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The Worst of While You Were Sleeping [Hardcover]

Roger Gastman
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Book Description

June 28, 2012
This is a 496-page compilation of The Worst of While You Were Sleeping magazine. With over 900 images of the graffiti crazed, boozed-up partiers, and scantily clad ladies that were WYWS, this magazine content pushed the envelop of morality, sanity, and maturity.

While You Were Sleeping was a graffiti and pop culture magazine started by graffiti supply business owner Roger Gastman when he was 19. Here are some of the greatest stories the magazine ever published-and many that are not so good. From stories on admirable serial killers and interviews with child stars to photos of graffiti and people s naked sisters, this book takes you into the dirty minds of Gastman and his team of juvenile delinquents. You ve been warned.

Roger Gastman started writing graffiti as a teenager in Bethesda, Maryland, and parlayed his love for it into a legitimate career, becoming a trusted mediator between the underground art scenes and mainstream culture. He founded and published two respected pop-culture magazines While You Were Sleeping and Swindle (co-publisher) as well as more than 30 highly sought-after art books. He is the founder and creative director of R. Rock Enterprises, and has nurtured the careers of internationally recognized artists. Gastman was the supervising producer and creative consultant for the feature-length graffiti documentary Infamy, and served as consulting producer for BANKSY's Exit Through the Gift Shop, which earned an Academy Award nomination for best documentary. Most recently, HarperCollins released Gastman's The History of American Graffiti the definitive story behind the most influential art form in the last 100 years and Jeffrey Deitch asked him to co-curate Art in the Streets at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which is the first comprehensive U.S. museum survey of graffiti and street art.

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The Worst of While You Were Sleeping + VICE DOs & DON'Ts 2: 17 Years of Street Fashion Critiques
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 496 pages
  • Publisher: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. (June 28, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0764342029
  • ISBN-13: 978-0764342028
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 1 x 11 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #531,807 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
(6)
4.5 out of 5 stars
For the most part, The Worst of While You Were Sleeping serves as a great time capsule of stupidity. Timothy M Conlon  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
Really dope old graffiti photos. alise34  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars More Fun Than I Expected November 7, 2012
If you know about "While You Were Sleeping", or are knowledgeable about the graff scene, or have followed Roger Gastman's career, then you really don't need much of a review for this book apart from the observation that it's probably pretty heavy in its non-Kindle form and if thrown on the floor could probably hold a door open against a heavy draft. If you don't know anything about any of these things, then here are a few possibly helpful comments.

This compilation does an admirable job of catching a brief moment/mindset/movement in time. Everybody does the 50's and 60's, but this is a later, more personal, time and place. Graff was edgy and fringe. Places like Bethesda were fringe. Cool artsy high school nerds were fringe. Before every self-promoter had his/her own reality show, people like Gary Coleman and Ron Jeremy and porn stars were fringe. It was all just sketchy and fun and weird and irresponsible and pre-slacker. Well, this book catches a bit of a taste of all that. It is entertaining, but it also has just a hint of being an authentic historical document. It was all fiction, but now it's real.

So, if you were there, this is a nice memory piece. If you weren't there, then this is another reminder of all the cool things you were too young for or too old for or just plain missed. (Like Woodstock, Altamont, Warhol's parties and the '68 Democratic Convention.) Oh well, just ask yourself - "Would you punch an alien?"

Please note that I received a free electronic copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a frank review.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Stuck in the 90s July 16, 2012
Graff-wise I'd say my favorite decade was the 90s. Not just because of the styles and attitude, but the work you had to put into being a dedicated writer. No digital cameras, no online videos, no fancy paint. You really had to network back then. Everyone relied on physical photographs that you would send around to each other through `regular' mail. These collections led to the launch of graffiti magazines and While You Were Sleeping was one of the first to capture all of it.

The Worst of While You Were Sleeping is now a best-of collection of those issues. After re-reading through the random madness in the book, my favorite part were all the interviews and realizing where all these people have ended up almost 15+ years later. For the most part, The Worst of While You Were Sleeping serves as a great time capsule of stupidity.

Alas, with the advent of the internet, the graffiti magazine business shrank to almost nothing, while graffiti books seem to have found success in their place. For the growing niche of people that are interested in collecting graff mags from the 90s and 2000s, it's nice to have all these WYWS issues together in one book.
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5.0 out of 5 stars hilarious & extremely entertaining July 23, 2012
This book is a great collection of articles and photos from a magazine that was way before its time. VICE is pretty much a direct rip-off and Mtv only wishes they could figure out how to make a TV show that really taps the sub-cultures that WYWS infiltrated and reported on for the masses instead of such crappy reality shows. There's great graffiti photos from all over the country, entertaining interviews with people like Gary Coleman, Nikky Sixx, and Ron Jeremy, Mr. T trivia and important life lessons culled from TV shows like Small Wonder and Beverly Hills 90210. What more could you want? It's a fantastic coffee table book that will impress all your friends.
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