Category: Photography Books

 

 

 

My dog just got trolled by two coyotes.

 

 

 

 

 

I was sitting in my writing chair, wondering where to take today’s column, as Haley was lazing in the sun, just outside the sliding glass door.

All of a sudden, she leapt up and started barking.

(The full-throated, “I mean business” kind of bark.)

And this is one of the quietest creatures you’ll ever meet.

She can go all day without making a sound, unless she drops a little whine outside the front door when she wants to come in.

Barking, for her, is serious.

So I got right up, to see what was going on.

 

 

 

 

 

Just yesterday, (when she was away on a walk with my wife,) a massive coyote came strolling through the yard, practically prancing through Haley’s territory.

I called out to the kids, (who are home Zoom-schooling, b/c of Omicron,) and we all watched the gorgeous coyote for a good two minutes.

My son even captured a video, and I’ll post it here, if he’s up for sharing.

 

 

So today, my first thought was not psychopathic burglar, when the dog went ape-shit, but that it was probably the coyote coming back.

I was close, as this time, it was two.

Now, I’ve seen Haley tear off at full speed, determined to chase off her wild relatives, and maybe catch them if she can.

She must be a bit older and wiser, because despite her ferocious jaws, (she’s half-pit-bull,) Haley would be no match for two full-grown coyotes.

This time, she ran about ten paces, and then stopped, content to scream at them in dog-language.

I imagine she was saying something like, “Hey, assholes, get the fuck out of here! This is my turf! What’s your fucking problem? You don’t belong here! I’m in charge, not you! Leave! Now!”

I stood at the window, watching her body quake, giggling at the subtext of her unhappy barking, and then I decided to watch the coyotes.

They looked at her, only for a second, and then just pretended she wasn’t there.

It was an epic troll job.

They stood their ground, and went back to sniffing around, without the tiniest hint of hurry, or bother.

Then, and I swear this is true, one at at time, each had a leisurely poop, and then kicked at the dirt around the excrement with their hind legs.

You can’t make this up!

 

 

 

 

 

Living in a horse pasture in the heart of the American West, I admit life can be lonely, and almost boring, if you can’t take pleasure in watching the birds, the deer, the aspen leaves shaking in the breeze.

(And sometimes, the isolation does drive me crazy, especially since Covid began.)

But just now, in the last few minutes, I felt like the natural world was putting on a play, just for me.

In the end, the coyotes loped off, slowly, in their own good time.

They mocked Haley with their indifference, daring her to charge them.

Thankfully, she understood simple math.

2 coyotes, 1 dog.

Not a fair fight.

 

 

 

 

 

I bring this up, partly because it just happened before my eyes, as I sat with my computer on my lap, wondering what to write.

But also, (you know me well,) because I had a book in mind to review for today, and the coincidence is just uncanny.

Tara Wray published a photo-book a few years ago, “Too Tired For Sunshine,” which I reviewed favorably, though in my experiential fashion, I had no idea it was really a treatise on using photography to combat depression.

Remembering what I wrote, I did wonder about the title?

Why would someone be too tired for sunshine?

And I was impressed by the search for rich, deep color, and powerful moments, as it seemed to have a hidden drive behind it.

The book became the basis for a movement, both on Instagram and IRL, with a series of group photo exhibitions around the world by other artists who also suffered from depression.

The phenomenon culminated in the formation of a non-profit organization, the Too Tired Project.

 

 

(Pretty badass, if you ask me.)

 

 

 

 

In early 2021, Tara kindly send me a copy of her new book, “Year of the Beast,” which was made during the first pandemic year.

(Hence the title.)

This one was published by her own imprint, Too Tired Press.

The artist lives in the mountains of Vermont, in an isolated, rural existence, much as I do. (Though I’d kill to be able to get to Boston or NYC in half a day, instead of Albuquerque.)

I found this set of images to be a bit looser, perhaps not as locked-in as the previous work, but still, it’s a compelling project.

We see her children, in various guises, and lots and lots of animals.

Frankly, it was that connection with the natural world which I couldn’t shake from my brain, after the coyotes walked away.

There are only a few clear, symbolic references to the pandemic, like the fully stocked pantry image, and I dig the subtlety.

Other than Bo Burnham’s genius Netflix special “Inside,” which I’ve shouted out before, I don’t think I’ve seen much art directly ABOUT the pandemic that had enough nuance not to feel “too soon.”

So I appreciate this book is not didactic.

I was fortunate to interview Tara for the PhotoNOLA Virtual Book Fair, about both books, the way she uses art to battle depression, and the movement that popped up in her wake.

You can check it out here, if you’d like.

 

 

 

The images in “Year of the Beast” are displayed in the order in which they were shot, so the narrative plays out in real time.

It’s a tactic many of us consider with our documentary style photo series, but so often we opt for sequencing with intentional rhythm, creating runs of images based upon color, symbolism, texture, or emotion.

As 2022 has just begun, now the third year of this public health crisis, I thought it appropriate to kick off the column with a book that shows us one artist’s vision of 2020.

The Year of the Beast indeed.

 

To learn more about “Year of the Beast” click here

 

 

If you’d like to submit a book for potential review, please email me at jonathanblaustein@gmail.com. We are particularly interested in books by artists of color, and female photographers, so we may maintain a balanced program. And please be advised, we currently have a significant backlog of books for review. 

 

 

 

Here we are.

The end of the year.

 

And 2021 has been one to remember.

(That’s a fucking understatement!)

 

 

 

 

Despite the cynicism I’ve developed the last few years, like a well-earned callus, I’m still hoping for the best.

Hoping we sort out the growing climate catastrophe.

Hoping we heal the political wounds tearing our nation asunder.

Hoping I’ll stay healthy enough to be there for my wife and children as they grow.

(It’s a lot to hope for, I know.)

 

 

 

 

 

To be honest, I’m totally cooked.

(Who doesn’t feel like burger meat in the week between Xmas and New Year’s?)

Plus, we’re leaving for a family vacation tomorrow; the first in several years.

And I still need to pack.

Beyond that, the book I just spent an hour reading, and perusing, hits close to home in ways I’d rather not excavate today.

But I promised the book’s author/artist I’d get it reviewed this week, and I’m a man of my word.

So it’s possible I’ll be less honest, or at least less open, about my own experience than I might if I were writing in a couple of months.

When my own wounds are more fully healed.

Compromise, though, is a highly undervalued concept, and I’m all for it.

We’ll review the book, then, to honor my commitment, and for once, I might keep some of my family business to myself.

(There’s a first time for everything, right?)

 

 

 

 

 

One of my publishing clients told me, a few months ago, that I should check out Gillian Laub’s new Aperture book, “Family Matters.”

With the East-Coast-Jewish-family-culture it mines, and the naked honesty on display, it was suggested I’d love this book.

And I’d likely want to review it.

(Sounds great, right?)

The problem, though, is that, Aperture, the publisher, has never sent me a book, nor seemed to take this column seriously.

All good, as far as I’m concerned, because we can’t be friends with everyone, but I feared I might have trouble getting a copy of “Family Matters.”

Predictably, the Aperture PR person ignored several requests, including when I responded to a press email that THEY sent ME.

(Stay classy, Aperture!)

Normally, I would have let it go, but a few weeks later, I randomly realized I was “friends” with Gillian Laub on Facebook, as I am with some other industry types I don’t actually know.

(I favorably reviewed some of her work in a gallery show in Santa Monica, back in 2013, so maybe we connected after that?)

I’ve never done this before, DM’ing an artist to see if they might send their book directly, after being stymied by the publisher, but I figured, “What do I have to lose?”

Full disclosure: I was flattered when Ms. Laub wrote back quickly, assured me she’d sort things out, and ask Aperture to send me a book straight away.

She made it happen, in a flash, so when she asked me to review the book while her solo show at the ICP Museum in NYC was still on display, I was happy to honor the request.

The exhibition is up through January 10th, and as I’ll be taking my customary Winter week off next Friday, today had to be the day.

(Brain fry be damned!)

 

 

 

 

It is a terrific book, for sure, and one I’m not likely to criticize.

I admit, at first, when I realized I’d have to read text with each picture, I almost backed out.

I thought about being a punk, for once, and not “doing the right thing,” but I came to my senses.

In fairness, the writing is engaging, and well-edited, so it wasn’t a struggle to make it through the book.

I was riveted, and made to feel uncomfortable by the similarities to my upbringing and family, and also the drastic differences.

That said, I don’t think you have to be a Jewish Gen-X’er to appreciate this one.

It offers what we ask of an excellent photo-book: vulnerability, empathy, wisdom, and character development.

 

 

 

 

“Family Matters” is written in the first person, and follows more than two decades of growth and change in Gillian Laub’s extended family, up to the present.

From the jump, we learn the family of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants, (who arrived from Europe when my family did, at the turn of the 20th Century,) became extremely wealthy as real estate developers.

 

 

Now that I think about it, there’s solid foreshadowing for where we end up later, but I’ll build to that.

Gillian shares an anecdote of being an ICP student in 1999, chatting with colleagues outside the (then) Upper East Side institution, when some garish older ladies walk by, in full-fur coats, as her companion makes a joke at their expense.

Only for Gillian to realize it’s her family, out on the town, going to see art.

That vein of self-awareness, and airing the dirty laundry, stays with us throughout the book.

And I love it.

 

 

 

 

 

Pure coincidence, but I’ve been re-watching “The Sopranos” this week, having only seen it, bit by bit, when it was released in 1999.

 

 

I probably binged it on HBO a few episodes at time, whenever I’d come back to Taos to visit my parents, (and my wife’s parents,) as I was never able to afford HBO myself.

I grew up in a town filled with New Jersey, suburban mafiosi families, and have therefore always related to the show.

(Plus, Italian food feeds my soul, rather than Jewish deli. Honestly, I’d take pizza and chicken parm over pastrami and smoked fish every single time.)

This book reminds me of the seminal, David Chase saga, as the sense of legacy, privilege, and family values pervades the narrative.

Just as Tony Soprano’s life was determined by having a thug dad, and his kids never had the chance to be “normal,” Gillian Laub is pretty clear that her personal privilege dominates much of her life, despite her artistic tendencies and liberal politics.

(Though the New Yorkers in the book might blanch at the comparison to Jersey.)

 

 

 

 

That immigrant, nouveau-riche, American-dream narrative is cultivated throughout, as Gillian Laub’s clan “made it,” moving to the ritzy, Westchester town that seduced the social-climbing Clintons.

Chappaqua.

 

 

Beyond money, though, we continually read of close relationships.

Gillian feels truly loved by her parents.

She is seen, emotionally supported, and understood for who she is, from what I gather.

However, it’s just that sense of deep, rich love that leads to the conflict in “Family Matters.”

The big reveal, (spoiler alert,) is that Gillian’s parents, and some of her extended family, come out as serious Trumpers in 2016, and it nearly breaks their bonds forever.

That they are so connected makes the political betrayal deeper on both sides, as neither can relate to the other anymore.

Enmity replaces joy.

Anger trumps positivity.

All seems lost.

 

 

 

 

 

Still, proper rupture never happens, and I applaud the artist’s introspection, admitting while she maintained her progressive political leanings, she still accepted her parents’ money to pay for private school for her children.

