Tintin is a god to me.

Surely this imaginary globetrotter seems real to most of us. He is also the most beloved of all comic-book heros worldwide – except in America, where he is inevitably confused with the dog, Rin Tin Tin - as well as the first literary boho “backpacker.”

Too, Tintin’s second book, Tintin Au Congo, proved misaligned with Yankee tastes with its racist-seeming stereotypes of large-lipped “negroes.” I’m afraid they’re much worse than Al Jolson in blackface singing My Little Mammie or Little Black Sambo turning tigers into ghee, although the amusingly obsolete and offensive tome is still wildly popular in Africa.

Indeed, the cowlicked androgynous-looking (but supposedly not gay, even considering the dearth of dames in the series) boy reporter represents wanderlust in the first degree, inhabiting an extreme alt universe grounded in graphic colorized geography, both real and imagined.

Tintin, a native son beloved by the weepy Walloons of Belgium (but known in Germany with typical Teutonic efficiency as “Tim”), has stumbled upon the Incas in Peru, smoked cigars with the Pharoahs in Egypt, played cowboy in America, and even rocketed to the moon. Also, he uncovers a smuggling ring in The Crab with the Golden Claws, goes hunting for “booty” in Red Rackham’s Treasure, and wows us in the imaginary kingdom of Syldavia (loosely based upon any Balkan country).

No doubt, there is nothing that this young millionaire adventurer, once he departs the luxurious safety of his beloved mansion Marlinspike Hall, that is, can’t do — especially with the help of his loyal cronies Snowy (known as “Minou” in France), Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus, and the Thom(p)son Twins.

In fact, so big a fan am I, one of my proudest possessions is a carved wooden Tintin statue with a fey smile I acquired in Grand Bassam, Cote d’Ivoire, which I deemed perfect for smuggling diamonds or heroin. Hence, I was keenly interested on getting the skinny on his somewhat sketchy creator, the Belgian artist Georges Remi (a.k.a, Hergé). Despite his success as a cartoonist – the Tintin series comprises twenty-four books and has sold millions of copies in dozens of languages – Hergé was often criticized during World War Two for being a “collaborator” with the Nazis only after Belgium was occupied, though in fact the false accusation is assuredly apocryphal.

Pierre Assouline’s recent biography Hergé: The Man Who Created Tintin, though simple, even sketchy (perhaps because the translator Charles Ruas might have rushed it to press to beat the Ruas rushed to beat the clock on the new Spielberg/Jackson Tintin film adaptation) still answered many of my questions. But the elegantly weird Francophone diction, as well as the wealth of extraneous detail, is nevertheless somewhat distracting.

But boring the book is not.

Born in Brussels in 1907, Hergé started his career, like Tintin, as a cub reporter. For all his accolades, Hergé nevertheless maintained meekly, “I was just happy drawing little guys, that’s all.” But Assouline asserts Hergé used his alter ego to champion some of his so-called sociopolitical causes: his love for the Boy Scouts, Catholicism, and the Monarchy, countered by his distrust of Communism and the Soviet Union. Hergé’s first book Tintin in the Land of the Soviets was both a surprising commercial success and a scathing critique of totalitarianism.

Sure, Hergé was also a raging alcoholic who suffered from painful bouts of depression, miserable meals of “moules frites,” and “disappearances” for extended periods of time without explanations, but what artist doesn’t?

Dead as a dodo in 1984, Hergé was self-consciously oblivious to his fame while alive, not only among schoolchildren dreaming of impossible adventures in exotic climes (I initially discovered the series as a youngster in Bermuda), but among adult artistic fantasists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. As we all dust off our collected Tintin oeuvre – with its paternalistic patina of “comic” (funny ha-ha) neo-colonialism and unadulterated intrigue (but hardly any women) – we wonder if the “little guy” in all of us will stand up to wrong and cry out in a cartoon bubble, like Tintin’s uber-“British” seafaring saltydog Captain Haddock, “Bashi Bazouks!”

Here’s hoping that the “surreal” Hollywood film, which Hergé’s wife Fanny helped negotiate, doesn’t negate our subconscious myths and isn’t an egregious flop in DVD sales.

Hergé: The Man Who Created Tintin, written by Pierre Assouline and translated by Charles Ruas, is available through Oxford University Press.

Dashwood Books has established itself as something of a mecca for anyone looking to add to their collection of photography books. Nestled in the ground floor of a historic building on Bond Street in New York, you’ll find the latest quality books on contemporary photography from the 1960s to the present day. From rare and out of print editions to hand made zines and small run books, Dashwood has long represented the best in independent publishing across America, Europe, and Japan.

