Sven Kirsten's book: Tiki Pop

On 2014-09-02 10:30, bigbrotiki wrote:
Nice photos, Ernie!

On 2014-09-02 06:15, Kon-Hemsby wrote:

Hi, was the Tri-City Suncoast Fiesta board added in later, as I can't see it in the original photo?

Too fast on the scrolling finger there, Kon Hemsby, you went right by version 2 of the photo :)
That's the one I picked - it accommodated the title better.

I saw that. I guess the placard was added in after photo no.1

[ Edited by: Kon-Hemsby 2014-09-03 02:18 ]

I’m surprised Taschen would be such a stickler on the cover and wouldn't give you the freedom to go with the classic black and white tiki entrance photo, you figure with your reputation and two sold out books for them they would have let you put your name on a book with Tiki Barber on the cover if you desired.

On 2014-09-02 14:38, Kon-Hemsby wrote:

I saw that. I guess the placard was added in after photo no.1

I like it. it made it more real, and more American. :)

Ha!, Nauga: Taschen is hardcore commercial when it comes to covers, and this book was a favor to me and the arts :)

I'm still amazed that a prestigious museum in Paris put this on and it is still underground in the US, Us Europeans always seem to enjoy your culture/music etc more than you do(Example:- in the 60's UK groups like the Rolling stones/Yardbirds etc bought back blues music which no one stateside was listening too and took it back into the charts)
I wonder what the average person with no knowledge of Tiki makes of the museum exhibit?

Picked up my copy at the Taschen store on Miami Beach… What a beauty. I love it.

The book is great and the companion DVD is pretty neat also.

Not that anyone here needs any more reasons to buy Tiki Pop, but I posted 10 good ones for the readers of my blog:

http://www.slammie.com/atomicgrog/blog/2014/09/06/10-reasons-why-you-need-sven-kirstens-new-book-tiki-pop/

Mucho Mahalos for the kudos, HH :)

Wow - Tiki Pop is not only in the Paris Métro and on the buses, but also on the Galeries Lafayette! Très cool !

I have ordered my copy and it is currently making its way to me from Europe - I will probably be the first person in New Zealand to have one. :)

Thanks for the shout out in the Mai-Kai section BigBro!

You da man, Swanky!

Finally picked up a copy!!!

Was holding out for a local shop to carry and support, but while in California visiting... Oceanic Arts, had copies and thought what better place to grab it from?

After reading through the book in one sitting... its even better slowly browsing all the great images. Many of which never having seen or not in such a large clear format.

Kudos Sven, GREAT JOB!

After a long time casually visiting the forum (thanks for some great reading-I'll do a real new members post soon) I saw this thread and had to comment -

I got off work early today and had the perfect time slot to visit the exhibit at Quai Branly. Very cool space, insane overall collection, and this exhibit had some great elements. Including the two shirts, which were both really eye-popping in first-person. Some things that I knew, of course, a lot of iconic references, but also a lot of little details and items that kept me stoked throughout. I saw a Bali Hai mug that I hadn't seen in years. Brought back some good memories!

Long story short, if you're in Paris get there before it closes! If you're not in Paris... now is a good time to visit...

My suitecase got a little heavier for the trip back to Bordeaux with the book. Space well spent.

Chiming in late...

Holy cow Sven, when you say heavy imagery, you mean HEAVY imagery!

On 2014-08-11 18:40, GROG wrote:
GROG going to put legs on it and use it AS a coffee table.

Ha! When I first heard murmurings of a book for a curated exhibit, I pictured a more minimal catalog, so the heft is a major first impression. But like the precedent set by the prior offerings, it's the second and third impressions that reveal more intrigue beneath the veil. Not to mention the fourth impression, namely the PHYSICAL impression it makes on my chest if I try reading it in bed.

Anyway, most of my thoughts echo a number of comments already in this thread. One of the things that impresses me most is how this volume navigates competing objectives for a third book on the subject:

*1. Make it a standalone book capturing the narrative of tiki history that is new to the majority of the exhibit's audience, and maybe even the book's audience too

2. Introduce material, imagery, and ideas that will be new even to the familiar tiki crowd (how is that still possible??!?)

3. Correlate the book specifically with the exhibit. In a way this seems like the hardest part of all given all the forces at play. There's the fact that the exhibit obviously contains elements that appear in the earlier books. There's the commercial aspects of marketing the book itself (and the exhibit). There's the artificial academic barriers to presenting anything from pop culture (bad) or American culture (even worse) in a respected European museum, especially if done without focusing endlessly on the socio-political puffery that those kinds of people inhabit 24/7.*

Given those kinds of challenges, and probably many more, it's amazing to me how Tiki Pop seems to have zipped the arrow right to the bullseye at the center of all these interrelated rings of intention. It IS GREAT to see the large-format images, and the overall collection, and the unique organization of chapters and focuses for this outing, and the new take even on familiar ideas and forms.