(As one who’s spent 10 years sharing my personal life with you, my readers, I found the honesty refreshing.)

Of course, I should have mentioned the pictures by now, and they’re great.

Lots of humor, (sometimes at the subjects’ expense,) but also respect, solid compositions, and razor-sharp exposures.

When I saw the photo of the wedding planner, Harriette Rose Katz, I was teleported to that gallery in Santa Monica, 2013, back when Bergamot Station was still going strong, and I was reminded why I liked this work so much the first time I saw it.

 

 

 

 

In the end, Gillian’s family reconciles, after Joe Biden is inaugurated, but as I said before, it’s not like they ever formally broke.

They still showed up for the family functions.

Celebrated the birthdays.

Offered up the backyard for a Mary J Blige photo shoot.

(OK, probably none of us can relate to that last one, but I did wait on her and her then-husband, at Bobby Flay’s restaurant in 2003, and the way MJB’s man made us stay open late, and ordered off the menu, I knew he was a prick. If she had only asked me, I could have saved her a lot of heart-ache.)

This book is one for the collection, and if you live in the Tri-State area, I’d suggest you go see the show at ICP, Downtown, before it closes.

Their museum and school have moved many times, since Gillian was a student on the Upper East Side. (I saw my first-ever photo show there, and then engaged in naughty behavior with my wife in a new, mid-town location several years later.)

Like the photo world in general, ICP changes with the times.

But they stick around, because photography is as relevant now as it’s ever been.

To wrap this up, (so I can go back to packing for my trip,) thank you all for reading, and supporting this column in 2021.

May you and your loved ones have a safe, healthy, and invigorating 2022.

See you in two weeks!

 

To purchase “Family Matters” click here

 

 

If you’d like to submit a book for potential review, please email me at jonathanblaustein@gmail.com. We are particularly interested in books by artists of color, and female photographers, so we may maintain a balanced program. And please be advised, we currently have a significant backlog of books for review. 

 

 

Big day today.

 

 

 

It’s the anniversary of the first time I met my wife.

December 23rd, 1997.

(I’m writing on Thursday, as usual.)

 

 

 

Without exaggeration, that was the most important day of my life.

We were young, only 23, and have been together ever since.

(More than half our lives.)

We met as kids, really, and have grown up together all these years.

Through the easy times, the hardships, and the magic of raising a family, Jessie and I forged a steel bond, and I’m lucky to have a soulmate who’s helped me become a better, stronger person.

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday was a big day as well.

Our daughter packed up her desk, leaving her current elementary school for good.

(She’s switching from the Charter school to the public one in our part of town after break.)

Amelie had an awful experience with Zoom school the prior two years in 2nd and 3rd grade. The same teacher, who mailed it in, simultaneously undermined her confidence at every turn.

When a teacher repeatedly implies a child is dumb, (because of undiagnosed dyslexia,) it eats away at her self-esteem, day by day.

I’m glad Amelie is moving to a healthier environment, (she’s amazing,) but it wasn’t just the education.

She’d known most of her classmates since pre-school; navigating the same social environment since before she could speak. These girls knew how to push each others’ buttons; they knew all the weak spots.

(Is that a mixed metaphor?)

 

 

 

 

Sometimes, we need a fresh group of friends, because the bonds we make when we’re young aren’t really based on who we are.

Or at least, they’re not based on who we’ll become.

Every now and again, you do run across people who are still besties with their childhood mates.

Some of my female friends from school remain a tight-knit group, supporting each other through all of life’s twists and turns. (Shout out to Chrissy, Michelle, Brooke, Mandi and Caroline!)

Occasionally, our teen-aged, angst-ridden, poetry-writing phase lines up with our friends’ trajectories, and we walk life’s path together.

It does happen.

 

 

 

 

If you think my musings were random today, you’re wrong.

Sometimes, the rant takes off on at a frozen airstrip in Antarctica, and lands in the sunny, moist jungle outside Cancun.

But not today.

I just finished looking at “Between Girls,” by Karen Marshall, published this year by Kehrer Verlag in Germany, and as you’ll soon see, my intro was on-point.

The book is very well-produced, to give it props, as it interweaves black and white documentary imagery from NYC in the 80’s, with diaristic text, video stills, contemporary imagery, and QR codes, while also switching paper stock several times, when the text rolls around.

Cool cover too.

Design-wise, I’d give this book an A+.

As to the narrative, I found it flawed, or at least, more about style than substance.

 

 

 

 

The story, at first, follows some NYC hipster high school kids, and they bop around the Upper West and East sides.

They describe hanging out downtown.

They talk about boys.

We read bad poetry, (no offense,) but then again, if I ever shared my High School poems with you, you’d laugh longer than the Covid testing lines in NYC, late December 2021.

(Too soon?)

The documentary photos are good, for sure, and after a few images, we can tell Molly from Leslie, but I’m still not sure if there was one Jen, or two?

This is the part of a book where traditionally I’d like to feel a connection develop with the protagonists, as I build empathy and connection as a viewer, but that didn’t really happen.

Soon, (spoiler alert,) we learn that Molly has died, but we don’t find how how or why until the end. (Car crash on vacation in Cape Cod at 17.)

Given the age, and emotional fragility of that life phase, I’d assumed she committed suicide.

 

 

 

 

Later, cool-looking text blocks tell us several of the women have backyard chickens.

The girls have grown up to become mothers.

They go to work.

They live their lives.

 

 

 

I can’t fault the visual structure, nor the quality of the photographs.

They’re good.

But I found myself wanting to care more.

I wanted to be moved.

To have my soul touched.

(In the words of “Succession’s” Cousin Greg, “Boo Souls!”)

 

 

 

 

 

To me, a book like this screams out for vulnerable, honest, first-person text from the jump.

(Instead, the opening prose was intentionally inscrutable.)

I want to hear from the artist, right away, to tell me what I’ll be looking at.

If I know Molly soon dies, as I’m perusing those first few pictures, it’s so much more poignant.

And then I want my heartstrings pulled by the surviving friends, to push it even further.

Hell, I might have cried.

(It’s happened before, in books about loss.)

But it’s still a job well done for the artist and the production team.

I’m just a tough critic.

See you next week!

 

To purchase “Between Girls” click here 

 

 

If you’d like to submit a book for potential review, please email me at jonathanblaustein@gmail.com. We are particularly interested in books by artists of color, and female photographers, so we may maintain a balanced program. And please be advised, we currently have a significant backlog of books for review. 

 

 

I just saw a massive hawk.

(Up in a tree.)

 

 

 

They’re around a lot, this time of year, the red-tailed hawks.

The brown, dead grass makes it easy to spot prey, so they sit and wait, before swooping with efficient ferocity.

I’ve noticed, over the years, whenever you get too close, the hawks fly away.

 

 

 

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a threat or not.

Either way, as soon as you reach their discomfort zone, off they go.

(That’s nature for you.)

 

 

 

 

The coyotes are no different.

I’ve seen two this week; their sand-gray coats blending perfectly with the ground color in winter.

(Until the snow comes.)

If you want to appreciate a coyote, and watch the way it moves, you have to stand perfectly still, and if you’re inside, never open the door to get a better look.

They always spook.

Always.

Again, it’s in their nature.

At the merest hint, the faintest whiff of trouble, off they go.

(It’s not for nothing coyotes are such great survivors.)

 

 

 

 

 

This week, in addition to watching hawks and coyotes, I’ve also been following The Beatles massive new documentary, “Get Back,” on Disney+, by the master of lengthy story-telling: Peter Jackson.

(Trying to explain to my kids why “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy was such a big deal, in an era of digital-effects-ubiquity, was more difficult than I might have imagined.)

 

 

We’re only halfway through Episode 2, but I needn’t bother with spoiler alerts.

We all know how the story ends.

The Beatles break up.

 

 

 

 

 

They go out on top, as their late-stage-music is some of the best ever recorded.

But they also dissolve the group, more-or-less hating each other.

A decade of unhealthy relationship patterns turned the band into a ticking time-bomb, and the only question was when it would go off.

Not if.

There is a phenomenal moment, early in Episode 2, that Sir Paul must have nightmares about, as he correctly predicts in 50 years time, people will shake their heads that The Beatles broke up because Yoko Ono sat on an amp.

(Sidebar: Peter Jackson’s opening disclaimer scrupulously states each person is rendered accurately. If that’s true, Yoko was an inscrutably odd bird.)

Immediately after his prediction, though, the film cuts to a scene in which Paul and John are secretly recorded at lunch. The dynamic duo basically admits they ganged up on poor George all these years, denying him power or agency.

The agree (again, not knowing they were being taped,) that he had a right to be pissed at them.

It gives context to the narrative that George is ready to ride off into the sunset, with his Hare Krishna buddies, who at least show him some GODDAMN RESPECT!

 

 

What The Beatles prove, not-quite-exactly 50 years ago, is that unresolved emotional issues in relationships can doom even the most productive, successful, lucrative “family” the world has ever seen.

If you can’t sort out your business, it’s going to blow.

That’s as much a law of nature as spooking hawks.

 

 

 

 

 

When a person has tried every way to make things better, and failed, eventually that person will tap out.

Or go down in flames.

And this week’s book, “Tulsa, OK,” sent in by Victor d’Allant, a French photographer based in San Francisco, makes that point visually explicit.

Page after page.

This one came in Summer 2021, but I bumped it up the pile, as it represents two anniversaries at once.

“Tulsa, OK” was published this year, on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, and the 50th anniversary of Larry Clark’s seminal book “Tulsa.”

Speaking as an artist, a critic, and a human, the cold-open “Watchmen” recreation of the Tulsa Race Massacre was one of the most disturbing, riveting things I’ve ever seen filmed.

(Up there with the beginning of “Saving Private Ryan.”)

Larry Clark’s “Kids” would also make the short list, as watching poor, young Chloë Sevigny get HIV from her punk boyfriend almost made me vomit. (Should I have said spoiler alert? The movie is 26 years old.)

 

 

And Clark’s “Tulsa” was one of the first photo books I was shown in class, at UNM in the late 90’s, and until that moment, I hadn’t realized anyone could make art that way.

 

 

 

 

As the well-written, extensive opening essay in “Tulsa, OK” explains, Larry Clark lived within the world he was documenting, in Oklahoma, and Victor d’Allant did not.

The former was a junkie, making photos of his own world, the latter is a “Visual Anthropologist” with a single-mother-drug-dealer as a fixer, introducing him around the sad, defeated city.

Said fixer, Julie Winter, actually wrote the intricate introduction, in which tells us she knew Victor before she ended up Tulsa, and invited him to come check it out.

Julie refers to this book, (as well as Clark’s,) as “grotesque, terrifyingly awful, full of despair.”

That about sums it up.

The text briefly mentions d’Allant photographs his subjects naked, but I don’t think it really landed in my consciousness when I read it. (At least, not enough to prepare me for what was coming.)

The quote is here:

“Many subjects in both Larry’s and Victor’s books are pretty much naked, as if they both felt their sitters were trying to display some human softness in this awful universe. But in truth, it’s a clever way for the artists to show what would be hidden beneath clothes: cuttings made in desperation, tattoos ordered on some drunken whim, flesh damaged by too many pregnancies…In Tulsa, Victor told me one night as I was trying to fall asleep, ‘nudity shows the fragility of life and the difficulty of survival.'”

