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This list might anger you. Of course, any list might anger you, but this one in particular is dangerous. Here, I leave out Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Jeff Koons, but rather focus on the artists who show the most promise. There’s a musican, a writer, an artist, a screenwriter and a director. Those are the types of humans we need more of in the world. All are young (with the exception of Charlie Kaufman), experimental, exciting, and none fit into tidy societal categories. That is, after all, the definition of an artist, isn’t it? Someone who doesn’t see the world exactly as it, but, rather, as it should be.

1) The Artist Banksy. Banksy may or may not be 35 years old, and he may or may not live in Bristol, England. No one knows exactly because no one in the media has officially outed him. He keeps a low profile, owing (at least partially) to the fact that he’s a graffiti artist. He’s rumored to have been trained as a butcher, which may have helped his hone his precision for carving stencils. Indeed, many of his spray jobs are so startling and powerful that they almost offensive; two policemen kissing, for instance, or a young girls wearing a gas mask and carrying flowers.

His work alone might not have garnered international fame if it weren’t often accompanied by brashness. He wears costumes and secretly hangs his subversive art in museums (including The Modern Museum of Art, and London’s Tate Gallery). He made fake version’s of Paris Hilton’s debut CD, Paris, and secretly planted them in U.K. record stores (which unknowing patrons purchased). And, in 2006, he painted an image of a naked man dangling from a window in Bristol. The City Council there held a public vote to see if it should be removed. 97% percent of the public said no.

2) The Writer Dave Eggers. I first stumbled upon Eggers while working in a cafe at a Borders Books store. A patron came to me pleading to help her find “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” Eggers’ breakout book. It wasn’t in the fiction or nonfiction sections. It was in the “journalism” section despite the fact that it had nothing to do with journalism – evidence, I suppose, of just how difficult it is to pigeonhole Eggers.

He’s the founder of McSweeney’s publishing house. They put out a Web site, original books (including Eggers’ work, i.e. “Your Disgusting Head”), a quarterly magazine, a monthly magazine and a DVD magazine. The seemingly-tireless Eggers also founded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing center for kids that’s mushrooming across the country. His upcoming book, “The Wild Things” (a companion book to the screenplay for “Where the Wild Things Are,” which he co-wrote) will be released in a fur-covered edition.

His eccentric writing style can best be summed up by this except from the copyright page for “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”: “All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Random House is owned in toto by an absolutely huge German company called Bertelsmann A.G. which owns too many things to count or track. That said, no matter how big such companies are, and how many things they own, or how much money they have or make or control, their influence over the daily lives and hearts of individuals, and thus, like 99 percent of what is done by official people in cities like Washington, or Moscow, or Sao Paulo or Auckland, their effect on the short, fraught lives of human beings who limp around and sleep and dream of flying through bloodstreams, who love the smell of rubber cement and think of space travel while having intercourse, is very very small, and so hardly worth worrying about.”

3) The Musician Conor Oberst. Conor Oberst picked up the guitar when he was 10, learned two chords and started writing songs. He was pounding out music on the piano when he was 2, and, by now, he’s been a part of eight bands, the most well-known of which is Bright Eyes.

In 2004, Bright Eyes had two songs in the No. 1 and No. 2 spots on the Billboard Top 100 for singles list. Not bad for the Oberst – an artist who cancels shows if he learns a venue’s associated with Clear Channel (a monopolistic music co.). ‘Lua’ was one of the those songs, and it’s melody, mood and depressive lyrics and somehow capture a feeling more powerfully than any film.

“I got a flask inside my pocket, we can share it on the train,” Oberst sings.
“And if you promise to stay conscious I will try and do the same,
We might die from medication, but we sure killed all the pain,
But what was normal in the evening by the morning seems insane.”

Oberst plans to “retire” Bright Eyes in 2010 to focus, at least in part, on his new band, Monsters of Folk. Monsters released their first album on Sept. 22, 2009.

4) The Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. The pen behind “Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation,” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Charlie Kaufman’s films focus on one of the most difficult aspects of modern life: developing an identify.

“Adaptation” reads like a postmodern novel, with the author himself appearing in the script – albeit, perhaps, in a slightly different persona. He plays a writer suffering from various phobias and a terrible case of writer’s block. Like all postmodern texts, though, we’re not quite sure how much is Kaufman “the real person” and Kaufman “the character.”

