This book takes its title from Routine Pleasures (1986), a film by director Jean-Pierre Gorin, who had once collaborated on a series of politically charged cinetracts with Jean Luc-Godard (as the Dziga Vertov Group) before relocating to teach in San Diego, California. The film delineates two parallel tracks--one, a gradual infiltration of the Model Railroaders Club, a group of "train people" who met every Tuesday night in a hangar near San Diego; and two, a consideration of the still-life paintings and writing of artist and film critic Manny Farber--and the often unexpected intersection of these tracks. Artists responding to this work include James Benning, Jennifer Bornstein, Center for Land Use Interpretation, Harry Dodge, Manny Farber, Judy Fiskin, Magdalena Suarez Frimkess and Michael Frimkess, Galería Perdida, Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, Simon Leung, Lucky Dragons, Roy McMakin, Carter Mull, Newspaper Reading Club, Pauline Oliveros and Steve Roden.