If David Strettel, the man at the helm of Dashwood, were to have a ‘modus operandi,’ it would be to promote the photo book as an art object in its own right, and to highlight the artistic essence that publishing is capable of offering. Aside from the bookstore, Dashwood has it’s own publishing operation, albeit a small one. This outlet has allowed Strettel to seeks out ways in which to bring new photography to the people, at reasonable cost, without forsaking the acute sense of aesthetic and the importance of tactility with which Dashwood makes its mark. Strettel’s most recent release of seven moderately priced monographs, marks the start of an annual series showcasing a mix of established and emerging photography.The series has been produced in small of editions of roughly 500 copies each. Both individually and as a set, they evoke his initial vision of a lo-fi sensibility met with a quality production value that sees them sit nicely next to works by Ryan McGinley, Juergen Teller, Taryn Simon and others.

Jim Mangan

Together with the creative directors, Water NYC, who designed five of the seven books and supervised production, Dashwood came up with a loose structure so that there would be no specific design aesthetic that would dominate the collection. The physicalities of the books – paper, size and so on – are consistent, but each artist was encouraged to imbue their book with his or her own personality so that each book is nevertheless unique.

Andreas Laszlo Konrath, whose book Back to Mystery City features in the series, employed the help of Brain La Motte, his co-designer at the publishing company they run out of Brooklyn called Pau Wau Publications. Dashwood has previously stocked many of the zines and photo books that Pau Wau have put out, and so a collaboration grew over the years, until Strettel came up with the proposal for the series and invited Andreas as photographer and Brian as designer to come on board. Konrath’s book documents his trip to Finland to hang out with the Perus Skate crew. This personal story makes for an interesting parallel to the fashion and portraiture that Konrath is best known for.

Above left: Andreas Laslo Konrath. Above right: Sam Falls

In Soviet Beauty Queens – for which Strettel himself selected the images from the Archive of Modern Conflict – he presents a collection of photographs taken between 1988 – 1990 in Leningrad at various beauty contests and at the Leningrad Beauty Institute. Though not favored by the Soviet Union, by the time of its collapse beauty contests became a symbol of Perestroika and the bizarre, beautiful and awkward moments of the women exercising in anticipation of a contest, would be somehow tragic were it not for the fact that this is liberation in action.

The other artists, Ari Marcopoulos, Betty Tompkins, Sam Falls, Janette Beckman and Jim Mangan, cross between documentary, fine art and portraiture, providing a provocative, surreal, comic and beautiful offering in their own right. These artists, like Konrath and La Motte, have a similar history with Dashwood and so each book was a collaborative effort that was conceived organically. They represent a shared desire to create something which is both intimate and accessible. These books aren’t just for the collectors out there; with a $25 tag per book, you have the choice to buy them individually or as a set and their affordability ensures that a wider audience can walk home with their very own piece of art. And therein lies the end goal; the joy for any artist that as many people as possible might enjoy their work. With that in mind, we here at Dossier will certainly be stopping by to pick up our own set.

The series is available at Dashwood Books, 33 Bond St., New York City. The shop is open 7 days a week, Monday through Saturday from noon – 8pm and Sunday from noon – 7pm.

Our friends at Family Bookstore are having an opening reception and book launch signing for the LA-based Rap group OFWGKA. Golf Wang features captured moments these friends have spent together and features work from Odd Future, Vyron Turner, Wolf Haley, Brick Stowell, Taco Bennett, Lucas Vercetti, Julian Berman and Sagan Lockhart. I imagine it should be an interesting evening. Here is some music to take you out. Click “Read More” for specifics. Onehundred.

For those who haven’t been, the NY Art Book Fair is held annually at MOMA PS1 and presents an exhaustive collection of artists’ books, contemporary art catalogs, monographs, art periodicals, and artist zines in one space over the course of a weekend. From the impassioned art-book obsessive to anyone with a remote interest in print, it is the only place to be on that brisk October weekend. Exhibitors range from international presses, booksellers and antiquarian dealers to artists and independent publishers from twenty-one countries. This year, a whole floor of the museum was dedicated to photography books.

The genesis of the fair came six years ago from Printed Matter, the world’s largest non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of artistic publications and “the examination and interrogation of the changing role of artists’ publications in the landscape of contemporary art.” The organization’s Soho headquarters houses a library with over 15,000 titles, as well as an exhibition space; it’s easy to see how such a blueprint evolved into the Fair.

