the Big Stone Head thread!

Finally, after subjecting all of you to "soon" for the past few years, it is here... in an unexpected form.

"Big Stone Head: Easter Island and Pop Culture" by James Teitelbaum

Book design by Gary Blaney.
Cover image by Heather Watts.
Web site assistance by Gina Haase
Mug designed by Doug Horne for Tiki Farm.
http://www.bigstonehead.com/

Synopsis:

On a sunny April morning in 1722, the western world had its first contact with Easter Island (or Rapa Nui), and the nearly one thousand big stone heads (or moai) erected there. Two centuries later, people in America were drinking cocktails out of ceramic mugs shaped like the moai, people in Japan were erecting fake moai in their cemeteries, and people in Europe were tattooing moai images on their biceps. Comic books in the 1960s imagined the moai coming to life, just as hippies of the era ate LSD tablets with tiny moai printed on them, while listening to rock albums with Moai on the cover.

How did this happen?
Why did this happen?
How did this effect the Rapa Nui people?

Illustrated with over 350 images of Rapa Nui, of pop culture artifacts inspired by the island�s mysterious moai figures, and an art gallery of contemporary interpretations of the moai, Big Stone Head: Easter Island and Pop Culture is a lively, fun, and educational peek at how millennia-old rock art on the world's most remote inhabited island inspired cartoons, action figures, and bar decor.

Format:

Big Stone Head: Easter Island and Pop Culture deals in part with the environmental disaster that befell the Rapa Nui people centuries ago. The complete deforestation of an entire island, which once contained an estimated 16,000,000 palm trees, was part of a century of disaster that reduced a healthy population of as many as 20,000 people to a starving remnant of 110 survivors.

Given the lessons learned by the collapse of Easter Island, it seemed hypocritical to print this book on trees. Therefore, a decision was made to release it as a downloadable PDF file, or for collectors, as a bamboo USB drive within a gift card. The card is printed on 100% recycled paper. Bamboo, of course, is one of the fastest growing and most readily renewable materials on the planet.

The author is aware that many people like to have a hard copy of a book in their hands, and is also aware that a book as lushly filled with spectacular color images as Big Stone Head is, begs to exist as a "real" book. The possibility of Big Stone Head coming out as a printed book does exist in the future (pending an appropriate printing and distribution scenario), but for now we are interested in exploring the possibilities of the experimental, futuristic, and environmentally-friendly eBook format.

We think of it as "a coffee table book for your computer screen", but if you must print the book out at home, we urge you to at least set up your print queue to use both sides of each sheet of paper!

The eBook made its debut at Tiki Oasis in San Diego, CA, on August 15, 2009, on a limited edition custom-designed bamboo USB thumb drive, packaged in an attractive gift card!

The eBook is in a high-resolution print-ready PDF format, compatible will all modern computers and many palm devices.

We have also produced a Tiki mug limited to 150 copies (by Tiki Farm, designed by Doug Horne) and a cover art print (by Heather Watts).

The mug:

[ Edited by: tikibars 2009-11-20 08:56 ]

Cool! Great to see this. I will be going to Rapa Nui in July 2010 (a little less than a year from now) and am interested in everything I can learn about the island.

Congratulations JT, from the other JT. This looks mighty fine. But I gotta have a hard copy.

Tikibars, I understand the reluctance to print up a bunch of books - a friend of mine just spent $7,000 of his own cash to self publish a book and now has a garage full of books. That said, even in our electronic age I think people still want a book they can hold in their hands. You are to be commended on all your hard work, I wish you only the best. I love it when people make money, even if it's not me :)

The mug looks cool. Is it a 2 piece mug that separates from the base?

aloha,

This is the greatest news. I cannot express how happy I am for you. I know you have been working on this for years and I cannot wait to read it.

Peace,

Phillip Roberts

Congrats, James, for this labor of love to finally come out. Can't wait to see it. Please reserve one of the limited edition thumb drives for me.

Aloha.

I want to read this book. Period. Nothing else matters.