Great job Sven, we are fortunate to have the fruits of your labor. Fun to read the backstory on how the cover image came to be too.

Another thing that this got me thinking about was the seemingly bottomless well of material from the heyday of tiki. Does this stuff ever end? How the heck are we (collectively that is, not me) still finding new discoveries? It seems like there has to be something unique about the polynesian pop phenomenon in the way that it permeated the culture at its peak and produced such a golden horn of tiki.

And then Tiki Pop triggers the observation that naturally follows: if you look at the explosion of tiki art that we see today, it's different but in many ways similar. People scattered across the country (and world?), from different walks of life and ages and personal histories, finding a new resonance with this form, this icon of tiki, to not only collect but to create. I bet in 20 years or so, this time in tiki history will be recognized as a unique renaissance. And the rigid academics of today with their need for pigeonholes and stereotypes continue to miss the point when they chalk it up to cultural appropriation or some other dismissive condescending box. Sure there's a cultural context, but what they fail to grasp is the inherent power of THE FORM of tiki.

Getting back to a less serious take, probably many TC readers go through the book with the same kind of "spot the tiki" fun as I'm about to do, but here's a couple juxtaposition pics with pages from the book.

Chris Reccardi painting from the M Modern show

Same front, but...

Different back

-Randy

Great review Randy!

Jeff btd

Wow. Thank you Randy for your enthusiastic review! Regarding your amazement at the amount of stuff that is unearthed, we really have to thank the internet for creating a forum for special interest groups like ours to locate these rare ephemera - often fueled and inspired by my previous books - each of them, like this new one now, raising the awareness of the subject out there, and creating a new generation of hunters and collectors who will then share their finds.

And, to add to your review, let's consider the amazing fact that in its own day, the Tiki subject was NOT recognized at all as a style, and only now, in retrospect, with the help of all these discoveries, is seen as a whole.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2014-10-18 19:52 ]

Greetings from Tahiti!
I am pleased to report I saw a copy of Tiki Pop in a bookstore here!

That's great news, Thank You, CN!

Hi All, just received my copy. To echo everyone's comments, this book is awesome!! Great job, Sven! Was just as surprised as everyone else at the size of the book, even after having read this thread.

So I see it's only marked with a copyright date, no edition. Is there just one edition so far Sven?

Yup: It just came out in June, so it'll be a while before all are sold. I have no idea how many were printed, the first shipment to America sold out pretty fast, but i am sure there are a couple of thousands left before they're gonna be printed again - if at all.

The Book of Tiki went into three printings (four, if you count Tiki Style), but Tiki Modern had just one.

On 2014-10-16 22:12, bigbrotiki wrote:
Yup: It just came out in June, so it'll be a while before all are sold. I have no idea how many were printed, the first shipment to America sold out pretty fast, but i am sure there are a couple of thousands left before they're gonna be printed again - if at all.

The Book of Tiki went into three printings (four, if you count Tiki Style), but Tiki Modern had just one.

1st print, yay! Thanks Sven. Christmas may just see the rest of the suckers sell out! I just can't get over the new ink smell in this book. It's gorgeous! :lol:

At one of the best preserved Trader Vic's locations in existence!:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=5483&forum=2&start=15

The world wide Tiki Pop tour continues, very nice. What a great venue for the presentation.

DC

On 2014-11-02 00:52, bigbrotiki wrote:

At one of the best preserved Trader Vic's locations in existence!:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=5483&forum=2&start=15

When does the tour arrive in Texas? :wink:

I just got my copy for xmas, what a great book, quite the wrist snapper though.

Got mine for Xmas as well. Very happy to finally own a copy.

William Westenhaver got his copy for Christmas :)

Thanks Ken & Heather Pleasant!

I finished reading Tiki Pop a while back and must say it is a splendid read. I liked the way the visuals integrated so smoothly with the text, and how you showed successive generations' graphical reinterpretations of great works of South Pacific literature (the covers of the works of Herman Melville and the like). Also the insights into the role that Hollywood played were fascinating. Choosing the images must have involved a lot of work - for example tracking down the photo of the first palm tree in California. Chapter 34 on Tiki Devolution was particularly striking and well put together.

