirety. It also contains sixty new pages of wistful ANSWER Me! memories and tasty new articles written by philanthropist and humanitarian Jim Goad. There’s a strong chance that this is the best book ever published. Only an idiot would refuse to buy it. 
ANSWER Me! was so wonderful because it reminded me of when my uncle Joey turned me on to National Lampoon when I was eight years old. After National Lampoon I was always looking for uglier forms of humor, and then comes along ANSWER Me! -- Shaun Partridge, Partridge Family Temple 
ANSWER Me! is a nasty little book ... more than worth its cover price for the jaw dropping serial killer and suicide guides. -- debased.com

ANSWER ME!

Goad, Jim

Nina West hasn’t quite crossed the line into adulthood yet, but that’s the only line she hasn’t crossed. Left to her own devices after the untimely death of her parents, Nina is a young girl coming of age with no apologies or conscience. Too cool for school, too hot for television, and too scandalous to be believed, Nina is the twisted and surreal tale of an object of desire that gives as good as she gets, wreaking havoc from her quiet hometown to the glittering shores of California, she’s a cross between Terry Southern’s Candy and Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me. Written by underground idol Blag Dahlia, with a cover by Detroit pop artist Niagara, this ambitious comedy entertains and outrages with each turn of the page.

Nina

Blag Dahlia

Stephen Kasner: WORKS 1993-2006 is an extensive compendium of the paintings, drawings, photographs and prints of a contemporary artist who's symbols translate into a stellar vocabulary depicting strife of the human animal against the austerity of nature. Covering thirteen years of artistic evelopment and exploration, Stephen Kasner: WORKS offers a comprehensive collection of Kasner's organic depictions of figures and animals, birds and flowers, landscapes and interiors, co-mingling in bursts of self-discovery. Dreamlike and vast, these vistas interpret human emotion and psychological struggle in tandem with the harshness of nature and how combinations of delights and disasters affect our personalities, striving toward relief and a yearning for euphoria. Working primarily in oil on canvas and paper, the works compiled in this thirteen year retrospective cover Kasner's sketches, studies, figurative works, full-scale works, photography and printmaking, the latter of which lies predominantly unexhibited and unpublished to date. Stephen Kasner: WORKS is a comprehensive look at the paintings and images of ethereal works in flux, ever pulsating and growing. Included are texts and quotes by a stunning array of individuals, both at the forefront and underbelly of literary and art worlds. The book also chronicles Kasner's extensive group of music-related art, having collaborated with numerous bands worldwide, interpreting their sounds into images.

STEPHEN KASNER (HC)

Kasner, Stephen

Stephen Kasner: WORKS 1993-2006 is an extensive compendium of the paintings, drawings, photographs and prints of a contemporary artist who’s symbols translate into a stellar vocabulary depicting strife of the human animal against the austerity of nature. Covering thirteen years of artistic development and exploration, Stephen Kasner: WORKS offers a comprehensive collection of Kasner’s organic depictions of figures and animals, birds and flowers, landscapes and interiors, co-mingling in bursts of self-discovery. Dreamlike and vast, these vistas interpret human emotion and psychological struggle in tandem with the harshness of nature and how combinations of delights and disasters affect our personalities, striving toward relief and a yearning for euphoria. Working primarily in oil on canvas and paper, the works compiled in this thirteen year retrospective cover Kasner’s sketches, studies, figurative works, full-scale works, photography and printmaking, the latter of which lies predominantly unexhibited and unpublished to date. Stephen Kasner: WORKS is a comprehensive look at the paintings and images of ethereal works in flux, ever pulsating and growing. Included are texts and quotes by a stunning array of individuals, both at the forefront and underbelly of literary and art worlds. The book also chronicles Kasner’s extensive group of music-related art, having collaborated with numerous bands worldwide, interpreting their sounds into images.

Stephen Kasner: Works 1993-2006

Stephen Kasner

"...like a blowtorch to the forehead." -- The Bay Area Reporter "...will soon be required reading for young homosexual men looking for an alternative to disco balls, rainbow flags and celebrity gossip." -- Just Out, Portland "a straight-talking Drill Instructor for today's gay generation, weaning them off pop divas and bear beauty pageants and licking them into a more manly, more self-reliant shape, ready to re-join the masculine fray." -- Mark Simpson, British journalist who coined the term "metrosexual" "...let's just agree to hate it... and leave it at that." --Richard LaBonte, syndicated reviewer for gay newspapers nationwide The word gay has never described mere homosexuality. Gay is a subculture, a slur, a set of gestures, a slang, a look, a posture, a parade, a rainbow flag, a film genre, a taste in music, a hairstyle, a marketing demographic, a bumper sticker, a political agenda and philosophical viewpoint. Gay is a pre-packaged, superficial persona--a lifestyle. It's a sexual identity that has almost nothing to do with sexuality. Androphilia is a rejection of the overloaded gay identity and a return to a discussion of homosexuality in terms of desire. The gay sensibility is a near-oblivious embrace of a castrating slur, the nonstop celebration of an age-old, emasculating stigma applied to men who engaged in homosexual acts. Gays and radical queers imagine that they challenge the status quo, but in appropriating the stigma of effeminacy, they merely conform to and confirm long-established expectations. Homosexual men have been paradoxically cast as the enemies of masculinity--slaves to the feminist pipe dream of a 'gender-neutral' (read: anti-male, pro-female) world. Androphilia is a manifesto full of truly dangerous ideas: that men can have sex with men and retain their manhood, that homosexuality can be about championing a masculine ideal rather than attacking it, and that the "oppressive construct of masculinity" despised by the gay community could actually enrich and improve the lives of homosexual and bisexual men. Androphilia is for those men who never really bought what the gay community was selling. It is a challenge to leave the gay world completely behind and to rejoin the world of men, unapologetically, as androphliles, but more importantly, as men. The 2011 Scapegoat Publishing Kindle Edition includes a new Afterword by the author.

Androphilia: Rejecting the Gay Identity, Reclaiming Masculinity

Malebranche, Jack

The Satanic Scriptures hands down the wit, wisdom and diabolical perspective of the Church of Satan's High Priest, Magus Peter H. Gilmore. These essays, articles and diatribes have been collected from over twenty years of the High Priest's writings for his infernal cabal, some first issued in the pages of publications available only to insiders. From the magic of toys to techniques of time travel, Magus Gilmore leads the reader down a Left-Hand Path where few will find what they expect. The Devil always has all the best tunes and now you'll hear from a Satanic Maestro how the Dark Lord has influenced composers and musicians long before the advent of electric guitars and stadium concerts. Magus Gilmore reveals principles of Satanic Ritual in a frank discussion of forbidden rites. What is a Satanic Funeral? How do Satanists marry? Find out now, as these unholy ceremonies have never before been disclosed outside of the Church of Satan's Hellish Hierarchy. Here is the philosophy for those

The Satanic Scriptures

Religion & Spirituality

Peter H. Gilmore

Other Religions, Practices & Sacred Texts

Androphilia: A Manifesto: Rejecting the Gay Identity, Reclaiming Masculinity

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