CATALOG–OF-COOL GOES DIGITAL

A new Web site, based on the popular hipster handbooks The Catalog of Cool and Too Cool, has launched. http://www.catalog-of-cool.com reprints the best material from Gene Sculatti's 1982 and 1993 compendiums, and also posts new entries, celebrating definitively stylish accomplishments in music, film, TV, literature and more.                   

Among the online highlights: Nick Tosches on Louis Prima (and on why Dean Martin bests Ernest Hemingway), Dr. Demento on stand-up comedians, and an exclusive interview with writer Terry Southern (Dr. Strangelove, Easy Rider). And there are lists: Billy Gibbons' five coolest cars, Screamin' Jay Hawkins' five coolest operas, John Waters' five coolest porno titles.

Want to know the hippest cities in the USA? They're both here. The coolest year? It's here too, along with impassioned, opinionated essays on the coolest movies and such eternal truths as pizza, lipstick, mood music and ghoul cool. Contributors include Richard Meltzer, Angry Samoan Mike Saunders, pop-cult experts Art Fein and Domenic Priore, screenwriter Richard Blackburn (Eating Raoul, The Legendary Curse of Lemora), R&B legend Swamp Dogg, veteran automotive journalist Bob Merlis and film critic David Chute.

"We seem to be doing this thing every decade, so it's definitely time again," says Sculatti, who has partnered with Kim Cooper, editrix of Scram magazine ("A Journal of Unpopular Culture") in catalog-of-cool.com. "Putting the books online was a natural. They get to live anew– and the continuing addition of new material extends their life even further. Our hope is that the site will draw younger visitors, curious about these cool artifacts and the people who gave them to us."

First published in 1982 (by Warner Books), The Catalog and Too Cool (1993, St. Martin's Press) have drawn praise from, among others, the Los Angeles Times ("The Catalog is to hipdom what Miss Manners is to etiquette"), the Philadelphia Inquirer ("You start browsing and have to buy, because it's irresistible") and the Village Voice ("It's always a pleasure to pick up a book that not only gives you a concise history of Bausch & Lomb Wayfarer sunglasses but also a critical evaluation of the Hostess Cupcake as edible industrial design").

For more information on http://www.catalog-of-cool.com, contact Gene Sculatti (editor@catalog-of-cool.com, 323-939-5277) or Kim Cooper (scram@scrammagazine.com, 323-223-2266)




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