I can't wait to read this (not to mention see all the art!)
And while I may be a little biased, as someone who moved last year (to a smaller place!) and had a fairly hefty stack of books, I can now say I will trully appreciate one that lacks significant weight and volume. :wink:
Looking forward to seeing the mug too!
I just got the prints hot off the press today!
Heather

Congrats to James for this to come out finally...
I mentioned to James way back in 2005 at Hukilau, we all love Tiki, but as someone originally not from the USA, I got to tell you guys:
I think it's safe to assume that 98% of the people in Western culture know nothing about Tiki. But show them a Moai, and they will instantly recognize it as an Easter Island head. So, this subject pertains to a lot more poeple around the globe then Tiki. I am not starting a Tiki vs. Rapa Nui flame war...just want to remind people on how much more of an icon this is as compared to the other aspect of our interests here on TC.
(kinda like in the US and Japan people know the Ventures, and to the rest of the world it's the Shadows that made much more impact in the mainstream).

Ran

The e-book is the perfect Rapa Nui solution! Islanders wiped out all the trees obsessed with carving and moving the Moai's and then it was a desolate place to live. This is awesome that its an e-book, no trees from Rapa Nui (Earth) have been sacrificed! The green book! There's a great article by Jared Diamond how Rapa Nui is a microcosm of our society: http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/origins/eastersend.html Save the planet go e-book... okay I know its not a solid argument, but its a solution! Nice work James!

Will it be on an iphone app? Will it work for any of the book readers on iphones/ itouch?

All of our paper is recycled. I can send the shreds to you James and you can make a book for me. YAY!

BIG STONE HEAD!

By the way, how much do I need to put into my paypal account?

[ Edited by: Phillip Roberts 2009-07-27 23:24 ]

I think it is on James to tease us with some imagery here, now.

BIG STONE HEAD!

(double post)

[ Edited by: tikibars 2009-07-28 11:14 ]

On 2009-07-27 23:22, Phillip Roberts wrote:
By the way, how much do I need to put into my paypal account?

Phillip:
Prices will PROBABLY be $8.99 to download the book, $20 (shipped) to get it on the USB drive/gift card combo, and $50+shipping for the mug/drive/card together.

Tony:
I don't have immediate plans for an iPhone app. Gary Blaney is designing and laying out the book as a print-ready PDF (by the way, the book is wider than it is tall, so it will also display nicely on a computer screen).
Making it reflowable for a tiny screen will require a complete redesign.

Also right now I am swamped with getting the design finished, getting the custom printed bamboo USB drives made, getting the gift cards made, getting the mugs made, managing the web site, the myspace site, the Facebook site, and setting up the eBook download account!
...not to mention getting my Tiki Oasis seminar together (Sunday morning at 11:30 - I don't believe it is on the TO site yet though).
So if someone wants to step up and handle the iPhone app version, let me know - next month!

Sven:
By your command!

While we're on the subject, a note on Big Stone Head's 350 images....
I have spent five years collecting eye candy for this book.
Hopefully, the majority of the pics will be brand new to Tiki Centralites.

A few images will be things you've seen here on these forums. In this case, I either contacted the original posters for permission to use their images, or I tracked down my own copies of the materials that were posted (such as menus, advertisements, etc) to rescan at high resolution.

Thanks to those who either provided images directly, or made posts that tipped me off to some items that I needed to go in quest of!

• James T.

Get my newest book, Big Stone Head at: http://www.bigstonehead.com

For Tiki Road Trip, Left Orbit Temple, global travelogues, and more, visit:
http://www.tydirium.net

[ Edited by: tikibars 2009-07-28 11:15 ]

Thank YOU! Love that Sophia Loren pic. And I remember that post on Tiki Comic covers, it sure had a bunch of great ones in it!

Looking forward to this mass of Moai imagery.

On 2009-07-28 11:48, bigbrotiki wrote:
Thank YOU! Love that Sophia Loren pic. And I remember that post on Tiki Comic covers, it sure had a bunch of great ones in it!

