Warren Lehrer

ILLUMINATED Manuscripts: Book Lamps (from A Life In Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley You can purchase a copy of A Life In Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley here: http://tinyurl.com/m6aelpz

A LIFE IN BOOKS: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley is an illuminated novel written and designed by Warren Lehrer (2013, Goff Books). The novel includes 101 books within it all written by Lehrer’s protagonist—Bleu Mobley—who finds himself in prison looking back on his life and career. This video provides a glimpse into Bleu Mobley’s 95th book (project)—The Illuminated Manuscripts—a line of book lamps produced by Mobley and his team of assistants.

At a certain point in his life/career (and in the novel), Mobley senses that he’s living in a world where books are not central to people’s lives like they once were—that reading, deep, long-form contemplative reading is very likely an endangered species. In 2006, he officially quits writing and turns his writing factory (a story in itself) into a laboratory for exploring and entrepreneuring ways to preserve and advance the legacy of the book as a vehicle for telling stories and as a physical object. The Illuminated Manuscript book lamps is one of the product lines that resulted from this effort. Even if you’re not reading books, the lamps help light up a room and evoke a warm, literary feeling as they evoke a variety of metaphorical connections to the experience of reading, writing and sharing stories.

Find out more about the A Life In Books project, Warren Lehrer, performance/reading tour, contests, Goff Books, etc: http://www.alifeinbooks.net/

Animation by Warren Lehrer in collaboration with Brandon Campbell.
Warren Lehrer's A-LIFE-IN-BOOKS — Book 41: No More Mrs. Niceguy: Confessions of a Nice Catholic Girl Excerpt of No More Mrs: Niceguy: Confessions of a Nice Catholic Girl
Performed by Caridad De La Luz (a.k.a. La Bruja.)
Written and Directed by Warren Lehrer
Filmed and Edited by Robert Winn
Assistant Directors: Judith Sloan & Claire Lebowitz
Second Camera/Film Crew: Brandon Knopp

A LIFE IN BOOKS: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley is an illuminated novel written and designed by Warren Lehrer (2013, Goff Books). The novel includes 101 books within it all written by Lehrer’s protagonist—Bleu Mobley—who finds himself in prison looking back on his life and career. The novel pairs Bleu’s confessional memoir with a retrospective monograph of all his books which are represented by their first edition cover designs, catalogue descriptions, and selected excerpts (that read like short stories).

This short film is based on an except of Bleu Mobley’s 41st book, No More Mrs. Niceguy: Confessions of a Nice Catholic Girl. In it, Paul Martinez, a dutiful, God-fearing daughter, wife, mother, and church member, is diagnosed with cancer. She soon discovers her own voice through the transformative power of hard-earned rage.

Mobley wrote No More Mrs. Niceguy out of his own experience with his daughter, who at 11 years old was diagnosed with a rare and potentially deadly blood disease known as ITP. After three years—going to scores of doctors, dozens of labs, too many clinics, treatment centers, and hospitals—Frida became an expert at waiting her turn, but impatient when it came to being bullshitted.

Read more about Bleu Mobley’s family and their influence on his writing by purchasing a copy of A Life In Books:
http://tinyurl.com/m6aelpz

Find out more about the A Life In Books project, Warren Lehrer, performance/reading tour, other videos, the writing contests, etc: alifeinbooks.net/

For further information email: warren@earsay.org
Bleu's Opening Narrative from A LIFE IN BOOKS: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley You can purchase a copy of A Life In Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley here: http://tinyurl.com/m6aelpz

A LIFE IN BOOKS: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley is an illuminated novel written and designed by Warren Lehrer (2013, Goff Books). The novel includes 101 books within it all written by Lehrer’s protagonist—Bleu Mobley—who finds himself in prison looking back on his life and career.

This video is an animated visualization of the first paragraph of Bleu Mobley’s opening narrative, as whispered into a microcassette recorder from the darkness of his prison cell on the night of February 7th, 2008.

Over the course of one long night, he tries to puzzle out how a life writes itself. How one thing leads to another without a plan or a map: how a simple compulsion to tell stories – turned into something else, twisted this way and that.

“And maybe by coming to grips with my story and putting it in a book, I can set myself free of it. For mine has been a life in books (101 of them, I’m told). Books have been my oxygen, my fix, my wings, my armor and fortress, my bread and butter, and now the cause of my demise. And if the story of my life in books can be my last book, I might (finally) be able to start a new chapter.”

Purchase a copy of A Life In Books and read more about Bleu Mobley’s life and books: http://tinyurl.com/m6aelpz

Find out more about the A Life In Books project, Warren Lehrer, performance/reading tour, contests, etc:
alifeinbooks.net/

Animation by Warren Lehrer in collaboration with Brandon Campbell.
Nocturne Opus 48, No 1 in C minor by Frederick Chopin, performed by Claudio Arrau.
Warren Lehrer’s A-LIFE-IN-BOOKS — Book 3: Narcissistic Planet Disorder You can purchase a copy of A Life In Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley here: http://tinyurl.com/m6aelpz 
A LIFE IN BOOKS: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley is an illuminated novel written and designed by Warren Lehrer (2013, Goff Books). The novel includes 101 books within it all written by Lehrer’s protagonist—Bleu Mobley—who finds himself in prison looking back on his life and career. This video provides a glimpse into Bleu Mobley’s 3rd book, Narcissistic Planet Disorder. 
 
Published in 1981, Bleu was inspired to write Narcissistic Planet Disorder as talk of extending the Cold War into the heavens was ratcheting up. It’s also highly likely that Bleu’s experience growing up the only child of a mother with severe bipolar disorder influenced his approach to writing and designing this oversized book. 
 
Find out more about the A Life In Books project, Warren Lehrer, performance/reading tour, contests, etc: 
alifeinbooks.net/ 
Purchase a copy of A Life In Books and read more about Bleu Mobley’s life and books: http://tinyurl.com/m6aelpz 
 
Animation by Warren Lehrer in collaboration with Mark T. Saintonge and Julie Verardi.
Warren Lehrer's A-LIFE-IN-BOOKS — Book 45: How Bad People Go Bye Bye A LIFE IN BOOKS: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley is an illuminated novel written and designed by Warren Lehrer (2013, Goff Books). The novel includes 101 books within it all written by Lehrer’s protagonist—Bleu Mobley—who finds himself in prison looking back on his life and career. This video provides a glimpse into Bleu Mobley’s 14th book, Precipice. 
 
Bleu's pull-out, pop up book on the history of capital punishment—How Bad People Go Bye Bye—was a flop until the cable news programs turned it into a controversy. Within two months the book was banned in school libraries in every state of the Union (except Massachusetts), and it became the top grossing children’s book of 1998, and Bleu’s first number one bestseller. 
 
During this time, Bleu became a frequent guest on tv talk shows and was accused of being a pornographer, a propagandist (for both sides of the issue), a sly manipulator of the media, a truth teller, the devil’s accomplice and God’s accomplice. 
 
Purchase a copy of A Life In Books and read more about Bleu Mobley’s life and books: 
amazon.com/Life-Books-Rise-Fall-Mobley/dp/193962102X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376504745&sr=1-1&keywords=a+life+in+books%2C+warren+lehrer 
 
Find out more about the A Life In Books project, Warren Lehrer, performance/reading tour, contests, etc: 
alifeinbooks.net/ 
 
Animation by Warren Lehrer in collaboration with Brandon Campbell, Mark T. Saintonge and Julie Verardi.

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