In “Being John Malkovich” (directed by Spike Jonze, see below), Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) stumbles upon a portal into the mind of John Malkovich. A trained puppeteer, Schwartz soon learns to control Malkovich, and he decides to inhabit the actor; eventually taking over his life. The most startling point in the film, though, comes when Malkovich himself enters his own mind, and finds his way into deep and frightening memories he’d managed to submerge. It is, it seems, the things we try to hide away that are the most powerful and vital parts of our character.

Kaufman’s masterwork, though, has to be “Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind.” It takes it’s title from an Alexander Pope poem, no less, and, therefore, must be good. Here, the plot focuses on a small medical practice that specializes in “erasing unwanted memories.” After going through the memory erase process, Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) are unaware that once they were lovers when they meet on a Montauk-bound train. They spend the rest of the movie rediscovering their passion, who they were, and who they’ll become. Like all of Kaufman’s work (and we must mention that he collaborated here with Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth), it’s a rumination on how our past, and, in particular, the things we pretend don’t matter, are constantly shaping who we are, where we go, and where we’ll be in fifteen years. The work was good enough for an Oscar.

5) The Director Spike Jonze. A scruffy skateboarder who got his start making MTV music videos, Spike Jonze is untrained and experimental. A co-founder of the irreverent “Jackass” on MTV, he also co-founded Girl Skateboards. Without knowing it, you’ve probably seen dozens of his music videos, from “Da Funk” by Daft Punk to “Buddy Holly” by Weezer and “Sabatoge” by the Beastie Boys.

Jonze has also directed some of the quirkiest Hollywood movies to actually made money: “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich” (both written by The Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman). Perhaps, his most famous movie, though, hasn’t come out yet: “Where the Wild Things Are.” For nearly a decade, Jonze collaborated with writers Maurice Sendak (author of the original children’s book) and Dave Eggers to bring the film to life.

Married for a time to Sophia Coppola, Jonze started thinking seriously about developing “Where the Wild Things Are” after his divorce. He picked up the book again, and says that he realized the monsters could embody our inner demons – each one representing a different fear or human emotion. “I felt that I could write infinitely about that, because that’s so much of what we are,” Jonze told the New York Times. He’s driven, it seems – much as the other artists on the list – by a desire not to conform; to face the monsters and forge ahead.

“Where the Wild Things Are” is due out in theaters on Oct. 16, 2009.

‘Tis the season for Oscar’s, a time when studios pin their hopes on the canisters of hoarded film. Read on for our fall preview and you’ll sort of know what your hipster friends are talking about when they talk about film.

1) The Invention of Lying. Perhaps one of the most perfect comedy plots ever conceived; The Invention of Lying is set in a world where humans are utterly incapable of uttering a lie. This is a place where advertisers, street bums and politicians speak from their hearts. And it comes from one of HBO’s hottest writers, Ricky Gervais (The Office and Extras). Hint for Viewers: Don’t tell your significant other you think they should go on a diet. Due out Oct. 2, 2009. Directed by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson. Starring Jennifer Garner and Rob Lowe.

2) Capitalism: A Love Story. Bearded and rotund, Michael Moore seems to enjoy inflaming conservatives, but then what hipster doesn’t. Famed – if one can say that about a documentation – for Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine and Sicko, Moore’s big three films are all among the top-five grossing documentaries of all time. Capitalism takes aim at the government’s generous bailouts at the height of the financial crisis. Hint for viewers: Don’t drive your Hummer to the theater. Due out Oct. 2, 2009. Directed by Michael Moore.

3) The Road. To know the heights of human achievement, we must sometimes imagine the depths of depravity and despair. That is, at least, my take on Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic Pulitzer winner (and Oprah Book Club Selection), The Road. Here, a father and son struggle for survival in a landscape marred by some unnamed catastrophe. They find cisterns, abandoned ships and cannibals along the way. Hint for viewers: Drink alcohol while viewing. Due out Oct. 16, 2009. Directed by John Hillcoat. Starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

4) Where the Wild Things Are. An 8-year-old boy, Max, causes problems at home. Can you blame him? His mother’s dating a man who’s not his father and his sister crushed him inside an igloo. When he’s sent to his room without super, he escapes into the nearby woods where he happens upon a lake and a boat he didn’t know existed. He rows off to a magical land of monsters where he just might be crowned King of All The Wild Things. Hint for viewers: Leave the kids at home and bring a hankie; even dudes might cry. Due out Oct. 16, 2009. Directed by Spike Jonze. Co-written by Dave Eggers. Based on the original book by Maurice Sendak. Starring Max Records, Catherine Keener and James Gandolfini.