 

 

 

 

 

I say this now, because it would be impossible not to discuss the elephant in the room, with respect to this book.

Given how much I’ve written about the male gaze in the last year, and the question of when, if ever, men photographing nude women is OK, (because of power dynamics,) I just couldn’t resolve the tension.

So many of the portraits of down-and-out, attractive young women, topless, or totally nude, struck me as exploitative to the point of obscenity.

Many viewers would likely dismiss this book immediately, and on the final page, even the text editor is credited as anonymous, because he doesn’t want his name associated with the book.

OK.

I said it.

But when a book is admittedly meant to be “terrifyingly awful,” you need to expect some fucked up shit within.

(And I will not be sharing any of the explicit photos below.)

 

 

 

 

 

The book is dynamic in its design, featuring messaging-app-style text bubbles, calendars, and really excellent image placement, with respect to the visual path.

There is a fire-engine red throughout, and as Victor is from Paris, I need to acknowledge in every episode of “House Hunters International” I’ve ever seen filmed there, that color has always been included in home interiors.

Always.

To the point that Jessie and I joke about it.

They’re filming in Paris?

We’re gonna see that red…

I guess it represents passion, or desire.

Maybe both.

But the quality of the production here, and the compelling, first-person stories of violence, addiction, depravity and love, within the context of a culture of poverty, kept me glued to my seat.

Page after page, my jaw would drop.

I never got comfortable with why the women were depicted topless, when confronting the camera directly, but there are some images, done in a documentary style, where the action is not directed by the photographer… and yes, the nudity makes sense there.

Trigger warning: one story describes a woman being fisted while she’s having her period, and I really hoped we wouldn’t see that illustrated, but we do, in full color.

Damn!

For a book trying to reflect on the vision of Larry Clark’s “Tulsa,” and the worst racially-motivated massacre in American history, I get that controversy serves a purpose.

(Which is why I’m reviewing this book, and why I don’t think it should be banned, panned, or denied its existence.)

It’s a seriously fucked up book about a seriously fucked up subject.

I’m guessing Victor d’Allant is an edgy dude, and though it might be cliché, the French supposedly consider Americans to be prudish.

The structure of book implies that all the subjects chose to be photographed, but if you’re high as a kite, can you actually offer consent?

(He even does a ride-along with the cops, which pisses off his new-underworld-buddies.)

So there we are for today.

Most of you will probably hate this book.

Some of you will love it.

As my old basketball coach used to say, “Where you stand depends on where you sit.”

 

To purchase “Tulsa OK” click here

 

 

 

If you’d like to submit a book for potential review, please email me at jonathanblaustein@gmail.com. We are particularly interested in books by artists of color, and female photographers, so we may maintain a balanced program. And please be advised, we currently have a significant backlog of books for review. 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

(You know I like to write on Thursdays.)

 

 

 

It was Thanksgiving, 2011, when I stumbled upon my signature style, so I’m always thankful for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you each week.

Thank you for the motivation, the inspiration, and all the kind words you’ve sent my way, as an audience, over the last decade.

I appreciate it!

The truth is, I have much to be thankful for.

I’m healthy, and have an amazing family, when it comes to my wife, children, and the dog.

(Who knew pandemic pets would be such a thing?)

 

 

My kids are off-the-charts fantastic; beautiful inside and out.

Being their teacher, their life-guide, their friend, their pandemic companion… it’s been the most rewarding experience of my life.

And I’m thrilled to report that after 20 months, my wife’s recovery from clinical depression is going better than ever.

We still have the occasional setback, and have learned it’s a disease like cancer, where you hope for a permanent remission, rather than all-out-victory, but really, Jessie is happier and healthier than she’s been in years.

Surmounting this challenge together has made us stronger as individuals, and as a family unit.

 

 

I love my job, get plenty of recognition for what I do, and have created a network of super-talented, kind, and loving friends around the world, while also getting to travel.

As I said, I have much gratitude, and try to share it on the regular.

With respect to my family of origin, things are rarely rosy, and we had yet another blow-up last night, as our respective value structures do not align.

But no one’s road through human existence is totally smooth, and truly, we grow through challenges.

(Of course, personal evolution requires self-awareness, and the discipline to admit one’s failings in order to self-improve, which many can not do.)

Thankfully, the sky is deep blue at the moment, the sun is pouring in through the window opposite my writing-chair, and my belly is full with leftovers from Tuesday’s dinner party.

Hope you’re having a good morning so far as well!

 

 

 

 

That said, working on a holiday is challenging.

This time of year, the wheels come off the bus, as we all function on an annual cycle, and our energy winds down with the calendar.

So let’s get the show on the road, shall we?

I reached into the book stack this morning, searching for the final 2020 submission. (Need to keep my promises.)

I swear, I assure you, I had no idea it was thus, but the ultimate book from last year is actually an exhibition catalogue sent along by my friend, Richard Bram, called “Richard Bram: Short Stories,” which was published by the Mannheimer Kunstverein, in Germany. (In conjunction with a retrospective he had in Mannheim.)

 

 

 

 

Richard Bram is the best friend I’ve made via social media.

After corresponding on Twitter, we met up at the Photo Plus Expo, in NYC in the Fall of 2010, on the very first assignment Rob gave me for this website.

 

 

He’s a kind, thoughtful, considerate, smart, literate, intellectual, creative soul, and has turned up as a character in this column many times now.

Once, we shared beers and katsu in a tiny Japanese restaurant in the East Village, after listening to a lecture from a brilliant Belgian video artist. In 2019, we toured Photo London on the day I ran into my NYT nemeses, and on another occasion, we walked through a terrific exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, alongside a Slovenian photographer who’s based in Beijing.

 

 

 

 

In particular, because my family of origin believes in unconditional love, (code for not having to be nice to, or interested in someone, yet still they’re supposed to “love” you,) having friends who share my ethical and moral framework is a big part of how I’ve become a sane, happy person over the years.

So it was quite interesting to see this book, which chronicles my friend’s vision, as he has grown as a human, and a photographer, over time.

Full disclosure: when I opened it up, it contained a note stating the book was a gift, and not intended for review. (Though I told Richard when he sent it, every book that arrives is considered for review.)

I don’t love this one, and find it inferior to his Peanut Press book, “Richard Bram New York,” which I reviewed positively several years go.

 

 

But it is perfect to discuss today, for several reasons.

 

 

 

 

To begin with, Richard, in his many decades as a street photographer, has been fortunate to roam much of known Earth.

As a witness to humanity, he’s done a great job.

Off the top of my head, we see images from New York, Kentucky, (where he also once lived,) England, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, China, Cuba, Cambodia, and Mexico.

(Likely I’m missing a few locales.)

The book is structured with a schism between the early black and white work, and his later shift to color. (Which is the work I know.)

In the B&W section, there is an homage to Elliott Erwitt, one to Cartier-Bresson, and a captured moment of Mohammed Ali that will make you stop and take notice.

The images feel more generic, or derivative, but are still inspirational, because you sense the humanism in the man. And the Occupy Wall Street photographs, depicting a moment lost to time, are also prescient, as the ideas motivating that movement are more relevant now than ever.

{Editors note: when photographing the book just now, I realized perhaps I was a tad harsh about the B&W images. Some really are charming.}

 

 

 

 

When the shift to color comes, I released a breath, because while the essay tells us it was a challenge for him, I’d argue his vision is stronger working this way.

The compositions are more dynamic and strange, (edge to edge,) and some of the colors really pop.

Hot pink on the streets?

Why not.

The color pictures also have a wit that feels particular to the man.

Watching Richard’s work get “better” as he ages also gives a viewer reason to hope.

In the ideal world, with age comes wisdom, and perspective.

With experience comes deeper knowledge.

As I wrote in my 2019 London series, Richard lives in Limehouse, which is a river-front neighborhood in East London.

He has a daily relationship with the Thames, in romantic ways most of us can only dream of.

Watching the light change on the water, and the tides rise and fall.

 

 

The book ends with his moody photographs of the river, and having seen those views with my own eyes, it made me nostalgic for London, a city in which I feel so comfortable.

Sitting here, on American Thanksgiving, licking the wounds from some pointless family drama, the last few images put me in a positive frame of mind.

If you have proper love in your life, it doesn’t matter who delivers it.

Real love is based upon respect, kindness, compassion, empathy, joy, and genuine interest.

As I’ve grown over the last 11 years writing for you, I’ve tried to share the accrued wisdom.

I’ve tried to cultivate my curiosity, chat with as many people as possible, see new things, eat great food, and live in a way that would entertain and educate you, along for the ride.

So it’s no exaggeration to say that writing this column has made my life so much better.

Thank you!

And I hope you stay safe and healthy this week.

See you next Friday!

 

To purchase “Richard Bram: Short Stories” click here

 

 

If you’d like to submit a book for potential review, please email me at jonathanblaustein@gmail.com. We are particularly interested in books by artists of color, and female photographers, so we may maintain a balanced program. And please be advised, we currently have a significant backlog of books for review. 

 

 

“Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king,
And a king ain’t satisfied ’til he rules everything…”

 

“…it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive…”

 

From “Badlands,” by Bruce Springsteen, written in my hometown of Holmdel, NJ, 1978.

 

 

 

I’m re-watching “Marco Polo” on Netflix.

 

 

Such a brilliant show.

It was the first thing I binged, when we finally got high-speed internet in 2015, thanks to Barack Obama.

He’d given a massive chunk of money to the Kit Carson Electric Co-Operative, here in Taos, to bring fiber-optic cable to every rural home in the County.

The funds were allotted in 2009, as The Great Recession began crushing so many Americans, yet it took 6 years for them to wire up our home.

And we were lucky, as the money ran out soon after, and some people got screwed.

Now it’s 2021, and I wouldn’t have been able to work through the pandemic, without Obama’s largesse.

(Thanks, Barack! We miss you!)

How could I have Zoomed without the good WiFi?

I really don’t know, but hopefully the new Biden infrastructure package will help those left behind without sufficient bandwidth.

(Hopefully.)

 

 

 

 

That said, “Marco Polo” is fascinating.

I was just telling Jessie, it’s the kind of entertainment that helped launch Netflix, paving the way for all the streaming services to follow.

It’s also the kind of content no one is making anymore, as it was far-too-expensive.

(I read Netflix lost $200 million on the production.)

The amount of money spent, to recreate 13th Century China and Mongolia, must been seen to be believed.

The costumes, thousands of extras, the palaces, the horses, the piles of corpses; no expense was spared.

To achieve that degree of verisimilitude alone was a feat, but the acting is also terrific, the story-telling taut, (well, they do drag things out a bit,) and the kung-fu is stupendous. (Shout outs to Tom Wu and Michelle Yeoh.)

Doing a bit of research, I learned the show runner, John Fusco, also created “Young Guns,” “Thunderheart,” and “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” so the Dude is obviously a unique talent.

 

 

But massive productions like this rest on the collective skills of hundreds of people, not just one, and that kind of lucre is now only dropped on Marvel movies. (That Benedict Wong, who was genius as the lead, Emperor Kublai Khan, is now a side-player in the MCU is definitely ironic.)

