HUSBAND AND WIFE PUBLISH FOUND MANUSCRIPT DETAILING A FORGOTTEN NEW ORLEANS

                                                                                                 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   

THE BEAUTY FOOLS 

After Seven Years The Beauty Fools Is Released With An Art Exhibition

Book Release and Opening Reception

Saturday, March 5^th · 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Coup d’oeil Art Consortium, 2033 Magazine Street

NEW ORLEANS—After the chaos of Hurricane Katrina, a package arrived on the Lower Garden District doorstep of New Orleans-based editor Timothy Alan Weeks and artist Lala Rascic. Inside the package, sent from All Souls, England, was a manuscript and a handwritten message that read simply, “Please understand.” Over the following seven years, Weeks edited the manuscript down to 100,000 words and Rascic brilliantly illustrated the characters and their environs to create The Beauty Fools, a sprawling “Southern Baroque” tale that follows its protagonists through celebration and collapse in 1990’s New Orleans.

“When I first read the manuscript, I felt that this was quite possibly the greatest literary find since A Confederacy of Dunces,” said Weeks.

The Beauty Fools team produced a limited pre-edition run of 300 copies designed in collaboration with the award-winning Hamper Studio in Zagreb, Croatia. This exquisite volume is shaped and proportioned as an oversized box of tarot cards, placed in an embossed and gold foiled box. In addition to the book, each box contains a small deck of colorized illustrations from the book, expanding on the tarot card theme. The pre-edition run will be available exclusively at Coup d’oeil Art Consortium at a price of $36.00 per book.

To accompany the launch of the book, Coup d’oeil Art Consortium (2033 Magazine Street) in New Orleans will host a month-long exhibition featuring multimedia installations inspired by The Beauty Fools, a series of limited edition intaglio prints based on the book’s illustrations, and a series of events and readings. The Beauty Fools exhibition will open to the public on Saturday, March 5^th from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM and run through Saturday April, 9^th on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM. Copies of the pre-edition and limited-edition intaglio prints can be reserved by calling the gallery at (504) 722-0876.

The Beauty Fools team will also launch a Kickstarter campaign to take pre-orders for the first edition and paperback edition of the volume.

ABOUT THE BEAUTY FOOLS

Synopsis

The Beauty Fools is the tale of Blake Kennedy, a young cynic who says “Why? Why? Why?” until the charming Eliot Dejan and beguiling Miss Peaches teach him how to say “Why Not?” and whisk him away on a wild jaunt. Eliot and Miss Peaches, who embody the adage that living well is the best revenge, soon introduce Blake to Doctor Kookie, a tarot card reader and slick street mystic who guides the group on a crazed trip to the Mexican desert. The story – about being young and having fun – takes place against the backdrop of famous (and infamous) New Orleans landmarks: the Sazerac Bar of the Roosevelt, the Victorian Lounge at the Columns Hotel, Jazz Fest, Commander’s Palace, Orpheum Theater, Moonwalk, Napoleon House, R-Bar, Rocky & Carlo’s, and ends tragically on Mardi Gras in the Royal Street courtyard that is now Café Amelie. A tale about learning to fly – and flying too high.

“I’m constantly fussing that contemporary novels are always 50 pages too long, and this story was no different. Late one night at John Paul’s Bar, I wagered a friend that I could make this glorious mess into magic. I always wanted to be Max Perkins. And I finally found my Fitzgerald”

 –Timothy Alan Weeks

Illustrations

The Beauty Fools contains 14 illustrations developed over a period of three years by visual artist Lala Rascic. The illustrations are rendered in black and white, as they appear in the book. The challenge of working on The Beauty Fools was that the project was executed from scratch for a text from an anonymous author. Rascic took inspiration from the book’s language to create illustrations that were full and rich.

“The overall idea was to represent the iconic New Orleans with its famous checklist of places, but also a rebellious, fun-loving, and sometimes melancholic youth set loose on the Crescent City and beyond.”

– Lala Rascic

The Beauty Fools at Coup d’oeil Art Consortium

This exhibition will use a space conventionally reserved for the display of the visual arts to bring focus to text and enliven the generic model of a book launch.

·         The fourteen illustrations from The Beauty Fools will be released as a series of intaglio prints in a limited edition of five. The black and white edition will be printed on 14 x 20 in. acid free rag paper and signed and numbered by artist Lala Rascic. One exhibition edition will be displayed at the gallery, the remainder will be available for sale as an edition or individually.

·         A multimedia installation will bring words from the book to life in a blacked out room of the gallery. Artifacts from the production of the book and the accompanying illustrations will be displayed, documenting the process.

“We wanted to explode all the possibilities in a gesamkunstwerk exhibition that draws from all the textual and visual elements of The Beauty Fools book and its story.”

–Timothy Alan Weeks and Lala Rascic

Timothy Alan Weeks and Lala Rascic

Timothy Alan Weeks is an editor, analyst, and project manager for a virtual company with numerous Fortune 500 clients. Weeks was previously a financial analyst and editor for both a Dutch and Belgian startup, and before that covered EU central bank policy while living in Germany. Besides writing sundry freelance articles for European business and lifestyle magazines, he edited and published the English edition of a Swiss travel book. Weeks is also the publisher of the Wise Mullet children’s books series, which are based on the Gulf Coast.

Lala Rascic is a multimedia artist working across disciplines that include performance, video, installation, and painting. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is part of both private and public collections, including Croatia's Museum of Contemporary Art. Rascic was awarded artist residencies at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, Platform Garanti in Istanbul, KulturKontakt in Vienna, and Cité des Arts in Paris, and in 2013 was the recipient of a Future of Europe award in Leipzig. Rascic divides her time between her native Sarajevo, Zagreb, and New Orleans, where she is a member of artist-run Good Children Gallery on St. Claude Street.