Looking into Books on Disneyland, Film Noir, Pop Surf Culture and Sunset Blvd

Santa Monica Press has emerged as a powerhouse publisher of impressive books about Southern California pop culture. It is a relatively young publishing house, having just spooled up from the mid-1990s. In those few years, Santa Monica Press has developed an artistic eye for quirky, weird and iconic facets of life as it is lived "west of the west." The catalog is selective rather than extensive, with terrific offerings about Disneyland, film noir, surf culture and Sunset Boulevard.

Popular culture is a surprisingly difficult topic to handle. It is easy to take a lowbrow approach and issue cheap, quick and shallow books. Many publishers have done so. That type of product is fleeting. Flip through them once, and they have nothing more to give. On the other end of the spectrum, it is tempting to assume a highbrow approach and pontificate to excess. Academic presses are not the only publishers guilty of this. The results are often unintentionally hilarious.

Santa Monica Press aims at a target that takes popular culture seriously, but never forgets that it is downright fun. They have hit the bull's eye with several of their recent releases.

Santa Monica Press captured the right balance of symbiotic text and illustration in 2005 with L.A. Noir: The City As Character (176 pages, $19.95 paperback) co-written by Santa Monica residents Alain Silver and James Ursini. This exuberant reference book demonstrates that Los Angeles and the film noir genre go together like an itchy trigger finger and a smoking pistol. "From its orange groves to its sewers, from Chinatown to the Santa Monica Pier, film noir recruits all that Los Angeles has to offer," the authors say. Their book is a seamless blending of cinema study and architectural history. Los Angeles, the location, deserves equal billing with its movie characters by being as desirable as Joe Gillis, as deceptive as Walter Neff and as dangerous as Noah Cross. And if you don't know who those guys are, you really need to read L.A. Noir.

Tipping the scales in favor of the visual over text is Faces of Sunset Boulevard: A Portrait of Los Angeles (208 pages, $39.95 hardcover), a richly stylized collection of photographs by Patrick Ecclesine. This gallery of remarkable people who populate the boulevard moves from east to west, starting downtown and cruising through Echo Park, Silver Lake, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades and ending the journey at the ocean. There are no candid shots here. Everyone has an incredible awareness of the camera, facing it eye-to-eye. The style is perfectly appropriate for this most self-aware of boulevards where everyone is ready for their close-up. Ecclesine is a talented visual storyteller and personalities burst forth with a minimal use of props. For instance, Arnold Schwarzenegger's ham fist clutches a tiny American flag in a grip that would strangle any living thing. An aspiring pro skateboarder is snapped in a mid-aerial that proves gravity can be defied. A realtor struts her stuff in a tiny bikini, sending the message that she might prefer a different profession. All the characters from West Hollywood are photographed at night, which seems to be their natural setting. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa holds a single red balloon, like a good boy after a haircut. Ecclesine's photos deserve scrutiny.

There is a big difference between Disneyland in Southern California and Disney World in central Florida. Chris Strodder is acutely aware of this and he specializes his scholarship to the original park in SoCal. He will turn anyone into a Disneyologist who reads The Disneyland Encyclopedia (480 pages, $19.95 paperback). The subtitle alone puts you on the path of enlightenment: The Unofficial, Unauthorized and Unprecedented History of Every Land, Attraction, Restaurant, Shop and Event in the Original Magic Kingdom. This reference book is loaded with vintage photographs and irresistible sidebars. Strodder knows every sign of all the faux businesses on Main Street. He lists the names of each of the Jungle Cruise boats. He shares the locations of ten serene hideaways inside the park. This is knowledge of staggering depth, questionable utility and maximum amusement.

Santa Monica Press has gone above and beyond with Pop Surf Culture: Music, Design, Film and Fashion from the Bohemian Surf Boom (272 pages, $39.95 hardcover) by Brian Chidester and Domenic Priore. Detailed information cascades from this book about all things surf related. Every page bursts with fascinating visuals. Collectors of tiki art, aficionados of surf music, lovers of beach movies, chroniclers of dance crazes and students of California fashion will all be delighted by this book. It is not a perfect presentation, however. The chapters have slightly uneven tones, indicative of a collaborative approach, and there is a degree of overlapping information. Many readers will probably approach this formidable book anecdotally rather than cover to cover, which will minimize the overlap. The text occasionally goes off the deep end, as in this socio-political conclusion to an otherwise benign romp through beach fashion: "Surf wear looked pretty good right into the early '70s... Surf wear designers of the '70s quickly became bad versions of new wave that in turn melded with an unconscious heavy metal and hardcore vibe. This developed into an aggressive, harsh fashion modeled more after mean streets than the beach itself... It all began to reek of white trash ignorance, and the mainstream 'style' of surfing became the opposite of bohemia. In some ways, surfing began to look pro-Reagan/Bush during the '80s, simply a misguided community that looked to the outside world from their position locked away from any sense of sophisticated wit." Yikes. I thought we were talking about Pendleton shirts and Catalina windbreakers. Pop Surf Culture is a great looking book with ambitious production value. (Subsequent editions are bound to correct the repeated paragraphs on page 43.) If anything, it is too inclusive. The final two chapters addressing new incarnations of related music and art could easily be omitted and not missed, especially as they contain the sloppiest and most addled writing. These negatives are minor, being far outweighed by the positives of this outstanding book, and are only mentioned because we are always looking for the perfect wave.