I could shout out so many of the actors, but Olivia Cheng deserves particular mention.

{Caveat: I’d be remiss not to state this was a Weinstein Company co-production, and the heavy nudity included would not be acceptable these days, if such shows were still being made. Which, again, they’re not.}

Olivia Cheng played a concubine/assassin, (a combo she reprised in the underrated “Warrior,”) and she is such a badass.

 

 

There is a scene, relatively early in the first season, where to show off her skills, (to the audience,) she fights, and kills, three soldiers intent on raping her.

She does this, it should be said, entirely naked.

It did take me out of the narrative, just a touch, because I empathized with the actress, wondering how vulnerable she must have felt, to be in front of the camera like that, without even the meagerest of fabric defenses?

The scene reminded me of the unbelievably cool fight in the steam room, in “Eastern Promises,” in which a nude Viggo Mortensen takes out a Russian Mafia thug.

 

 

But that scrap is brutal, lacking grace, while Olivia Cheng’s triple-murder is filmed as if she barely breaks a sweat.

Girl power, indeed.

 

 

 

 

I mention all of this for a reason, of course.

This morning, I looked at one of two remaining 2020 submissions, a slim, self-produced book of poems and images, by Roxanne Darling, called “I AM: For the Love of Nature.”

It arrived in December 2020, and features a series of self-portraits, in which the artist took her clothes off, in nature, in a feat of self-empowerment, declaring the aging female form should not be ignored.

(She was photographed from ages 63-66.)

As an honest critic, I’ll say these images are not the type I’d typically review, just as art.

There is an audience for every style of photography, for sure, and this is not exactly to my taste.

But I’ve written countless times, books are experiential, not just a collection of successive images.

Pictures do not need to be brilliant for a book to have power, and one like this, in particular, in which an artist is taking control of her own narrative, often gets extra-juice from that context.

 

 

 

 

The opening essay states Ms. Darling has a history of trauma and abuse, and we learn at the end that her first nude-in-nature photo came just after she buried her mother, who died at 92. (We’re also told her partner, Shane Robinson, took the photos, so it’s not a tripod-and-timer photographic system.)

A fit of instinct pushed Roxanne to disrobe, and then she continued to do so, in various landscapes around the American West.

When I watch something like “Marco Polo,” I occasionally feel the naked women are being exploited by the camera.

Yet as we saw recently with Jason Langer’s collaboration with his muse, Erika, that is not always the case.

Certainly, with Roxanne’s book, the message is super-clear: she feels strong, beautiful, at peace, and engaged with the natural world around her.

(And she believes the aging female form should be celebrated, and deemed attractive, not hidden away in shame.)

As the father of a young girl, I’m always aware of the manner in which the media, and her peers, can impact my daughter’s self-esteem.

My wife and I discuss, with some regularity, how to prevent Amelie from getting “body issues.”

So I’ll always have a soft spot for books like this.

For offerings that scream, “Fuck you if you try to marginalize me, or insist women of a certain age no longer matter.”

This one is cool, for sure, and I’m so glad Roxanne sent it my way.

See you next week!

 

To Purchase “I AM: For the Love of Nature” click here 

 

 

If you’d like to submit a book for potential review, please email me at jonathanblaustein@gmail.com. We are particularly interested in books by artists of color, and female photographers, so we may maintain a balanced program. And please be advised, we currently have a significant backlog of books for review. 

 

Sorry, I was wrong.

 

I don’t have one submission left from 2020, but three. (Well, two after today.)

 

 

 

As you know, I review exhibitions, write about photography festivals, and share travel stories throughout the year, so I’m not able to get through my book stack as quickly as I’d like.

We’re fortunate that artists keep sending books in, for my perusal, but it means occasionally a book will linger here, in the stack, and for that I apologize.

Therefore, while I mix in tales from Chicago, (the trip was awesome,) I’ve decided the next books I review will be the ones that came in last year.

(It’s time.)

Today, though, we’ll be looking at a submission I purposely sat on, as I wasn’t ready to write about it until now.

As I got home after Midnight Monday morning, and have been going non-stop ever since, I hope you’ll allow me a more direct, less metaphorical transition.

There’s an English expression I like, where they just say two words: “Needs must.”

So there we are.

 

 

 

I reviewed a book by Portland artist Jason Langer years ago, and we remained in touch. I was enamored of his “timeless” style, as he often makes black and white photographs that appear conjured from the 19th Century.

It’s a “look,” I suppose, and of course removing 21st Century temporal artifacts helps as well.

Sometimes, even when the details are current, (or end of the 20th Century,) they still feel ripped from the space-time continuum, as I vividly recall an image he took of a cowboy at a payphone in a bar in San Francisco, and it stuck in my memory banks.

 

 

Payphones?

Kids today don’t even know what the hell those are. (Just ask Eric Kunsman, he’ll tell you.)

But back in the summer of 2020, I wrote an article discussing male photographers, and the power dynamic imbalance when they photograph naked women, after stumbling upon an almost soft-core-porn Instagram account.

(I’m rarely naive, but really, I had no idea those things are out there.)

Whether it was via email or Facebook, I can’t recall, but Jason, who’s photographed nude men and women for years, reached out, saying he thought it was a far-more-nuanced conversation, and could he send me something that might open my mind a bit?

I said “Sure,” because that’s how I roll.

And here we are.

 

 

 

“Erika,” published by Reflecting Pool Editions, is not a traditional book, by any means, which Jason acknowledged in the letter that was taped to the brown-paper-wrapped offering.

Frankly, it looks like a portfolio of loose images, brought together in a fancy box, and if that’s how you see it, I won’t argue.

But experientially, it’s a book, as the narrative unspools over time, (15 years,) via multiple photo shoots the artist undertook with Erika, his muse.

To begin with, there are only a few “nude” images in the book, but I held off looking at it until today, as I was afraid it would be more graphic than that, and we’ve avoided publishing nudity for many years now. (Rob gave me permission to include a couple of the photos, but really, it’s a small percentage of what’s in the box.)

Erika, who is obviously beautiful, is an actor, writer, director, producer and photographer, who made a career working in experimental theater, both in the US and around the world.

Each photograph includes a piece of her writing, printed on the back, and we learn from Jason’s ending essay the text comes from a series of interviews they conducted in 2019.

These are current reminisces, looking back at New York in the 90’s, her past relationships, and what it meant to become a mother.

Certainly, some of the images fit with Jason’s style of stepping out of time, but to me, that’s not really what this book is about.

Rather, it makes me think of agency, and collaboration, as when I wrote about men exploiting women last year, Jason, and one photographer with whom I traded off-the-record IG DM’s, both said many models love the work, and feel empowered by doing so.

(Foreshadowing here, but I saw some nude art in Chicago that gave me the creeps, as it so clearly fit with my sense of men commodifying women.)

But this doesn’t.

Erika is a performer, and in some images, you can feel her embodying a character.

She knows how to present herself, and there was no part of my viewing experience in which I felt she was an object.

As you read her thoughts, and the stories of working in Europe, having love affairs, living the artist’s life in rapidly gentrifying New York, it’s clear Erika is a powerful, intelligent, talented, confident woman.

She and Jason grew together, over time, which he confirms in his ending statement.

Working with Erika opened up his feminine side, and helped him push his photographic career forward.

 

 

 

At some point, over the last five years or so, commenting on someone’s appearance became verboten.

It’s not PC to call a women beautiful, outside of a very strict set of parameters, but certainly not in any professional setting.

I get it, and have no beef with that at all.

But you can’t look at a book like this without understanding Erika is lovely, she knows it, and as a performer, her face, mind and body are her tools of expression.

I’m still not sure I understand why it’s necessary for her to take her clothes off, but perhaps the prevalence of pornographic imagery in the 21C has skewed our cultural sense that the human form can ever be anything but sexualized.

(Certainly here in America.)

After looking at this book, though, I accept that if two collaborating artists, exploring the world, choose to make art this way, it’s not right for me to dismiss it out-of-hand.

Especially when it results in something I found captivating, enriching, and thought-provoking.

If you choose to disagree, that’s totally cool.

It’s still a free country, after all.

(At least until 2024, when all hell breaks loose.)

 

 

To learn more about Erika, please click here

Please be advised, two of the images below feature nudity. 

 

 

If you’d like to submit a book for potential review, please email me at jonathanblaustein@gmail.com. We are particularly interested in books by artists of color, and female photographers, so we may maintain a balanced program. And please be advised, we currently have a backlog of books for review. 

 

 

My neighbor built a heliport, about five years ago.

 

 

 

He didn’t have the permits to build in a remote, rural valley, but he’s a wealthy man, so he skirted the rules, and got away with it.

(Like that phrase, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.)

Sure, some people made a fuss, but as he built across the street from the volunteer firehouse, and enlisted some of the firemen to walk around with petitions, there was at least plausible deniability.

(That it was in the public interest.)

Ironically, my neighbor does not own a helicopter, (that I’m aware of,) but he does own a big chunk of land, so it was speculated he was planning to develop ranches for the “copter class.”

Given a hedge-fund billionaire, Louis Bacon, purchased Taos Ski Valley not long before, started his own airline, and expressly began cultivating a super-rich clientele, such conjecture about our misfit heliport seemed just.

But nothing like that has come to pass, and I’ve never even seen the damn place used. It just sits there, jutting out of a cow pasture, and has more No Parking signs than parked cars, much less helicopters.

Until today, that is.

 

 

 

Ten minutes ago, I was perusing today’s book, preparing to write this column for you.

As I sat on the couch, (having only recently had the confidence to leave my bedroom as a workspace,) I heard a shocking roar that split the silence.

My head started throbbing, as a hellacious noise tore though the valley, and I quickly ran outside to see what the fuck was happening.

I looked to the East, and saw nothing, so I ran to the other side of the house, looked West, and there was a massive, military helicopter up in the sky.

It made no sense, as was it landing, or what was it even doing here?

So I threw on some shoes, grabbed my camera, (and a leash for the dog,) and tried to suss out what was up.

I watched the helicopter ascend, right after landing, and then circle the valley again, before coming in to land.

Again.

It lifted off one more time, did yet another circle, but this time, I had the camera ready, and a fast shutter speed chosen, so I could at least get some photos of the random, unsettling phenomenon.

 

 

I might mention our valley ends in a box canyon, which amplifies sounds like mad, so this particular military helicopter made me think of what it must have been like in distant, Afghan valleys, when those war ships showed up over the nearest peak, ready to fuck shit up.

Viscerally, I was afraid, though logically, I knew we weren’t under attack.

The copter did the same maneuver, landing and immediately rising, and then headed off to the South, (perhaps towards Kirtland Air Base in Albuquerque,) leaving the place as abruptly as it arrived.

Just now, my heart rate has dropped back to normal, and I’ve convinced myself it was just a training exercise.

That’s all.

But if my rapacious neighbor had never built that heliport, in the middle of a cow pasture, when there was no actual demand for such a thing, I would be a bit calmer than I am.

The architecture had a purpose in mind, and eventually, people always find a way to use things, once they exist.

 

 

 

Last week’s piece ran nearly 3000 words; likely the longest I’ve written in my 10 years as a columnist.