5) Astro Boy. In the futurist Metro City, there lives a luminous scientist named Dr. Tenma. Out of grief over the loss of his son, the doctor constructs a powerful boy-like robot, Astro Boy, in the image of his son. Astro Boy’s “Blue Energy” gives him X-ray vision and the power to fly among other perks. But no amount of strength or speed can make him feel human. Astro Boy leaves home to find acceptance but soon learns he may have had it all the time. Hint for Viewers: Astro Boy’s as old as your dad. He was born in Japanese manga in 1951, and remains one of the most popular Japanese characters of all time. Belittle him at your own risk. Due out Oct. 23, 2009. Directed by David Bowers. Starring Freddie Highmore, Nicolas Cage and Eugene Levy.

We’re Americans. We like monsters. In particular, we like it when the monsters recognize us for our human brilliance, crown us King, and let us sleep in the folds of their llama-like hair. So it’s come to be, then, that we Americans are excited about the release of Spike Jonze’s filme, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ (on-screens Oct. 16, 2009, in bookstores Oct. 1, 2009). To add to the frenzy, here’s our Top 10 Leaked Secrets About ‘Where the Wild Things Are’:

1) A few random clips about the film almost made a grown man cry: “It is not acceptable for a grown man to be getting teary-eyed at out-of-context snippets of a movie played at a comic-book convention,” writes blogger Devin Faraci of CHUD. “And yet there I was, sitting in Hall H, fighting back tears.” Faraci saw clips of the movie at July’s Comic-Con. [Chud.com]

2) The book’s original author, Maurice Sendak reportedly commented on the Spike Jonzes film, “I love this movie. I hope people like it. If not, they can go right to hell.” [Chud.com]

3) According to Variety, the ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ film cost $80 million+ to make. To put it in perspective, that would pay a year of salary to more than 2,400 American’s (based on the medium personal income rate of $32,140). It cost about as much as ‘Shrek’. [Variety]

4) The original Jim Henson Creature Shop costumes for the film had heads filled with mechanical eyeballs. They weighed anywhere from 50-150 pounds, and were so heavy that “only one of the actors appeared able to walk in a straight line.” The eyeballs were eventually torn out of the heads, with facial expressions to be added during post-production. All 14 costumes also had video screens mounted inside, so that the actors and actresses could see what Jonze saw in the camera. In the end, the costumes were over 9 feet tall, and weighed in around 60 pounds. [Wired]

5) When the film was test screened for families in Pasadena, several children were reported to have started crying. [NYTimes]

6) The original book, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, by Maurice Sendak only contains 338 words, 33 pages and 15 sentences. [PlayList]

7) Co-writer on the script, Dave Eggers worked closely with Jonze at his house in San Francisco. For inspiration, the two watched ‘The Wizard of Oz’, rode skateboards, and shot at each other with BB guns. [NYTimes]

8 ) A ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ video game is in the works with an Oct. 13, 2009 release date (available on the Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS). The game trailer make it look almost as good as the movie trailer. [Trailer @ Destructoid]

9) The original sketches for the Wild Things characters were created by a former graffiti-artist-turned-ad-agency-creative, Sonny Gerasimowicz. Jonze’s friend Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs had suggested him, and, despite the fact that Gerasimowicz didn’t have any experience, Jonze offered him the job. Gerasimowicz says he created the earliest drawings on scraps of paper while talking on the phone. It’s all part and parcel, of course, of Jonze’s to-hell-with-establishment approach. [LaTimes]

10) Max, an 8-year-old boy with a troubled home life who eventually becomes King of All Wild Things, meetings the monsters on Page 22 of the film’s script. Fear and darkness sets in, but he must not show it. “[The dark scenes] are the point of the movie,” Forest Whitaker told MTV news. “We’re representing the things inside of the kid. They represent his struggles, either him being too angry or being confused, or not feeling like he belongs. They’re a gargantuan extension of the way he’s feeling inside.” [PlayList]

11) Max is fascinated by unicorn DNA with which he hopes to grow into live unicorns to impale his sister. Or so we learn in Dave Egger’s first-person Max piece in the New Yorker – a prelude, no doubt, to the upcoming book. [New Yorker]

Max’s fearlessness will command the respect of the beasts, and they will, inevitably, crown him King of All Wild Things. If the film reaches the transcendent heights we expect, it’ll likely be a tearjerker – not because it’s sad exactly, but because it reminds of our own American childhoods; a place where we can tame tornadoes and clone unicorns at will.