While waking around PS1, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of publications on view. But after a few hours trying to absorb it all, I found myself returning eagerly to the zine-tent, the newest addition to the fair’s roster. Here, 60 zinesters displayed their wares and the crowds were testament to an undying interest in the lovable lo-fi zine. At the Pau Wau Publications table the artist (and Dossier contributor) iO Tillett Wright was signing copies of her latest book Kisser. Elsewhere a discussion was being held on 100 Fanzines/10 Years of British Punk: 1976-1985. In the schoolyard there was a pop-up exhibition on Japanese zines and each way you turned were conversations on everything and anything related to the bound object. There was a distinct sense of collaboration – of an exchange of ideas and energy – the efforts of which can be found in each zine, book, magazine, print or postcard.

At the heart of this entire endeavor is New York’s adopted mascot for all things paper: AA Bronson, the founder of Printed Matter and captain of the Fair. Ever distinctive in style and personality, his genuine enthusiasm for this project can be attributed to his own artistic practice. As one-third of the Canadian artist collective General Idea, Bronson, along with partners Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal, helped pioneer conceptual and media-based art and promote artist initiated activities. In 1974, General Idea founded Art Metropole, an organization devoted to collecting, publishing and distributing artists’ books, multiples, audio and video. After the death of Feliz and Jorge, AA Bronson continued as director of Art Metropole through 1998. In 2004, he became president of Printed Matter, resigning in 2010 to focus on his own art practice. He remains Director of the the NY Art Book Fair.

Queer Spirits and Other Invocations, Berlin 2011

AA is something of a figurehead to a young generation of New York artists and so, with such an illustrious background in the history of printed matter and interdisciplinary art, who better than to discuss the evolution of the art book? On the back of the success of the recent book fair, and the midst of his latest exhibition in Berlin, I caught up with him to discuss our mutual fascination with all things print.

Siobhan Bohnacker: This year’s NY Art Book Fair appeared to be a huge success with over 200 exhibitors –  more than double the figure the year of its inception in 2005. Did you predict it would evolve so quickly?

AA Bronson: When we first started the NY Art Book Fair in 2006, we had no idea if anyone would come at all. We planned on 35 exhibitors for the first event, and ended up with 70. So it hasn’t been a huge surprise that the number of exhibitors has grown so quickly, although we never would have guessed it would reach this size. The bigger surprise is the audience, which topped 15,000 this year, most of them young people, well spiced with important book collectors, art librarians and art professionals of an older generation.

Siobhan: You’ve commented often in the past on the demise of New York’s art book stores, lamenting the loss of such treasures as Wittenborn, Jaap Reitman and Hacker Art Books. Why do you think New York took such a dip in art book stores, compared to other major cities?

AA: Well, for one thing Americans consume less books than other nationalities. But also, the specter of Amazon has decimated independent booksellers in the US, and even the big chains are in serious trouble. I am in Berlin for the month of October, and one thing that strikes me is how many bookstores there are here… quite amazing! At the same time, maybe American booksellers are a little lazy and haven’t realized the huge amount of public interest in independent and especially visual publishing, both books and magazines. In Berlin, most of the bookstores target the specialty audiences, whereas in the US most bookstores target some sort of hypothetical mass market.

Queer Spirits and Other Invocations, Berlin 2011

Siobhan: The NY Art Book Fair proves there is a great level of interest in art book and independent publishers—particularly from a younger generation. Do you think this will promote a resurgence of art book shops?

AA: I think this will promote a huge interest in small book fairs. Already, zine and comic book fairs are a huge success. I predict that book fairs like ours will continue to multiply rapidly.

Siobhan: The new addition to the fair this year was the tent dedicated to zines. The do-it-yourself aesthetic and idealogy of a zine strikes a chord amongst a lot of struggling artists in New York because it allows them to bypass standard publishing protocol and output their art in an affordable manner, without sacrificing great design and presentation. How does it make you feel to see so making young artists collaborating with one another to create zines and multiples of their work in print format?

AA: Well, it is gratifying, of course. I am always in favor of collaboration. One of the great things about the NY Art Book Fair is that it makes visible a community, a web of artists and publishers, that would otherwise be invisible. A big part of the joy that one feels flying around the NY Art Book Fair comes purely from each exhibitor’s recognition that they are all part of something much larger, something pretty exciting and optimistic.

Siobhan: In recent years, technology has taken a great leap forward in terms of its capabilities in presenting text and image. How do you see this affecting print in the long run?

AA: Well, that will transform the business of textbooks and the text-based book, of course, and already has. But I don’t expect it to have much impact on specialty art books.

Siobhan: Judging by the attention paid to the NY Art Book Fair, do you sense a growing determination to save print from technologies such as the iPad and Kindle?