There was much to discuss, and I leaned in.

Today, as a counter-point, we’ll keep it brief, and relatively obvious.

I’ll introduce today’s book, by Ashok Sinha, which showed up in the mail nearly a year ago. (I swear, we’re almost done with 2020 submissions. Maybe 1 more to go.)

“Gas And Glamour” was published by Kehrer Verlag in Germany, and is somewhat straightforward, as is today’s review.

I met Ashok at an NYT event a while back, and we stayed in touch, so when he reached out offering a book about LA architecture, I said sure.

And given the magic of that brief sequence, in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” where Tarantino wrote his love letter to LA neon, and old movie theaters, it seemed like this book would mine similar turf.

 

 

The quick gist is, I found this book flawed, and had questions about its construction throughout, but there were also strong elements to the production, so it felt like one of those “teachable moment” column opportunities.

 

 

 

The project focuses on LA, mid-20th-century architecture, specifically buildings constructed for the burgeoning car culture that has since defined the city.

And the buildings are cool, to be sure, all shot in the gloaming, or at night.

The two intro essays, which set the scene, are printed on paper backed with small polka dots, so the eye begins to swim in space while focusing on the words, which reminded me of those 80’s prints with the hidden image embedded within.

(“Just relax your eyes, man, and you’ll get it.”)

The photos are good, and a few are excellent, but throughout, I found myself craving more formality. As in, I wanted them to look like tripod, 4×5 images, in which the photographer waited as long as possible to get the perfect, insanely-well-composed shot.

I did not get that sense, as these feel more Canon 5D Mark II, and while I’m sure a tripod was involved at times, I didn’t feel it in my gut.

Additionally, the modern cars included in the frames felt like afterthoughts, as they did not add much formally, or to the color-palette, and I kept thinking, “Why didn’t you just wait another 20 minutes until the lot was clear?”

Furthermore, the few images that lacked cars, or light trails, did communicate that more weighted, luxurious viewing experience, which confirmed what I thought and felt were in line.

As to text, there were descriptive, historical captions included in the upper-left-hand-corner of each double-spread, but they were more informative than interesting, (to me,) so I began to skip the reading.

These, I thought, would be perfect for an index at the end, so I could choose to inform myself afterwards, rather than breaking up the flow of images.

“I wish,” I said to myself, “there were more images instead.”

 

 

 

 

So I was quite surprised, at the end, to see an extensive index, featuring additional photos, including ones that showed the car in which Ashok travelled, as well as QR codes to give me the exact location of each building. (Which I would never use, though I’m aware others like the technology.)

“If only,” I uttered in my head, “he’d given us more dynamic images in the body of the book, and saved the textual info for the index, I’d have liked this book a lot more.”

Lately, I find myself telling book clients, and students with whom I meet, that every single part of a book needs to be considered.

All of it.

My design partner Caleb feels the same way, and when I recently interviewed Katherine Longly, she shared the same sentiment.

Think hard about every segment, and stress test those choices.

I don’t doubt that in “Gas And Glamour,” Ashok and his extensive team did think about the details. I guess I just don’t agree with the decisions they made, but it is literally their prerogative to make the book they want to make.

(And it’s cool, just not what I would have done.)

As a critic, though, it is my job to tell you what I think, and how you might avoid such (subtle) pitfalls when you make your own book.

See you next week!

To learn more about “Gas and Glamour” click here

 

 

 

If you’d like to submit a book for potential review, please email me at jonathanblaustein@gmail.com. We are particularly interested in books by artists of color, and female photographers, so we may maintain a balanced program. And please be advised, we currently have a backlog of books for review. 

 

“I’m just trying to understand it, Mother.”

“What is there to understand? Just read it. There it is in black and white. Who wants you to understand it? If the Lord God wanted you to understand it He’d have given you to understand or He’d have set it down different.”

John Steinbeck, “East of Eden,” 1952.

 

 

 

Have you ever heard of Andy Kaufman?

 

He was a comedian back in the 70’s, and got famous for pissing people off. (And for his weird-ass accent in the TV show “Taxi,” which would certainly be considered offensive in today’s cultural climate.)

I must have seen a few minutes of his stand-up act, back in the day, and then Jim Carrey played him in a movie, but I do have strong recollections of his place in the culture.

Andy Kaufman was such an absurdist, he’d get on stage and say strange, not-particularly-funny shit, just to get a rise out of his audience. Some of it was hilarious, but mostly because he was toying with expectations in a manner that feels very of-the-moment.

 

 

I’m pretty sure he got involved with professional wrestling, and got his ass kicked for real, because he made his living pushing the envelope.

Plus, he did a spot-on-perfect Elvis impersonation. (And got to hang out with Johnny Cash on “Hee Haw,” which melts my brain.)

 

 

These days, we know all about trolls, and gas-lighting, but it seems Andy Kaufman helped pioneer the practice, back when it would have seemed revolutionary.

To me, the point is to grind into the human consciousness that our desire for things to “make sense,” and for us to be able to “understand” the world, much less the Universe, is hubristic and fallacious.

Much like Loki needed to get the shit beat out of him by Hulk, in my kids’ favorite scene in the first “Avengers” film, Andy Kaufman was the canary in the coal-mine for our 21st Century misadventures. (He died young, and didn’t live to see our new-times.)

Poor guy.
At least he had some fun.

 

 

 

But today is not one of those days where I’ll weave together ten strands of American culture into a tapestry of awesomeness. (Sorry if that sounds cocky, but sometimes I get there.)

No.
Not today.

I’ve been immersed in trying to reason with a teenager, who’s been hell bent on self-sabatoge, as were millions of teenagers before him.

Trying to understand the teenaged mindset, from a 47 year old vantage, makes about as much sense as a chicken trying to force its way into a KFC. (A true story I heard on Sirius radio the other day. Dumb fucking chicken.)

 

 

 

Today, I’m going to cut to the chase more quickly than normal, and the connection between the introduction and the book review will be as obvious as a wet-dog-fart.

Today, I spent some time with “Providencia,” a book by Daniel Reuter, published by Skinnerboox, which arrived in the mail nearly a year ago. (Almost done with the 2020 submissions, thankfully.)

Today, as I sit here and write, I can honestly report that I was thinking of Andy Kaufman WHILE I was looking at the book, because I couldn’t make any sense of it at all.

 

 

 

Normally, when I spend time with a book, I look for clues, and figure things out, as slowly the narrative begins to focus. Eventually, I get there. (Almost always.)

But not today.

The title, which means Providence in Spanish, made me think maybe the series was made in Spain. (Such a Euro-centric vision of the world, it’s true.) And early on, there is a publication in Spanish, so that exacerbated my reaction. (As did the inclusion of a palm tree in one photo.)

But as to the theme, or point of the work?

I just couldn’t get there.

We see buildings, walls, hard-scrabble desert scenes, buildings, junk, trees, and occasionally, some people who don’t look at the camera.

Circles form a repeating motif, including a cool image with a hole cut in a wall, and another with a record player sitting before metal tubes that remind me of pipe bombs.

There are no words, until the end, and no context until then either.

Mostly, beyond thinking about Andy Kaufman, I realized the book was not really meant for me, as an American. (I know they sent it my way, but you likely catch my drift.)

It felt loaded with cultural references that I could not access, and the book also felt intentional about it.

As if creating a state of chaos and confusion was part of the book’s mission. Or perhaps it was commenting on a society that experienced those sensations, and the point of the art was to communicate that emotion through visceral means.

Furthermore, the production values are high, and the inclusion of images printed on vellum, as a way of breaking up the visual consistency, was great. (By not half-assing the production, it also lets a viewer know the project is serious, if inscrutable.)

In the end, we get a long essay in Spanish, (of course, as I said, this was not designed for Americans,) and then a translated version.

It’s by Alejandro Zamba, and quickly establishes the book is about Santiago, Chile, not long after the city erupted in protests, violence, and social disorder, not unlike what happened in the US in 2020.

It’s a beautiful short story, almost in the form of a parable, as a stranger lands at an airport, and takes a long taxi ride, during which the driver catches the author, (and we, the viewer,) up on what the book is actually about.

There’s a quote within, which summed up my feelings about our innate human desire for things to make sense: “The feeling of understanding all is useful, hopeful, cocky and false, while the feeling of understanding nothing returns our humility to us…”.

I must say, one of my very favorite things about this job is that I get to learn about faraway places, and share that knowledge and “intel” with you.

The end notes tell us this project was supported by a publisher in Italy, foundations in Luxembourg, in conjunction with Les Rencontres d’Arles in France, but what that has to do with a Dada book about Chile, I cannot say.

Only after I was done did I notice some press materials that likely tried to explain things, including an essay by Adam Bell, but it was pointedly not included in the book. Nor was it an insert.

So I didn’t read it.

I’m not being petty, though.

Rather, I was luxuriating in the not-knowing. In being reminded I’m just a puny human, living for a short time on a spinning rock, hurtling around a star in an ever-expanding Universe.

And so are you.

To purchase Providencia click here

 

 

 

 

I photographed some chickens the other day.

(And some cows.)

 

 

The latter creatures had escaped their pasture up the valley, and were officially on the lam.

I watched the herd descend my father-in-law’s driveway, across the field, and quickly went to investigate with my camera in tow.

The kids were enraptured, far more than I expected, but then again, so much of our lives here the last 18 months have been repetitive.

(A bunch of cattle descending upon us was anything but routine.)

I figured it would be easy to get a great shot, under the circumstances, but that was simply not the case.

Whether due to the overly harsh light, once or twice, (or the family dog finally getting to experience the cattle-herding for which she was bred,) it took me two days and 200 shots to get exactly what I saw in my head.

Certainly, it was worth the trouble, and I had to learn how not to antagonize the massive bull, so he’d forget about me while I skulked around.

But in the end, after many attempts, I got the shot.

Soon, my daughter suggested we stop eating beef, as once we’d all hung out with the cows, and saw their intelligence first-hand, it was hard to imagine them getting slaughtered, methodically, to add protein to the collective food supply.

Rather, we saw the cattle as fugitives, running for their lives, and we secretly hoped they’d stay one step ahead of their owners, who didn’t come searching until Day 3.

 

 

 

 

As to the chickens, they were in the front yard of a neighbor’s house, and I asked for permission first.

The light was perfect, the chickens naturally photogenic, and I made the exact photo I wanted within a minute.

(Sometimes it’s hard; sometimes it’s not.)

At the time, though, my neighbor, whom I’ve gotten to know better over the last few years, insisted that I never take his photo.

Ever.

I said, “Sure, no problem,” and reminded him I’d never so much as raised my camera in his direction.

Still, when I stopped back by, after we’s shot hoops at the basketball court across the street, (behind the firehouse,) I wanted to ask if he knew anything about missing cattle.

As a joke, while I approached, I pretended to take his picture with my finger. There was no camera in my hand, as it was safely zippered up in the bag slung over my back.

Anyone could see I was kidding, but he got offended, thinking I was making fun of him, and he said, angrily, that he hated being photographed, and didn’t like being teased.

I apologized, of course, said I was trying to funny, (and had obviously failed,) so I changed the subject quickly, and that was that.

But you can be sure I’ll never do anything like that again to Morris.

