We Love You So – Where The Wild Things Are – Spike Jonze

Robert Crumb is possibly the only person could take a segment of text that has been translated into *literally* every language and somehow make it fresh. His version of the The Book of Genesis takes its text straight from the King James Version of the Bible and presents it, in Crumb’s words, as “a straight illustration job” with no liberties taken. Thus we get Adam and Eve, Sodom and Gomorrah, Cain and Abel and the rest of the stories covered in the first fifty chapters of the Bible, all fleshed out in classic Crumb form. There are brawny babes, hairy dudes, a wild-eyed God and many excellent depictions of lust, fury, temptation and agony.

Two things makes themselves clear upon paging through the book. One: the subject is perfectly matched to Crumb, whose signature has long been a fascination with both the fiery and foolish elements of human behavior. Two: these are stories that everyone should know, not necessarily as elements of a religious instruction but as damn good yarns in their own right. Like gummy vitamins, Crumb’s Book of Genesis is a delicious way to stuff yourself with vital nutrients.

Miss Manners, aka Judith Martin, began writing her syndicated column in 1978. Emily Post was penning etiquette advice as early as the 1920s. Both provided reliable guidelines on how to act politely in this complicated modern era––neither, unfortunately, had much of an interest in the contemporary art scene.

This is where I Like Your Work comes in. Art journal Paper Monument has produced a tiny (but information-dense) booklet with features from 38 artists, critics, curators and dealers on the “sometimes serious and sometimes ridiculous topic of manners in the art world.”

Tuck it in your own back pocket or slide it under the studio door of someone who really needs it.