AA: I don’t think it’s about saving print. I think it’s about taking pleasure in print. Whereas the book was very much a business before, with the advent of Kindles and iPads, the book has become an art form.

Siobhan: Photography books got their own floor at the Fair this year. A lot of photographers have become acutely aware of the photo book’s value and have responded by creating small run-editions that become art works in their own right. What do you think when books such as say, Ryan McGinley’s Moonmilk jumps up to hundred of dollars within months of its release?

AA: I think I’m glad that I bought my copy early.

Siobhan: You were the director of Printed Matter for a long time; the genesis of the NY Arts Book Fair came from Printed Matter. What was behind your decision to give up the helm last year?

AA: Well, for one thing, my age. I turned 65 this year. But also there has been an enormous amount of art activity for me this year. I am in Berlin now to install an exhibition of my recent work at Esther Schipper, and a retrospective of General Idea has just travelled from the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. However, I am remaining as Director of the NY Art Book Fair.

Siobhan: Throughout your career, you’ve often worked as part of a collective. Most recently you made a book with fellow artist Peter Hobbs called Evocation of the Queer Spirits (Fire Island). What is it you like in particular about working with other artists?

Queer Spirits and Other Invocations, Berlin 2011

AA: I have always collaborated, for 45 years now, so I don’t really know any other possibility.

Siobhan: What are you up to next? Any new projects on your horizon?

AA: My exhibition at Esther Schipper in Berlin opened last week. The centerpiece of the show was the performance Invocation of the Queer Spirits. It took place in the gallery the night before the opening, with no audience and no documentation. Only the remains of the event are visible to the public.

Siobhan: What book on your shelf at home do you most treasure and why?

AA: I have been collecting books for more than 40 years. I have many thousands, and I have no idea how I would choose one over another! Like a good parent, I love all of my books.

AA Bronson’s solo show Queer Spirits and Other Invocations is on view at the Esther Schipper Gallery, Sconeberger Ufer 65, Berlin through December 17, 2011

Portrait of AA Bronson by Dietmar Busse. Photo of Queer Spirits and Other Invocations (Berlin) courtesy of Esther Schipper Gallery.

When at night we close our eyes, the ensuing darkness wraps us in a blanket of fear. Photographer Lele Saveri’s latest book, Incubi et Succubi, is about turning this notion on its head, bringing his most intimate nightmares to light through visual tales of fear—and love.

Olivia Fincato: Why “incubi”?

Lele Saveri: I wanted to do something around horror. I grew up in Rome with Dario Argento and the [Roman Catholic] Church. I remember going to Dario’s shop; I loved that little museum with props, dummies and images of his movies. Then I remember going to church; my parents weren’t so religious but it was the only place to hang out. I was always fascinated with horror and mystic forces. In this book, I wanted to recreate visually one of my nightmares. I tried to visualize some recurrent images… It was also a way to exorcize them.

Olivia: What is your most hidden fear?

Lele: I am scared of many, many things. Physically, I am very scared of snakes. Mentally, I am very scared of wasting time… If I sleep more then five hours, I freak out.

Olivia: And how do you exorcize those fears….

Lele: For snakes, I directly face them! I did a photography project on snake compositions. I had to touch and move them around. I tried not to think about it and keep doing things…but when I stopped, I started shaking.

Olivia: And why “succubi”?

Lele: Incubi et succubi, incubus and succubus, are two demons, male and female. In the past, they were used to explain nightmares. If you had a bad dream, the Church would explain it as this little evil being coming in the night. If you were a woman, there was an incubus visiting your dreams; if were a man, a succubus.

Olivia: Really sexually related…

Lele: Yes, but I was more interested in the way they were used to reassure people…

Olivia: How long did you work in this project?

Lele: I started a year ago. During this year, I traveled a lot. I went to Sicily and Rome for some religious subjects, then I went to Staten Island to visit some haunted houses… Finally I went to New Jersey to shoot snakes—there are so many snake lovers in New Jersey!

Olivia: Who was the most melancholic character featured in the book?

Lele: I am interested in how the Church would represent the devil in human forms and this subject, the giudei of San Fratello, is very interesting. They are a group of 200 people in a small Sicilian village of 2,000. They dress up during the week of Easter to celebrate the death of Jesus, and they disappear after his resurrection. In the past they were supposed to scare people.

Olivia: They are more odd then scary… What is was the scariest thing you photographed?

Lele: This book was a full immersion into fear. In Sicily, two kids on a scooter tried to rob us in the middle of the day on the main street of Catania. That was scary. Then I was afraid of this big snake biting the owner, or when we got locked in the cemetery of Rome….there was a black cat following us everywhere.