(No sir.)

Being an outsider in an insular, poverty-stricken, mountain community at the edge of the Universe, you learn it’s very hard to be accepted, (takes years really,) and you can blow all that good-will in an instant, if you make the wrong move.

 

 

 

We came back home to New Mexico in 2005, straight from Brooklyn, and I was hired to teach photography to school kids within a month.

In order to circumvent the University bureaucracy, UNM-Taos was able to get me working, straight away, if I’d be willing to teach “college classes” at a high school for at-risk youth.

I had no experience working with that population, and barely any teaching experience at all, aside from one semester as a professor of Beginning Digital Photography at Pratt.

This was a different kettle of fish, teaching black and white, chemical darkroom photography to disturbed teens, in the back room of a falling-apart, old school-house, where we had to worry about getting Hantavirus from all the stray mouse droppings.

 

 

I kept that job for ten years, and over time, the school’s head raised private funding for computers, digital cameras, and Epson printers.

I still remember harping on the need for secure storage, and being told, “Yeah, yeah,” until one of the students in my program “allegedly” broke in with a few buddies and stole it all.

We couldn’t prove it, but he walked around that week with a little twinkle in his eye, and that was enough for me.

After that, they took my opinions a bit more seriously on the subject, and built some massive, sturdy, fire-safe cabinets, where we locked everything up tight.

(Nothing was stolen again.)

But a few years later, a bureaucrat, (who soon washed out of the system, and was most recently seen teaching skiing,) shut the entire school, and it’s still sitting there, empty, rotting in the harsh-mountain-sun.

I shot some photos there a few months ago, and watched the tumbleweeds roll around the dirt parking lot.

Times change, but when you live in the 48th or 49th poorest state in the US, for this long, you begin to understand that cycles of poverty and violence are nearly impossible to break.

 

 

 

That said, I still recall one student, who studied with me for two years.

When we met, she was non-verbal, resting her head on the table the entire class. She made no eye contact, and wouldn’t respond to questioning.

Still, I did my work, starting each class with a check-in, asking about their days, and family lives, as they would only open up and relax, letting their creativity settle in, once they felt safe, and knew I cared about them as people.

By the end of the second year, that same young student was making the best work in class, taking the camera to shoot her family home on the Pueblo, and was regularly conversant.

One day, she told me secrets about what happened in the Kiva, the ancient underground educational system for boys, and it was, without exaggeration, one of proudest moments of my life.

I likely didn’t change many, or any, lives in that decade, but I’m sure I taught the students that art, and creativity, are powerful coping tools for life’s difficulties.

And yes, I miss the work.

 

 

 

As usual, there are reasons when I reminisce.

Something always sets off a thought train, and today, it’s that I just spent an hour and a half reading and looking at “Portraits and Dreams,” a re-issued and updated book by Wendy Ewald, published by MACK in 2020.

Though I admit I hadn’t heard of the project before, it was apparently first published in 1980, and later became a documentary film by Appalshop, a well-known media lab in Appalachia.

I first assumed it was set in West Virigia for some reason, (maybe it’s all the Joe Manchin talk in the mainstream media?) but the project happened in Kentucky, where Wendy Ewald taught photography to extremely poor children in a two-room-school-house, in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

If you’ve ever seen the excellent TV show “Justified,” you might have a sense of the mise-en-scene, and coal-country-issues people live with down there, but that was a fictionalized account, starring the dreamy Timothy Olyphant. (And the phenomenally charismatic Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder.)

 

 

This book, though, is straight truth, no fiction.

I admit, I wondered once or twice where the money came from to get this all going, (though the children had to raise $10 to buy their cameras,) and the end notes confirm there was grant funding made available by the NEA, and a couple of other sources.

 

 

 

As to the book, it features images made by the students, and written statements as well, though I do wonder if those were transcribed from audio interviews? (Not that it matters.)

Dead cousins, shot uncles, slaughtered pigs, fathers with black lung, fun times walking in the mountains, it’s all in there.

We see the world through the children’s eyes, and hear their thoughts. I could relate to some of their ideas in ways that seemed impossible, across so much time and space.

One boy, Delbert Shepherd, shocked at watching a chicken killed, actually imagines what it would feel like to be chopped into pieces and served as food. Another, in a pre-Climate Change age, writes that if all the humans disappeared, the Earth would be able to regenerate, after the ravages of human greed.

Powerful stuff, for sure.

At the end, Wendy Ewald shares details about how she got to Kentucky, and then fast-forwards the book to the present day, as she reconnected with her former students in the last decade, and we see images of them, pictures they’ve shot, and read about their current lives.

One woman practices photography, semi-professionally, and others are engineers and educators.

From a two-room school house, up in hollers with no running water, some of these kids actually made it out into the world. (One ended up running factories in China, another went to jail.)

But to a person, all the students remembered their time in Wendy Ewald’s photo program fondly, and it seems their experience as young artists stayed with them always.

Maybe today’s not a bad day to ruminate on that, and cultivate some hope in our dark times?

 

To purchase “Portraits and Dreams” click here

 

 

 

How are you feeling today?

 

Are you keeping your shit together?

Or is this another crazy-ass week in a year that just won’t quit?

 

 

If you live in America’s Gulf Coast region, or on its East Coast, things might be a little hairy for you right now.

The photographs of Ida’s devastation are horrifying, and it’s hard to believe we’re looking at a storm that seems a combination of Katrina and Sandy, rolled into one. (If slightly-less-destructive to both regions.)

I swear, when Trump finally left the White House in January, I felt like #2021 might chill the fuck out, and give us a chance to catch our collective breath.

But it didn’t happen.

I’m one of the most positive, optimistic people I know, yet the last few years have triple-bonus-points loaded my cynicism meter, while doing a number on my goodwill for humanity.

How about you?

 

 

There is so much to unpack in contemporary America, it sometimes seems like we have a year’s worth of news packed into any given week.

Just a few days ago, the end of the 20 year war in Afghanistan was the biggest thing out there.

When the US Department of Defense tweeted out the photo below, of the last soldier departing the country, (shot through, or with night-vision-goggles,) I did an immediate screen grab, thinking that might be a worthy subject for the column.

 

 

Then it went viral, and other people had the same idea, so I decided to give it a rest.

But within TWO DAYS, that story was old news, as the Climate Change disaster unfolding before our eyes was the top headline.

(When I wrote a few weeks ago that Climate Change was the new Trump, I was sort-of-kidding, but now I think it’s true.)

 

 

It was nearly impossible for me to avoid the fat orange guy, for five years, because this is a weekly opinion column, based upon photography, and we mine politics and culture on the regular.

To do that job, and ignore Trump, was not possible.

And that’s where we’re at with Climate Change now. It creates terrifying weather spectacles every fucking week, so how do I do my job and not acknowledge what’s happening out the window?

Hell, dancing fire embers might ruin all of Lake Tahoe by the time next week rolls around.

Or maybe another Hurricane will take out Houston?

Who knows?

What started with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, with these extreme-weather-events being compared to hundred-year or thousand-year storms, now seems quaint and irrelevant.

The Earth is changing, and it’s fighting back against human rapaciousness.

We need to deal with it.

 

 

 

Part of my current cynicism comes from the evidence before me; human beings no longer seem capable of collective action in the face of cataclysm.

I’m not sure if we ever were, but certainly, we’re not right now.

Our country, our society, has essentially chosen to perpetuate a pandemic, based upon politics, and inability to agree upon a shared reality.

It does not matter how many doctors, public health experts, politicians or scientists tell us we need to get vaccinated, to save our lives and our culture.

It’s just empty air to millions of our fellow country-people.

I actually had to keep a straight face, a few weeks ago, when someone I know told me that if you can smell a fart though underwear, masks don’t work.

Then, that same person laughed, saying that vaccines were so bad they LITERALLY couldn’t pay people to take them.

I smiled, and kept my mouth shut, because I am fully aware that in today’s climate, (different use of the word,) it is impossible to get anyone to open, much less change their minds.

{Ed note: This morning, I started posting the column, went to drop my kids off at school, and when I got home, the phone rang to say my daughter had been exposed to Covid, as someone in the 4th grade tested positive. This is now intensely personal in a way it wasn’t an hour ago. Kids her age cannot get vaccinated, so parents who won’t get the shot are risking my daughter’s life.}

 

 

Sometimes, I feel like we just need to catch a break.

If there were even a few weeks with no bad news, and Americans felt they could breathe again, it would make a big difference.

With the briefest pause in the unceasing tide of bad news, and prognostications of a deadly future, people would be able to chill, and reconsider their actions.

If every single moment of time didn’t feel like a battle to the death, between red and blue, pro-vaxx and anti-vaxx, north and south, science and religion, we might be able to grasp for a smidgen of collective sanity.

But it never seems to go that way.

If people could party again, hug, play, sing, shout, dress up, laugh, dance, drink a bit too much, and have a big old ball of fun, I actually believe we’d see some improvement in America.

Do you remember how to have fun?

How to feel like there was even A DAY when the weight of the world wasn’t on your shoulders?

It’s doubtful, but I’m going to provide visual evidence that such things once happened, and might well again.

 

 

I love the way the right book seems to materialize at the right time.

Living in one of the New Age, spiritual capitals of Earth, I’m happy to chalk it up to the power of the Universe.

Or Taos Mountain looking down upon me with grace.

 

 

Maybe it’s just luck?

But when I reached to the bottom of the pile, grabbing a book that came in nearly a year ago, I had a good feeling.

And wouldn’t you know, but “Then And There: Mardi Gras 1979,” by Harvey Stein, published by Zatara Press, came out of the box, just begging to be reviewed.

It shares some similarities with last week’s book, as it sticks to a pretty traditional script, design-wise.

The cover sets up the context, and then we see a succession of polaroid portraits of Mardi Gras revelers, back in the day.

I’m going to skip to the end, just for a second, as the essay, by Joanna Madloch, says the pictures were made in 1981 and ’82.

It’s hard to think the writer got it wrong, which makes this book’s title one of the strangest I’ve ever encountered.

Oddly, while I was looking through it, I thought a few times it was weird there wasn’t really a 70’s vibe going on. Given the costumes and make-up, probably these images could be made in 2023, or whenever Mardi Gras comes back, but titling the book with the wrong year makes me think Harvey Stein is a true absurdist.

{Ed note: when I just went to the Zatara Press website for the link to purchase the book, it said the images were made in 1979, so really, it’s hard to know.}

 

 

Cutting to the chase, I’ll just say these photographs are awesome.

They’re great.

The photos truly make me miss fun, parties, carnivals, all of it.

It’s like for the last 18 months, we’ve been living with all the shitty parts of being human, without any of the good bits. (Though I have loved getting to spend all the extra quality time with my kids.)

Page after page, and we see versions of the same image, compositionally, but the people and the get-ups change.

Can you even imagine a street thronged with thousands of people, all in costume, having the time of their lives?

In NOLA, Rio, or Venice?

Do you think it will ever happen again?

Like Bruce Haley’s book last week, I admit I was looking for a bit more of a mash-up, design-wise, but whenever I’d start to get bored, I’d see an image that demanded my attention.

They say the Devil is in the details, and maybe that’s true, but it’s also a negative way to look at things.