‘The Wild Things’ book (which will be released in a fur-covered version) by Dave Eggers, hits shelves on October 1, 2009. The movie comes to screens on Oct. 16, 2009.

Want more? Check out our ‘10 Leaked Secrets About Dan Brown’s Newest Book, ‘The Lost Symbol’‘.

A lot of money will change hands when Dan Brown’s long-awaited sequel to ‘The Da Vinci Code‘, ‘The Lost Symbol‘ hits shelves and e-readers on Sept. 15. But how much will the debut be worth, and how much will Brown add to his wallet? First, let’s check out a running tally on Brown’s rather extraordinary sales performance:

The Da Vinci Code Book: $810 million (81 million copies sold at an estimated average of $10 per copy)

The Da Vinci Code Film: $758 million worldwide

Angels & Demons Book: $400 million (40 million copies sold at an estimated average of $10 per copy)

Angels & Demons Film: $483 million worldwide

The Lost Symbol Book: $75 million minimum (5 million copies sold at an estimated average of $15 per copy)

Total: $1.7 billion in sales

Figuring out Dan Brown’s net worth from the numbers above is a bit tricky and it’s definitely an imperfect science – especially since we don’t have stats on Brown’s spending habits, audiobook sales and lawsuit costs, but we do know this: In 2007, AOL Finance reported that he was worth $88 million, and that was before Angels & Demons hit the screen.

If we go by those numbers, Brown’s got to pocket roughly 5% of the total sales of his merchandise excluding audiobooks and other products in 2007. That’s assuming that book sales of Angels & Demons clocked in at about $200 million when AOL wrote their story.

Using this logic, we know Brown earned movie makers and book publishers another $683 million in the time since 2007. Tack on $75 million for the upcoming sales of ‘The Lost Symbol’ (likely more after accounting for film rights, audiobooks, and ebooks) Brown’s sales power reaches $758 million. If he gets 5% of those sales, he’s worth at least another $25 million – assuming, of course, that his new book sells out.

So, $88 million + $25 million = $113 million. Not bad for a writer the critics like to trash.

Preorder your copy of ‘The Lost Symbol’ and it’ll arrive on the book’s release date, Sept. 15. Also, check out our companion post, “10 Leaked Secrets About Dan Brown’s Newest Book, ‘The Lost Symbol’“.

Dan Brown’s follow-up to ‘The Da Vinci Code‘, ‘The Lost Symbol‘ has awoken the book world from its eternal slumber conjuring up the sort of publicity that might make even Oprah poo-poo (just check out our list of the ‘Top 10 Leaked Secrets About Dan Brown’s Latest Book‘). Due out on Sept. 15, 2009, here’s our list of the Top 10 Symbols that Dan Brown’s book, ‘The Lost Symbol’ will be the biggest book release of the year:

1) Chain-link fence and 24-hour guards. Amazon.com’s CEO Jeff Bezos announced that the company would keep their gigantic mountain of The Lost Symbol books under lock and key with 24-hour guards on site. Not only that, but it’ll require two guards with two special keys to access the books. Apparently, it was a condition of the book’s publisher, and Amazon would agree to just about anything to sell the book in some format. In fact, ‘The Lost Symbol’ is already No. 1 on Amazon’s sales list.

2) The ‘Today’ Show is slathering. Matt Lauer’s got dibs on the first television interview about ‘The Lost Symbol’, and he’ll be releasing clues about the book on the show for more than a week. He’s one of the few in the country who got to read the book – after signing a non-disclosure agreement, of course.

3) Ancillary books. As soon as the subject of Dan Brown’s new book was announced other book publishers started hiring writers for companion pieces – including ‘Solomon’s Builders’, a book on the Freemasons’ influence on Washington, D.C. It was releases in 2006, and you can bet the book’s publishers are printing extra copies. More books to follow, we’re certain.

4) Bookstores are staying open after midnight. At least half of all Borders stores and several independent booksellers are staying open after midnight on Sept. 15 to peddle ‘The Lost Symbol’.

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5) ‘Special Ops’ Marketing. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group hired an online guerrilla marketing company, Special Ops Media, to start juicing Twitter fans with tantalizing clues about the book.