Many of the comics pics you have reposted appear in the book - but of course I have the interiors too, not just the covers. Had to go that extra mile... the comics thread was posted AFTER I tracked down many of those comics, so it spoiled my "scoop"!
:)

Hate when that happens... :) Of course, these images are just ink on paper until they are put into some CONTEXT to the theme and the times ....which will be done by YOU!

I have been busting ass to live up to that very expectation.

It is amazing, the more I dig, the more I uncover.
It is endless.

Just yesterday I caused Gary, the designer to strangle me* when I asked to insert new text into a finished page, after I discovered that a planetoid near Pluto is named after the Rapa Nui creator god, Makemake, who I had been discussing in the chapter about Rapa Nui mythology.... which segues into MODERN myths about Rapa Nui, such as THOR comics taking place on Easter Island, which were first printed just six months after THOR Heyerdahl published Aku Aku... which implies that Jack Kirby was a Heyerdahl fan......

The connections are fascinating!

• = (actually Gary is the most patient guy in history; my neck is intact)

My previous post reminds me of a quack theory that I came up with, which is not in the book. This is how writing books drives a man crazy and warps his brain.
You'll all thank me later for NOT putting this in the book!

Maybe Erich von Daniken will borrow it - he can have it, haha.

Here we go:

Now that Pluto is no longer a planet, we have eight planets left. If we disocunt the Earth, there are seven planets, which can correspond to the seven continents of the Earth:

Mercury = Australia (remote and hot)
Neptune = Antarctica (remote and cold)
Jupiter = Asia (the largest)
Mars = Africa (the first visited by humans)
Saturn = Europe (close to Asia/Jupiter) and made of many parts (rings/nations).
Uranus and Venus are North and South America, but you'll have to shoehorn those into my theory somehow, I haven't figured it out yet.

Anyway, that leaves the Kuiper Belt objects to represent the Pacific islands - small, remote, distant from the others, and floating on their own, far away.

Makemake is Easter Island, obviously, Haumea is clearly Hawai'i (the planetoid was named for a Hawiian goddess), and Sedna, Orcus, Quaoar, Varuna, and Pluto represent other Pacific island groups (you pick).

So, those of you who believe that Easter Island was colonized from space or that the Rapanui people had extraterrestrial help in building the moai (um, they didn't, sorry), you can now point to the alien's exact sphere of origin: Makemake, which naturally became the name of the Rapanui creator god.

Right-o, now back to reality, and Big Stone Head news!

Can't wait to read about that whole genre of "Moais-are-from-outer-space" popularized by Daeniken. I love those kind of wacky theories.

Did you do a whole chapter on that, or do you weave it through the book?

There is a chapter on how Daniken and Heyerdahl are the "missing links" between serious scientific study of Easter Island, and of pop culture.

They were both serious about their investigations, and they were perhaps the two men who made the masses most aware of the moai.

However, in both cases their science is questioned by other scientists.

But we can not discount the impact of Kon Tiki, Aku Aku, Chariots of the Gods and In Search of Ancient Gods in burning the image of the moai into the global conciousness, even if the authors had their facts wrong.

Read all about it in Chapter Five!

by GROG

by Squid

Aloha,

I'll buy that thumb drive, JT!

BIG STONE HEAD!

Your planet corolation is very interesting.

I was led to believe that Moais originated from inside barrels of rum.

I admit I have gained weight with age, but to be compared with a rum barrel...!? :D

...but after this hilarious interlude, back to BIG STONE HEAD!

BIG STONE HEAD!
:)

On 2009-07-29 09:24, little lost tiki wrote:
BIG STONE HEAD!

As one who has journeyed and touched the navel of the universe, let me tell you Rapa Nui the most amazing place. Easter Island is a place that changed me as a person.

The air is sweet and the mana is strong everywhere on the tiny speck in the middle of the ocean. The caves were numerous and small. Orango, the bridman cult's sacred place was mystical and will forever hold a story yet untold. Tahitian money changed at the bank and speaking with that guy that's on all the specials... Ya know the guy that found the coral eyes... he's famous. I stayed at the bed and breakfast at Pantu's. He also ran the candy store in Hangaroa town...