Olivia: Some of the photos are very romantic indeed…

Lele: Fear is one of the most fascinating things for me. It is a strong emotional that makes you feel alive. I look at fear with love.

Olivia: Your girlfriend Giulia was one of the main inspirations for this book…

Lele: During this project, Giulia was always next to me and everything was in some way related to her. When the idea of the title came into my mind, I realized that I’ve been always chasing somebody in my nightmare. She is my succubus. I also like the idea of being scared with somebody else, feeling protected.

Olivia: Together with Giulia, you also directed a short movie, To Lie Under, which corresponds to the book.

Lele: Yes, everything you see on the pages of the book was also filmed. The movie To Lie Under explains the figure of the succube. The soundtrack is amazing. After we shot and edited the piece, the band No Age created the music inspired by the images.

All images courtesy of Lele Saveri

I first encountered Alec Soth’s photographs while wandering through the 2004 Whitney Biennial. The series on display, Sleeping by the Mississippi, stirred something in me that I still can’t quite shake; the images, possessed with a steely – and uniquely American – longing, chronicled several road trips Soth took down south, using only the Mississippi coast as his guide.

Since that time, Alec Soth has had a meteoric rise to commercial success and cultural importance. By any standards, he is one of the most important American photographers working today, most well known for his deeply personal and poetic chronicling of the American social landscape. It came as a surprise then – even to Alec himself – to be collaborating on a project with the Rodarte fashion designers, Kate and Laura Mulleavy. Titled simply, Rodarte, the resulting book has just been released by D.A.P., and is a visual force. Also contributing: photographer Catherine Opie, and, with an incredibly moving and experimental text, the critic and gallery director John Kelsey. The results are staggering beautiful, and daringly unconventional. In Rodarte, fine art photography, fashion design, and written text all intermingle, creating a visual product unlike any I have ever seen. If it’s a leap for Soth, it is one that he takes seamlessly.

John Kelsey begins his essay for Rodarte: “I once saw a map for the blind,” which describes this collaboration astutely: a coming together of creative minds to charter the possibilities of potential of landscape: of clothes, of photography, of a book itself.

Carmen Winant: You developed an entirely new body of work for the book you just collaborated on with Rodarte, Catherine Opie, and John Kelsey. I assume you must be pretty busy — how did you manage with your schedule? How far out did you guys plan?

Alec Soth: Shooting for this project took place a while ago – about a year and a half. But I am always busy. I have fantasies about the bad economy slowing things down for me!

Years ago I made a project called Fashion Magazine, and after I did that, I stopped doing anything fashion-related. I didn’t want to become part of The Machine, so I regularly said no if asked. When this project came up, it was different. First of all, I wasn’t shooting fashion. And second, Kate and Laura Mulleavy were so cool in their approach; the spirit of the thing was unique and it really lit a fire under me. They approached me way out the blue – we hadn’t met. In fact, we still haven’t met! I didn’t want to meet them before the shooting because of the way the shoot worked, the specialness of it. We are having a public discussion together next month at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and I keep telling them how nervous I am to finally meet them.

Kate and Laura had this idea that I would photograph their influences; it got me really excited. They sent a beautiful package, tied in ribbon, that was full of pictures…like stills from horror films, for instance. It was incredible: a visual world that I could enter. That was the thing about not meeting them – Kate and Laura had given me a window into an imaginary world, and I didn’t want real the world to touch that.

Carmen: You took two weeks and were given over a dozen sites to try and visit. How much instruction did you have beyond that, and how much of it did you take? It must be pretty unique to take an assignment like that.

Alec: There was tons of freedom with this assignment, and that was the beauty of it. Laura and Kate gave me lists, which is how I often work in my own practice. There where two lists: one of places (Tijuana, Salton Sea, etc.) and one of thematic things (horror movies, punks, sleepwalkers, California condor). From their groupings, I did more brainstorming and came up with my own sub-lists. I ended up created a map that I called the “California Sleepwalkers Treasure Hunt Map.” I called it this because I imagined myself sleepwalking through their dream world, searching for treasures to be found. It was like a game; condors, for instance, are only in two places in California, and I had to seek them out. I charted out maps, I had my lists…it was a crazy-man race.

Carmen: You are from, and live and work in, Minnesota. Had you been to any or all of those places in California before? Did you go alone?