6) Record online sales. Preorders for ‘The Lost Symbol’ have kept the book in the No. 1 sales spot on Amazon.com for a week, and preorder sales have already broken existing records for adult fiction at Barnes & Noble’s Web site.

7) Dan Brown’s books make you feel like the president of Mensa. Authors around the world are trying to deconstruct why people like Dan Brown’s book despite the fact that he’s a pretty poor writer. Sam Anderson at Nymag.com says it’s because Dan Brown’s riddles are so easy to solve they make you feel like the president of Mensa. “You get the satisfaction of understanding, over and over, without any of the real-world effort,” Anderson writers.

8) We know what time Brown wakes up in the morning. You know you’ve reached the pen pagoda at the top of Writer Mountain when reporters start making news out of how you get your writing done. We know, for instance, that Brown wakes at 4 a.m. to write and does calisthenics every hour on the hour to keep his mind peppy fresh.

9) It’s like the Matrix; everything has meaning. So, why did we have to wait so long for ‘The Lost Symbol’ to come out? The book’s publishers said at one point that it was because Dan Brown had “a very specific release date for the publication of his new book.” Apparently, it’s tied to a minute detail in the narrative. “Readers will see why.”

10) The Pope’s entourage is putting on their liturgical gloves so they can beat up the ‘Brownies’. One of the most entertaining parts of The Da Vinci Code was the controversy the book brewed up in Christendom. The Vatican even appointed a special cardinal to handle the negative PR.

→ Preorder ‘The Lost Symbol’ and receive your copy the day it lands in stores.

Sources: luishipolito.wordpress.com, nymag.com.

Some 5+ million copies of Dan Brown’s new book, ‘The Lost Symbol‘ will hit shelves and mailboxes on Sept. 15, 2009, and what would a Dan Brown book be without a little controversy?

The author of ‘The Da Vinci Code‘ already has Christians and Freemasons lining up to defend their values, despite the fact that the book’s publishers have done a good job keeping the story under wraps. Still, a lot of info has crept out (check out our post, 10 Leaked Secrets About Dan Brown’s Newest Book, ‘The Lost Symbol’), and most of it center’s around Brown’s original working title for the book: ‘The Key of Solomon.’

Sound evocative? Probably not – at least until you learn a little bit about ‘The Key of Solomon’. A magical book purported to be written by Israel’s King Solomon, ‘The Key of Solomon’ is a sacred text labeled a grimoire in witchcraft and black magic circles. Think of a grimoire as a step-by-step, DIY guide to summoning angels and demons.

Grimoire’s were quite popular during the middle ages when magicians – fearing for their lives – stashed their magical notes in secret books that rarely saw eyes beyond the author’s. ‘The Key of Solomon’ remains one of the world’s most well-known grimoires. Why? For one, it’s got a rather extraordinary provenance laid out in the book’s introduction.

There we learn that King Solomon himself authored the book for his son, Roboam, whom he asked to stash in his tomb after his death. Legend says that a group of Babylonian philosopher’s stumbled upon the book centuries when the sepulcher was undergoing repairs. The book, however, was filled with mystical symbols and characters that the Babylonian’s were unable to decipher.

Their frustration with the text led one of the Babylonian’s to call upon the Lord for aid. Soon after, an angel appeared, and granted Iohé Grevis the ability to read the magical book on the condition that he protect it from all evil.

Fortunately for us, Iohé Grevis translated the text for mass consumption (excluding some very mysterious symbols). That’s where Dan Brown’s book, ‘The Lost Symbol’ comes in. He’s there to fill in the gaps, and presumably work in some of the more magical aspects of ‘The Key of Solomon’, too.

That’s what got the Freemasons and Christians worked up. ‘The Key of Solomon’, after all, contains some pretty heretical stuff. Necromancy – summoning spirits – pervades the book. So do spells for conjuring angels and demons, curses, invisibility spells, magic carpets, pentacles and conjurations.

It’s dark and intriguing (or offensive and heretical, depending on your viewpoint). In any event, it’s perfect for book sales. Already, the book’s ranked No. 1 in sales at Amazon.com, and it doesn’t come out until Sept. 15.

Sources: Wikipedia, Spelwerx.

Preorder your copy of the ‘The Lost Symbol’ at Amazon, and it’ll arrive on the book’s release date, Sept. 15. Or you can straight to the source and get a copy of ‘The Key of Solomon‘.