I read both the French and English texts and thought that the French was a good rendering of the English, although it could have done with some tighter editing and more native English-speaker input. While the French text is generally cleverly idiomatic and very well translated, unfortunately a few clangers got through. Some examples:

p.124 "You're a sap. Mister Jap" is mistranslated as "Tu nous sapes le moral Monsieur le Jap" ("You are sapping our morale Mr Jap")

p.196 "held its own" does not mean "écrasé la concurrence" ("crushed the opposition")

p. 281 "get into a muu-muu" is translated as "savourez un muu-muu" (taste a muu-muu)

p. 323 "decor" translated as "décorum" (= decorum)

And there are occasional typos:

p. 311 "Pacique" should be "Pacifique"

p. 319 "Ouils" => "Outils"

I am happy to provide a full list should you be doing a second edition. Overall it is a good translation though.

How did I miss this?? So great.

On 2014-12-29 18:49, bigbrotiki wrote:
William Westenhaver got his copy for Christmas :)

Thanks Ken & Heather Pleasant!

CN, Thank you for the info. I doubt there will be another printing of this, but I will get back to you if so. There are a couple of other issues to remedy caused by the deadline crunch for the book having to be printed and delivered for the show's opening :)

That 1st palm tree photo is actually one of the handful of images that I re-printed, it first appeared in the Book of Tiki.

Sven,
I just finished my copy of Tiki Pop, and you have outdone yourself. Your vision is masterful. Thank you for your dedication.

JV

I am glad I can keep the fires burning! :)

Keep them burning and don't abandon the kapus.

Great book Sven!

Especially biased with the cover (Clearwater, FL in the house!!)

Tiki Pop is half price on Taschen.com today (and for 4 days while supply lasts)!

Indeed!:

http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/popculture/all/02897/facts.tiki_pop_america_imagines_its_own_polynesian_paradise.htm

I always miss the sales :(

It is going on still, till the 28th
I took advantage of it to get the Film Noir book I have been eying for some time
as I already have Tiki Pop.

TASCHEN is having another blowout sale today & tomorrow
Tiki Pop is going for $29.99 til it sells out.

Lots of other good books too!

http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/popculture/all/02897/facts.tiki_pop_america_imagines_its_own_polynesian_paradise.htm

On 2016-01-28 12:01, Atomic Tiki Punk wrote:
TASCHEN is having another blowout sale today & tomorrow
Tiki Pop is going for $29.99 til it sells out.

Lots of other good books too!

http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/popculture/all/02897/facts.tiki_pop_america_imagines_its_own_polynesian_paradise.htm

Nice tip, thanks ATP, they have some GREAT sale prices. For those going to The Hukilau in June, it's possible that Sven Kirsten may be there and willing to sign his books. (In some past years, though, he has been out of the country filming.)

Oh -- Included in the sale books are "Restaurant and Bar Design" and "Living in Bali," both titles which may appeal to some of us here on TC.

Thanks for the heads up ATP! Finally got it ordered...

Paul

On 2016-01-28 18:56, AceExplorer wrote:
….For those going to The Hukilau in June, it's possible that Sven Kirsten may be there and willing to sign his books. (In some past years, though, he has been out of the country filming.)

Sorry to say that NOPE! and Yeah, that darn Sven Kirsten has to labour on foreign shores again and cannot attend Hukilau as he so much wished :(

Though my Tiki passion and book writing has sustained me mentally all these years, I has not been able to sustain my Hollywood life style of fast drugs and loose women, and so:

On 2016-01-29 10:31, bigbrotiki wrote:
Though my Tiki passion and book writing has sustained me mentally all these years, I has not been able to sustain my Hollywood life style of fast drugs and loose women, and so:

Way to go, Sven! Safe travels to you -- we'll miss you in Ft. Lauderdale. I'll talk to one of the burlesque dancers and see if we can arrange a photo op of a pasty with your face on it being skillfully worn. :)

Does anyone know where i can get an English version of the DVD? There is one on eBay at the moment but that's a French version and the ones on Amazon look like they are French also.

Swizzle,

I purchased the DVD from the French Amazon website when it first came out. The text is all in french on the outside but the DVD menu lets you pick a French or English version to play off of the DVD. My guess is that there is only one version of the DVD that has both French and English.

Thanks MaukaHale. I was at a friends over the weekend and saw he had a copy which reminded me that i didn't actually have a copy myself. From memory his was actually in English (the cover). If i can't track one down i might have to get him to burn me a copy of it.

Wait--what's this?

I'm not familiar with Tachen's Bibliotheca Universalis series, although the description says it's more pages with smaller dimensions, so I wonder how it will differ exactly from the original version. Maybe Sven can pop in to enlighten us....