Alec: California is huge; the feeling of exploring always exists there for me. I had been to a few of the places on the list, like the Salton Sea. Actually, I had a wild first experience at the Salton Sea, and this time was no different. We got stuck. It was sunset and I was racing around, frantic to get a picture with that light. So, I disregarded a sign, went off road, and promptly my car got stuck in the sand. And it was getting dark. I had two assistants with me, but it was scary. We laugh about it now, but one of my assistants, who is the nicest guy in the world, totally freaked out and started yelling at me while trying to dig the wheel out of this sinking sand. That place is the end of the world — how do you get a tow truck to come? AAA doesn’t assist off-road. We were there for hours. Finally, a special task force came to save us in the middle of the night on dune buggies. What a sight that was! That place makes people a little crazy — not a place you want to get stuck.

Carmen: For a fine art photographer, you have certainly dabbled in fashion: in 2007, Magnum published Volume 3 of Fashion Magazine called Paris Minnesota, in which you explored the distance and similarities between these two places and the culture and products of fashion in both. How do you approach working in fashion? And how does it differ from the strategies of your own practice?

Alec: It’s a fascinating thing. I am profoundly unfashionable in my own life. Maybe that’s their attraction in using me? It’s not my scene; I’m from Minnesota. But that said, there is an interesting relationship between fashion photography, fine art photography, and even photojournalism; they pull from each other. So I have always been curious about that relationship, the ways that we learn from one another and draw inspiration.

It was a real adventure to do Fashion Magazine. I learned a million lessons — how I didn’t like working with models, about maintaining my own eye and not trying to play fashion photographer. In fact, I just did a shoot a month ago for a German fashion magazine (Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin) for which I insisted on not photographing models. And as for Rodarte, I wasn’t photographing clothes. I really didn’t think of it as a fashion job at all — I thought of it as an artistic collaboration in which I had all the freedom in the world. Laura and Kate are clearly artists, and I regard their work very highly. In that way, I encountered it as an opportunity to explore their artistic imagination.

I didn’t know that Cathy Opie was participating at the time I was shooting. I knew there was someone else involved, but I assumed it would be a straight fashion photographer. I didn’t know and didn’t worry myself with it.

Carmen: Indeed, you really had to let go in a sense to make this work, whether it was not knowing that Cathy was contributing to the book, or the final look and feel of the book itself. Was it liberating or nerve wracking to surrender such control? And what did you think upon seeing the final product?

Alec: Well, I have good experience in this realm because I’ve worked quite a bit with magazines, so I am used to just handing over the pictures and not knowing what is going to happen. Sometimes I’m the last person to see it: that fashion piece I mentioned I recently made in Iceland…I just got it, after everyone else! So, I’ve learned to let go and let the work take on different lives. Of course, when I was shooting, I constructed the project as a little book in my head; that’s the way I have to work. But I always knew that it was their book, and that I was handing it over. But I trusted them. And it was staggering how many pictures they kept of my original edit. I was really impressed by that, because I wasn’t fighting for it. I was in good hands.

Photographs by Alec Soth

This weekend, Printed Matter presents the sixth annual NY Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1. Free and open to the public, the fair features more than 200 stands selling artists’ books, contemporary art catalogs and monographs, art periodicals, and artist zines. Exhibitors include international presses, booksellers, antiquarian dealers, artists and independent publishers from twenty-one countries. Personally, I recommend it highly. I went for the first time last year and got so many (too many) small photo books that I never would have seen otherwise. The selection of limited edition prints is also amazing. The fair opens today and runs from 11-7 through Sunday, October 2.

When I was in grade school, New York City was heralded as the world’s “melting pot,” an anthropomorphic melding of cultures. Today, word is that teachers have moved onto a “salad” analogy, arguing that while the various human ingredients harmoniously mix and mingle, they retain their separate identities. Whichever school you subscribe to, one of the most esteemed attributes of our city is its acceptance of all types.

Within New York, each of these distinct individuals carves out his or her niche, the place that becomes “home.” For native New Yorkers, home is usually the vicinity around which they grew up. For transplants, it’s more often than not the neighborhood of their first apartment. This is part of what makes the city endlessly fascinating: it is a different place for everyone. There are the occasional shared experiences, but for the most part your New York is as unique as your fingerprint.

New York:The Pegleg, the most recent installment in the WhaiWhai guidebook series, highlights this diversity, presenting an entertaining and educational tool that crosses eras, classes and ethnicities to offer a unique look at the iconoclasts, visionaries and dreamers who created and continue to inhabit New York.

The term “whaiwhai” comes from a Maori word meaning “to search for,” and consequently the guidebook is structured around the search for “the pegleg,” a particularly powerful prosthesis that first arrived in New York in 1647 on the leg of Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant (true story). After Governor Stuyvesant’s death, the wooden leg, which was wrapped in bands of supposedly supernatural silver, was hidden in the family crypt in the East Village, where the governor was actually buried. The WhaiWhai story goes that before the crypt was permanently sealed, the leg vanished and has been missing since. The fictional narrator of The Pegleg, Shlep Wallace, is a longtime prop specialist who recently found the notebook of deceased scientist Nikola Tesla. Inside the notebook are clues speaking to the pegleg’s powers. Therefore, Shlep is calling upon the reader (you) to help recover the absconded appendage.

