painting

"Palm Desert" was originally designed to accompany a CD containing loose adaptations of one of Van Dyke Park's musical compositions from the 1968 Warner Brothers release "Song Cycle". The original recording of "Palm Desert" is track one on the CD in the book. (The other three, quite experimental tracks are by "Itchy Pet", "Honey Barbara" and "Elliot Peter Earls") The designer of this publication is Rudy VanderLans, one of the guiding lights of the design community throughout the last 15 years or so, so the result is a very handsom, very, very well crafted book, with beautiful pictures taken by VanderLans on his search for the visual sources which might have inspired Van Dyke Park when writing his musical marvels. (The book has the subtitle: "A book by Rudy VanderLans Based on Lyrics and Music by Van Dyke Park") As an Emigré project, the book is set using fonts by Zuzana Licko (Tarzana and Filosofia). I bought this book by accident through the Emigré catalogue and even though it seemed a bit odd at first to look at photographs of a Desert Community being slowly converted into a lucrative piece of real estate, while listening to unusual yet marvelous music, I slowly realized how good this "book" really was, and how much better it became with every "read". While there might be better ways to discover the work of Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko, this piece certainly is an eye/ear opener. It can help to awake a curiosity. And what else is there that one should expect from a good publication... or a good work of art, or a good friend.