Maybe God is in the details?

Maybe the Buddhists are right, and if you can’t find a way to live in the moment, and appreciate the gift of life, then you’re going about things the wrong way?

Maybe it’s time we stop waiting for the world to get better, and begin figuring out how to trust each other again, as members of a cohesive society, rather than going down with the ship?

I was hoping to get to New Orleans and party, later this year, and now I’m not sure it will happen.

That makes me sad.

Because I love having fun.

Don’t you?

To purchase “Then and There” click here

 

 

 

 

 

“All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. I’ve been for a walk, on a winter’s day.”

The Mamas & the Papas, 1966

 

 

 

The California hills turn green in winter.

Or they used to, anyway.

 

 

When I first moved there in ’99, I was thoroughly confused. Where I came from on the East Coast, everything was opposite.

It was hard to wrap my mind around, the way the same hills, emerald in winter, would sere to wheat-gold in summer.

Back then, it rained from November to March.

WTF, I thought?

It’s not like that in Jersey.

 

 

But I didn’t move to California from NJ, directly.

I spent two years at UNM in Albuquerque, after graduating college, and the weather pattern there was tricky too.

Each summer, it got so hot, at 5000 ft, you could see heat waves rising off the asphalt. The city is mostly made of concrete, (where it’s not dirt and trees,) creating a heat situation that made people mad.

I called it angry-hot, as road rage incidents rose, tempers were short, and lots of people got shot. (Though the murder rate in the Burque is higher these days.)

I remember hiking in the Sandia Mountains, in October, and the sun was cooking my skin so badly, I had to turn around after 15 minutes.

I shook my fist at the sky.

Literally.

It’s not a turn of phrase.

I actually screamed at the heavens.

“Enough already! It’s October! Give it a rest, will you? For fuck’s sake, it’s Autumn!”

Still, the weather went on as it cared to.

 

 

These days, I live at 7000 feet, in a horse pasture outside Taos.

It’s a riparian; a river valley ecosystem, with all sorts of wild nature.

The farm ends in a box canyon; the lands beyond privately owned, but impossible to develop. Thereafter are several miles of completely untouched nature, home to all the mountain creatures you can imagine.

Years ago, the (very) little river split off from the acequia system in a different place, according to my wife, and beyond, lay a waterfall that fed a crystal-clear-pond.

Her magic place.

A paradise.

In the late 80s, the local acequia commission built a small, concrete dam to control the water flow for irrigation, and it killed the pond forever.

We walk back there sometimes, (though part of it’s not on the property,) and I love it just as it is.

 

 

There’s a small path between the two waterways, so you hear the gurgling flow. Ancient, volcanic cliffs rise on both sides, with petroglyphs visible in the distance, if you know where to look.

I see it as it is, but not Jessie.

She doesn’t bring it up often, but I’m sure whenever we’re there, in her mind, she misses the untouched perfection of the past.

 

 

Leafing through Time Magazine the other day, I noticed an article about the historic drought affecting the American West.

The headline writer, lazily in my opinion, promised a grim future.

Need it be so?

Is this future already written?

Are there no humans among us prepared to plant some fucking trees, and skip the meat once in a while?

Are we truly doomed, with only hyper-rich guys like Jeffrey Bezos and Elon Musk riding their own rockets and space ships to their private colonies on Mars, where they lord over a new society as Emperors, all Hail Emperor Bezos, king of all that is before us! (Or a least half of it, anyway, because the other half belongs to Emperor Musk.)

Wait.
Where was I?

Have we never survived tough times before?

What about the Joads?

Didn’t they flee the dustbowl of Oklahoma for the then-greener pastures of California?

Things looked bleak in the Great Depression, right?

How about that run?

World War 1, a pandemic, a Great Depression, and then another War War, which came with the Holocaust.

People kept going back then, and figured shit out, right?

Maybe, with Climate Change, we will to?

 

 

 

Many years ago, I got an email from a photographer named Bruce Haley.

We kept up a correspondence, and as he lived in Big Sur, where Jessie had family, maybe we’d have a beer one day?

It didn’t happen, and he moved away before I got back in 2016.

 

 

Bruce sent me a note last year, about a new book, the first in a two volume series he was working on with Daylight, and the first was about the desolate stretch of the San Joaquin Valley, in California, where he was raised.

They were kind enough to send the book along along, and “Home Fires. Vol.I: The Past” was just right for today.

His excellent, opening essay describes a childhood much like my wife had, and my kids are having. Running around the woods, playing in the ditch, romping around, treating his neighbors’ land like his own.

(His ancestors had come from Oklahoma, like the Joads, with their own major migration.)

Bruce had a secret spot, like Jessie, but it’s not there anymore.

(He also used the word riparian, inspiring me to drop it in earlier in the column.)

But really, to say the book is bleak is an understatement.

Rarely have I seen one that leaned so heavily on a color palette of brown and gray.

Though it was published in 2020, the images were shot in 2014, just as the California mega-drought was building in earnest.

It doesn’t make for pretty viewing, but we need to see what we need to see.

 

 

 

I realized half-way through this was one of those books that chose not to employ fancy design. It was a photo on the right, followed by another, and then another, all in the same shape and size.

Normally, that’s a no-no, unless the pictures are riveting and varied.

These are very good, but not brilliant, so I began to get a bit bored, as I’m inclined to do when books don’t shake it up.

And then… boom.
Something different.

I laughed.

In an odd photo, there are some cement shapes rising up in a pattern, like tombstones, and they’re photographed from behind.

There’s graffiti.

One of little things says “Poop on it.”

Another has a poorly drawn emoji face.

LOL.
Poop on it.

Can you imagine, laughing at such a sad, weary book?

It’s what I call a tension-breaker, when you shake up a run of similar images by giving us something different, tonally.

After that, for a while things stayed consistent in tone, before we see an image of a very racist statue of a Native American. It’s funny because it’s crass, and inappropriate.

That snapped the rhythm.

We move along, and it’s more sadness. Then, a set of tire tracks that went straight, when the road curved, leaving the viewer to imagine the potential car wreck that ensued.

Finally, there’s a great photo of the end of a paved road, with a sign that says End, and yes, the photography ends right there, followed by an essay by Kirsten Rian.

Throughout this book, we see a lot of parched earth, and deep poverty.

It’s a dry California, as far from the glamour of Malibu as you’re gonna get.

Just oil wells on dirt against sad skies.

So to all my California friends and readers out there: I hope it rains like crazy for you this winter.

(But not so much it causes mudslides, and wipes out Highway 1 again.)

To Purchase “Home Fires. Vol.I: The Past” click here

 

 

 

It’s been a crazy week.

 

Out here in Taos, we hosted a Bar Mitzvah for my son, (on the second attempt,) and people flew in from around the US.

I was apprehensive, as the Delta variant has brought America back to its knees, and we were terrified our daughter might get Covid. (She’s too young to qualify for the vaccine.)

But cancelling wasn’t an option this time around, so we soldiered on, kept things outside as much as possible, and hoped for the best.

 

I catered a dinner for 30 people, the first night of the event, and after years of running our Antidote photo retreats, I got it done without too much stress.

Sure, one of my pans caught fire while I was making teriyaki chicken, but luckily, I put it out, and no drama ensued.

It was a tremendous amount of work, but we wanted to honor Theo’s commitment.

Because that’s what we do for our kids, right?

We sacrifice, and give our all to the endeavor, as raising human beings in such a complex world is the biggest job a parent has.

Thankfully, it all worked out in the end, and everyone had a good time.

It was challenging, but pales in comparison to what others have dealt with this very same week.

(I think you know what I’m talking about.)

 

 

Back in college, when I studied Political Science as a freshman, it was conventional wisdom the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan brought down their Empire.

(That was the word on the street.)

Just like Wallace Shawn gave us the famous quote, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia,” everyone knew Afghanistan was an unconquerable country; a quagmire where great powers went to die.

 

 

And yet…

When Osama Bin Laden and his asshole buddies attacked the US on 9/11, we backed the proxy army of the Northern Alliance, and then basically took over Afghanistan.

That was twenty years ago.

It’s hard not to imagine how those trillions of $$$$ might have been spent here: universal health care, free college, homes for the unhoused, a Green New Deal.

Who’s to say what might have happened, if things had gone another way?

 

 

But they didn’t, and this week, America’s failure to build a stable government in Afghanistan was all over our screens, in every form imaginable.

Twitter, FB, TV, IG.

It was a cluster-fuck of epic proportions, and avoiding the news was impossible.

Such travails we have over here, as we worry about ingesting too much “traumatic imagery” for our mental health.

If only the Afghans had problems like ours.

(But they don’t.)

The Afghan people, or many of them anyway, are too busy running for their lives.

They don’t have the luxury of worrying about the negative ramifications of traumatic imagery, as the misery they see is in front of their ACTUAL eyes, without the mediation of an iPhone screen.

It’s nasty business, what they’re living through, and honestly, I hope to never endure something like that.

The people of Afghanistan have my empathy, and all the “thoughts and prayers.”

To face the realistic fear my family might be annihilated by bullets, bombs, swords or stones does not compare to worrying whether I’ll overcook the lasagne.

(I didn’t, though. It was delicious.)

 

 

The world we inhabit is insanely unfair, and the place you’re born ultimately has more to do with what your life will look like than any other indicator.

Here in the US, the difference in neighborhoods in the same city can have a massive impact on life expectancy, health outcomes, and income.

Still, almost everyone in America has a safer environment than those living in impoverished, war-torn societies.

People in places like Afghanistan, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Syria, and Yemen face obstacles we simply can’t comprehend.

It’s not possible.

(And notice I wrote “almost” two sentences ago, as there are some US residents living in very dangerous situations.)

 

 

At times like these, Art is most helpful, as it allows experiential information to be transmitted from one life to another.

Artists can share their POV, and viewers benefit from receiving the stories we read, see and hear.

That’s how it works.

Hell, just two weeks ago, I wrote about the necessity of those photographers who “bear witness” in the chaos of the 21C, as there are now phones with video cameras to capture everything that happens.

Frankly, that’s my only hope for Afghanistan, small though it may be.

Short of shutting off the internet, the Taliban will face a wave of recording technology this time around that didn’t exist at the turn of the century.

 

 

It’s at least possible the Taliban will be somewhat restrained by images and videos of their atrocities reaching the global pubic.

(It’s not much of a hope, but more than nothing.)

 

 

Again, it’s easy to for me to sit on my chair, put my feet up, and write this column for you.

I have the privilege of safety.

And all the smartest people are telling us a global refugee crisis is just getting started, as Climate Change will render some places uninhabitable, (where people currently live,) and then a lack of vital resources, like water, should kick off more drama.

It seems the refugee phenomenon will overwhelm our current system of borders, paperwork, passports, and institutional infrastructure.

(Come for the photography review, stay for the futurism.)

 

 

That being said, you can’t have a book review column without a book, and you might guess where we’re going today.

It just so happens I had the PERFECT thing in my book stack for a week like this.

Earlier this year, I received an email from Thana Faroq, a Yemeni refugee living in the Netherlands, who asked if she could send me a book, “I Don’t Recognize Me in the Shadows,” published by Lecturis, with support from the Open Society Foundations.