A text message exchange later (each book contains a unique code ) and you are on your way to exploring corners of New York that even the most seasoned city-goer has overlooked, which is why this guidebook is as entertaining for residents as it is for visitors. Each of the obscure sites featured contains a historical anecdote that exemplifies the eccentric personalities—past and present—who make up our eclectic “salad.”

My first stop was the spot where hotelier David Weissberg jumped to his death in 2002. Today it’s the Gramercy Park Hotel, a place I last visited for a luxury sunglasses launch. Next, I was led to 49 Irving Place, the former residence of interior design maven and style trailblazer Elsie De Wolfe and her partner Elisabeth “Bessy” Marbury, who entranced early 20th-century Manhattan society with their raucous parties. At each location you search for the answer to the riddle in the given story. Once found, you send it via text message and receive the code—which corresponds to the book’s tri-fold pages—to the next site. The ultimate goal, of course, is to find the elusive pegleg. And you can play as many times as you like; each adventure is different than the last.

Shlep may be the imaginary storyteller, but the real raconteur behind The Pegleg is Timothy Speed Levitch (who goes by Speed) a longtime New Yorker, writer, tour guide and actor whose descendants arrived via Ellis Island. Here, he reveals a bit about the creation of The Pegleg and offers an insight into his New York.

Erin Dixon: Tell us a bit about your background—how did you come to learn so much about New York?

Speed Levitch: I’m still learning about New York, of course. It’s an endless field of study. I started in the Bronx, lived in Riverdale and attended Horace Mann High School, but I barely knew my way around Manhattan until I went to NYU for college. I’m a flaneur and I’ve been appreciating the scenery and the stories of the city my whole life.

Erin: What was something you learned about New York during your research that surprised you?

Speed: That the Mercury Theater Company of players and their director/star Orson Welles all thought that the script for “War of The Worlds” was stupid, and right before they went on air Orson Welles apologized to his actors for burdening them with such dull, insipid material. Apparently, the actors were making fun of the script right up until air. Even as they were performing it live (as half of New Jersey freaked out), they were locked away in a little studio room in Midtown—just having fun with what they assumed was campy, overly sentimentalized material.

Erin: How did you decide which stories to incorporate?

Speed: In school, I studied playwriting and I was drawn to tour guiding due to the theatricality of the job—the performance aspect. When I’m looking at the history of the city, choosing stories about the city, I’m looking for a good play script I can perform. Mostly, I prefer comedy. I like funny stories most of all. Of course, a good play needs stories that are filled with passion, epiphany, surprise and dynamic human characters, which live through anecdotes we can all identify with and learn from. Hopefully, at the end of the stories there’s some kind of catharsis or healing for the reader.

Erin: Which is your favorite story or character in The Pegleg?

Speed: I’m a little bit fickle… The story I would choose for my favorite would be different depending on my mood and the time of day, etc. But I can answer for tonight. Tonight, my favorite story is “Flight of the Missouri Rockets.” It’s the story about how the Rockettes were invented and about the rite of passage that Radio City Music Hall had to go through in order to fully realize its potential as a music hall. Roxy, the visionary behind Radio City, is an amazing character and he stars in this beautiful tale about self-realization, the creative spirit and invention. (It’s also my favorite story because it features the Missouri Rockets, the dance troupe of 64 gorgeous ladies out of St. Louis.)

Erin: How did you come up with the character Shlep Wallace? Was he based on anyone you know?

Speed: Yes, Shlep is certainly an amalgam of several wise old men I’ve listened carefully to over the years, but, of course, Shlep is also his own man. I could hear his unique, rasping voice in my mind’s ear as I wrote the stories. While writing the stories, I often felt as if Shlep were giving me dictation.

Erin: Does the pegleg really exist, hidden somewhere in NY? Will the reader ever arrive at the true end?

Speed: I wouldn’t want to say for sure. I want to preserve the mystery and the fun of the game. Let me just say this: The stakes couldn’t be more raised! The pegleg really did exist. What really happened to it? Impossible to say for sure. It’s very possible that it’s buried with Stuyvesant’s body in his crypt underneath St. Mark’s Church. There are all sorts of historic images and artistic renditions of Peter Stuyvesant’s pegleg. Many of his contemporaries called it “silver leg” because it was a fancy pegleg that had silver bands. There is a Stuyvesant family crypt where his corpse was put, apparently with both his real and fake leg, but the family crypt wasn’t sealed until the last Stuyvesant went in there in the 1950s.