OH WAIT, I DIGRESS...

BIG STONE HEAD

[ Edited by: Phillip Roberts 2011-04-24 15:09 ]

Thank you all for your enthusiasm.

I'll have pages from the actual book posted in a few days. Gary Blaney is busting his butt as we speak to make this thing look great.

Here is a sample of the thumb drive.
The printing on the real ones will be a bit darker.

By the way, this drive will be 1 gigabyte, and the eBook itself will probably be under 200 megs, so you can use this drive for other stuff too!

[ Edited by: tikibars 2009-08-22 12:09 ]

Looking forward to reading the book James. Inspiration for the soon to be released Tiki Mag. cover art.

I had a chance to read your travel log on one of your trips to the island. Great to hear about your experiences. I hope to one day make it to the island, a guy can dream.

b.s.h.!!!

JT, are you still planning to see the next total solar eclipse on Easter Island? Is that 2010?

BIG STONE HEAD

[ Edited by: Phillip Roberts 2009-08-01 22:30 ]

I would like to make the solar eclipse in 2010 the impetus for the third trip to Rapa Nui.

Not yet sure if this will be feasible...

Are you coming with me, Phil?
Who else is in?

I am already in with a group that is going to Rapa Nui for the 2010 Solar Eclipse. I looked at two groups taking tours there. One is viewin the Eclipse from the hotel (the new Posada). The other has a site on the north shore with the Moai. Seeing the eclipse among the Moai was essential for me, and that group had a better tour and was cheaper, although we are not staying at the fancy new hotel. I can put you in touch wth the organizer if you like. I think he may still have some spots open. He is here in SoCal.

On 2009-08-01 14:08, tikibars wrote:

Not yet sure if this will be feasible...

Me neither, but it's a good dream to strive for.

** BIG STONE HEAD**

BIG STONE HEAD!

This book is going to be awesome - how could it be otherwise with such talented Canuck artists involved? TC's own Heather Watts (Travellin' Tiki) doing the cover and TC's Gary Blaney (Tiki A. Moaikingbird) on design duty.

I'm sure Mr. T's text will be mighty fine also.

Can't wait.

[ Edited by: Sweet Daddy Tiki 2009-08-04 21:37 ]

Hm, if I am to get third billing under Heather and Gary, then so be it - I'll take it!

On 2009-08-05 21:33, tikibars wrote:
if I am to get third billing

I don't think you are getting third billing, James. Everyone knows BIG STONE HEAD is your baby. Can I buy one yet?

Nice work James!

The whole package is well put together, and I'm sure you are happy to see it all come to fruition after all the hard work.

Especially with a premier at Oasis!

Safe travels to you, and we'll see you in San Diego in less than a week!

Hey Sweet Daddy, I was kidding of course.
I'm proud to have made this an international effort - and there are mo' moai in Canada than people think... they're in the book. Gary and Heather kicked ass and worked hard on this thing (as did Yankees like Holden Westland, Doug Horne, Chip Kerr, and Gina Haase, my other Big Stone Helpers).

Dave: yes indeed we'll see you at Oasis.

James,

Just got my Tiki Magazine in the mail today, enjoyed reading the article about your efforts. Look forward to BIG STONE HEAD. Hope to see you at Tiki Oasis.

DC

BIG STONE HEAD

On 2009-08-10 00:06, Phillip Roberts wrote:
BIG STONE HEAD

I count three of 'em in the above pic!
:wink:

Oasis news...

Good:
Thumb drives and cards in hand.
Loading the book onto them as I type (four at a time. These things are stuck into every orifice my computer has to offer, it's kinda raunchy, actually).

Not so Good:
Looks like the mugs will not have arrived for this weekend.
I will definitely be taking pre-orders, and will have a glazed, finished, prototype there for examination.

The book is now available at http://www.bigstonehead.com.
Pre-orders for the mug are now being accepted as well.

(note: this post used to contain photos of two options for the mug glaze; posts below may refer to this).

[ Edited by: tikibars 2009-08-22 12:11 ]

Left one.