Erin: What is your favorite neighborhood in Manhattan?

Speed: Lately, my favorite neighborhood is the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Mainly, I think, just because it is such a mad mix of events. Another good name for that hood would be “unlikely.” It is a zany collection of events that birthed that current, unique place. It’s also a great place for nosh—the small, delicious immigrant foods you can enjoy as you walk. New York’s specialty is great food that moves with you.

Erin: If there is one place in Manhattan that everyone should see, what is it?

Speed: Rush hour. I enjoy viewing rush hour in and around Grand Central, of course. Penn Station is also excellent. Downtown, in general is good and the Staten Island Ferry Terminal…along the bridges, especially the Brooklyn Bridge. Really, I think the one landmark of New York that everyone should see is some perch where they can view and be properly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the city mobilizing during the two rush hours, daily. Of course, it’s always great people watching, too.

Erin: What makes Manhattan unique from other cities?

Speed: I tend to think that all cities and places are teachers. There’s something to learn from all real estate, basically. I’m writing a piece right now about Lawrence, Kansas and although Lawrence and its stories have different lessons to teach and certainly create a different tone and atmosphere than New York does with its stories, I’m still certian that both cities—the sixth largest city of the state of Kansas and New York—are equally themselves, equally unique. I think of them both as two great gurus, only very different gurus, who advise me on very different subjects.

Photographer Joel Sternfeld gave a lecture on Wednesday night titled What the High Line Meant and Means to Me. Currently there is still a half-mile section of the structure that has not been turned into a public park, because ownership of the property is still in limbo. The organization Friends of the High Line have been running a series of programs to draw public awareness to their cause, ultimately attempting to gain control of the section so it is not lost to developers. To further support this cause, Sternfeld showed a slide presentation spanning from his childhood in Belle Harbor, Queens to his most recent work, detailing his poetic love affair with the urban environment and the motivation behind his work. Most significantly, his 2001 book Walking the High Line, shot over a year (2000-2001) on the then undeveloped, overgrown rail structure that snakes above the west side of Manhattan. The book also includes a brief history of the High Line itself written by Adam Gopnik, which details the sites progression from a freight train track to its abandonment and its current resurrection as a public park.

Known as an early adopter of color photography, in his lecture Sternfeld showed how critical seasonality and light is to his photos, none of which could be documented without color. Instead of the over saturated images the contemporary eye is used to seeing, he relies on his own studied knowledge of color theory to compose each image. His palette is rooted in the Bauhaus concept of balancing color density, which is one of the most identifying elements of his landscapes and portraits.

Standing next to a large screen at the 14th Street entrance to the park Sternfeld went through his High Line images, explaining the process of the project he so lovingly undertook. Relying on neutral skies to showcase the beauty of time passing through the seasons, capturing everything from a blooming patch of grape hyacinth amid tall grass to a tiny Christmas tree that sat in a patch of cleared snow. The composition of all the images in Walking the High Line centers on a ‘path’ he followed along the abandoned railway, evidence of a forgotten journey that had been overshadowed by grasses and trees, but could still be traced by less dense patches of flora, or even different types of grass running parallel to the barely visible rails. Sternfeld mused about his childhood in Queens at a time when undeveloped lots were common, where children had the freedom to explore spaces that were unaffected by development, and even pointed out a woman in the crowd that had been his prom date in high school, nodding in agreement. To Sternfeld, the High Line is an extraordinary example of how the urban environment co-exists with both nature and time, moving and shifting along together.

Up-coming programs include gardening workshops, stargazing with the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York and screenings of movies (Some Like it Hot and Strangers on a Train are on the calendar for next two Fridays- both train themed movies). Most of the programs are free and open to the public. A full schedule can be found here.

Loosestrife Editions recently published A New Map of Italy: The Photographs of Guido Guidi, a collection of the Italian photographer’s work that includes the images above and below. The publisher states, “Working in marginal and decayed spaces with a (8″x10″) camera, Guidi creates dense sequences intended as meditations on the meaning of landscape, photography, and seeing… Photography for Guidi is something autobiographical. It is synonymous with inhabiting, and the camera is the instrument that allows him to observe, appropriate, and collect what lies beyond his doorstep.” As evidenced by these beautifully nuanced portraits, however, it’s clear that Guidi not only has a solid visual command of the hardships that have and continue to grip Italy. Rather, he also lovingly documents the persistent beauty of its inhabitants.