I was flattered, and happily accepted her offer, so let’s dig in, shall we?

 

 

It took a minute to figure out how to open the book, and then how to make it work.

The cover wraps around, and you have to open it a few times to get a sense of the object, but then it functions like a traditional publication.

(Turn the page, see something new.)

Certainly, I hadn’t considered how much the interminable periods of not-knowing-what-comes-next would be so maddening.

As we flip through, we learn about the constant waiting on paperwork, on status updates, on hearing from some bureaucrat whether you can stay safe, or if they’re planning on sending you back to Hell.

Can you imagine?

That’s why books like this are so helpful, as empathy differs from sympathy in its requirement that we put ourselves in others’ shoes.

 

 

The book is experiential, as after the opening text, we see a set of color photos made in a refugee camp in Djibouti, but then it goes Black and White, until another set of color photos at the end.

We see page after page of people in apartment block windows, standing around.

At first, I was confused, and then realized, as they built upon each other, it was a metaphor for standing around, waiting, looking out the window because you have nothing else to do.

We see photos out bus windows, walking down institutional corridors, and little moments that give a sense of the banality of fear.

(These people are safe, temporarily, but until the permits come through, it’s purgatory.)

Then, in the book’s middle section, we have portraits of refugees, taken through blurry glass, perhaps to protect their identities.

And those are paired with their hand-written-type statements on pieces of paper that have been glued to the page.

As I wrote when I reviewed Katherine Longly’s “Hernie & Plume,” or Maja Daniels’ “Elf Dalia,”  it seems the European-based book artists have a great sense on how to break up structures to prevent boredom, these days.

When I turned the last page, I felt grateful as much as empathetic.

I appreciate the bravery it takes to stay present in such difficult circumstances, and offer evidence to the rest of us.

So, thank you, Thana!

I hope you stay safe over there.

And when you get a chance, make sure to check out the pan-fried noodles at Kam Yin in Amsterdam.

The best!

To purchase a copy of Thana Faroq’s book, click here

 

 

 

I saw our wedding album on the counter.

Just now.

 

 

I bumped into it, and flipped through the pages.

How could you not?

They’re visual representations of our memories.

 

 

In this case, I had dual motivations.

We’re hosting the second attempt at our son’s Bar Mitzvah here this weekend, (despite the Delta hazard,) so nostalgia dictates I spend a minute or two thinking about the old days.

We were married here on the farm in the Summer of 2004; the landscape and our family’s lives are so different.

My mother-in-law has advanced Alzheimer’s Disease, in her late 70’s, and it’s deteriorated badly over the Covid era. In the past few months, the last vestiges of her personality have extinguished.

 

 

I looked to the album for a picture of Bonnie, 17 years ago, when she was healthy and vital.

That’s what photo albums do.

They hold our memories, while we’re busy doing other things. Or they did, and now we have digital versions.

I’m cool with that, but many people prefer the old ways.

I suspect Jeff Bridges might be kind of guy.

 

 

 

I re-watched “The Big Lebowski” for the hundredth time, to mood for this column.

There’s so much pressure to write well, as it’s one of my biggest artistic influences.

The 1998 film, by the Coen Brothers, (coming off their equally perfect, well-received hit “Fargo,”) has become a favorite of Generation X; its hero, The Dude, aka Jeff Lebowski, may well be the slacker King.

The Dude is the stoner ideal. Weed’s Übermensch.

He’s a wise-ass with a smart-mouth, but also inept in so many ways. He’s a cool guy, cracking jokes and dropping f-bombs, all while becoming an accidental detective.

He fails his way through, until he ultimately succeeds. (So American.)

The character takes in new information constantly, processing it through a Dudeness lens, so George HW Bush speaking on TV at Ralph’s comes out sideways as “This aggression will not stand, man.”

 

 

Back in the 90’s, when reefer was still illegal in America, there was a counterculture authenticity and absurdity to The Dude. His constant, instinctive, ironic rebellion made him irresistible.

And the film itself, “The Big Lebowski,” is flawless.

I’m sure I can shout out ten more brilliant performances off the top of my head: Julianne Moore, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, Tara Reid, Sam Elliot, John Turturro, Flea, Ben Gazarra, and the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Roger Deakins’ cinematography is beyond, with the bowling-ball camera placement and great angles galore, while the costuming is insanely good, the music is just right, (Credence and Dylan!) and the amount of things that had to come together for a production like this to achieve perfection is mind-boggling.

 

 

Still, people remember The Dude, as much as the movie’s intricate plot. (Wait, who are the Knudsens again? Big shout out to Jon Polito, who steals the show in his brief scene, much as he did in the criminally underrated “The Man Who Wasn’t There.” I’d have included him earlier, but I needed to look up his name. {Ed note, in searching for the screengrab photo, I just learned Jon Polito passed away in 2016. RIP.})

 

 

The Dude was the embodiment of the California Dream, with his Ralph’s and his In-N-Out burger and rug-Feng-Shui.

At the end of 20th Century, back when the good life in California meant getting there first, or getting there early, and hanging on for the ride.

These days, NYT columnists wonder whether that California Dream is dead and buried.

It’s no wonder “The Big Lebowski” has aged so well.

 

 

 

Jeff Bridges grew up in a Hollywood family, as his dad Lloyd was an actor, and Gen X’ers have much love for the paterfamilias, given his seminal role in “Airplane.”

 

 

As Jeff’s been on film sets his whole life, they must feel like home to him.

Like the most natural places in the world.

Each movie’s particular combination of cast and crew becomes a little family, and then his actual family works with him sometimes too.

 

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could see that film-making world as he sees it?

To get the inside view?

I’m glad you asked.

 

 

I recently interviewed Jeff Bridges online, in reference to his 2019 photo book “Jeff Bridges: Pictures Volume Two,” published by powerHouse.

It’s a part of my guest blog for the New Orleans Photo Alliances’s BookLENS program.

 

 

I don’t want to spoil the interview, so please give it a read, as it was an honor and privilege to have him answer my questions.

But the book, (which is a companion to Part 1,) gives us a peek behind the curtain of the filmmaking process.

Using a panning camera and black and white film, Jeff photographs crew members doing their jobs, actors on set, props in the back room… all of it.

We see images from each film he’s made since Part 1, in sequence, from 2003’s “Seabiscuit” up through 2018’s “Bad Times at the El Royale.”

The photos are interspersed with bits of printed and hand-written-cursive-style text, these little thoughts in a voice that vibes exactly as you think Jeff Bridges would sound: cool, positive and hip.

I mean, check out this little bit about the late, great Harry Dean Stanton:

“Harry Dean was cast to play a wise man who, we find out late in the movie, is blind. Turns out on the first day of the shooting, he refused to do that, be blind. For some reason, Harry refused to play the guy blind. He’s a wonderful actor, but shit, Harry… that was the part, man.”

 

 

“But shit, Harry, that was the part, man.”

How could you not love a book where you hear Jeff Bridges’ unvarnished thoughts, and see what he saw on so many great movies? (“Crazy Heart” and “Hell or High Water” are two of my favorites from this phase of his career.)

His opening statement tells us he’s always given out photo albums to cast and crew, over the years, and that personal project evolved into the two powerHouse books.

So in honor of photo albums, I promise to take more pictures this weekend.

See you next Friday!

 

To purchase “Jeff Bridges: Pictures Volume Two” click here. Proceeds go to the Motion Picture & Television Fund.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wasn’t inspired to sift through submissions today.

 

 

So I dusted off my favorite trick, and stared at the bookshelf.

“What will jump out,” I wondered?

 

Would any random connections form, giving me a creative star around which to orbit?

First, I saw a book still in its bubble-wrap, but on the shelf, and it was “Glaciers,” by Ragnar Axelsson in Iceland, published by Qerndu in 2018.

“Well,” I thought, “at least I should take it out of the bubble,” so I set it aside, and returned to hunting.

The next book that popped out, kicking me in the subconscious groin, (metaphorically speaking,) was an all-time favorite, Taryn Simon’s “An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar,” published by Steidl in 2007.

“Do they have anything in common,” I asked myself?

Then it hit me like a fist to the solar plexus, the buzzword from five or six years ago: Access.

Access is the key.

 

 

 

I wrote about RAX for the NYT Lens Blog, and he actually flies a plane to get his photographs of the famed glaciers of Iceland.

He’s a part of an airplane collective, a fractional ownership, I believe, so he has the rare ability to actually show us what “Icecaps” really look like, in a world in which they’re melting.

 

 

Climate Change is the new Trump, so people who can go into the eye teeth of dangerous, or out of the way places, who can do what photography often did in the 19th Century, and “bear witness,” will be doing all of us a solid.

(For example, this past week, the Washington Post featured Louie Palu’s photos of translators in the war in Afghanistan. It takes A LOT to tell those stories.)

 

 

But back to the books.

Taryn Simon goes behind the scenes in America in an absurd, clever, tragic, and addictive manner, showing us obscenely well-composed, and well-researched, formal photographs in places no regular person would/could ever go.

Most of us couldn’t/wouldn’t get in the door in ANY of these places, but ALL of them?

As a wise man once said, “Inconceivable!”

 

 

 

I could write a partial list, but really it would just seem like I’m making it up.

Among many other places, she visits: a nuclear waste facility, the CIA, the KKK, inside an inbred-white-tiger cage, with Jews who don’t believe in Israel, on military exercises, at the site of active explosions, on the Mexican border with detainees, or maybe you’d prefer to see the actual Death Star from “Star Wars?”

From what I know, Taryn Simon’s father was in the State Department, she went to Brown, and is well connected in the Art world, (meaning, Powerful International Rich People,) so throw in a research team, some photo assistants, and I can only imagine a lot of charm… and you get a book like this.

No small feat.

 

 

Like RAX’s book required he literally fly over glaciers repeatedly in a small plane, Taryn Simon’s work necessitates a host of very specific skills, abilities, and connections, to make her seminal series possible.

Using all of your talents and contacts, working it to the max in service of your art, is a gutsy, and occasionally risky strategy, but man, when it pays off, you do end up with some of the best stuff.

Just a thought.

See you next week!

 

To purchase the Icelandic version of “Glacier,” click here 

To purchase a used copy of Taryn Simon’s book on Amazon, click here

 

 

 

 

 

I want to tackle a tricky subject today.

(Buckle up.)

 

I’ve mostly stayed away from Politics these last few months, as the Biden era has been a tonic to the collective, societal PTSD wrought by the DJT years.

I needed a break from thinking about it all the time.

So did you.

 

For a while, the vaccine rollout in the US was such it seemed the horrid pandemic might be drawing to a close.

Certainly, in April, and then in May, when I traveled to New Jersey, that was my mentality.

Things were on the mend in America.

Then something strange happened.

The virus numbers started climbing fast, again, and the percentage of vaccinated people began inching up at a much slower rate.

 

 

Just like Climate Change is pretty much what Al Gore told us it would be, in “An Inconvenient Truth” fifteen years ago, the predicted virus variants have shown up, spreading more quickly, making lots of folks freak out again.

 

 

People are still dying in hospitals all over America.

Mostly, it’s those who refused to take a vaccine that would have saved their lives.

 

 

It’s a phenomenon I’ve been stuck on for weeks now.

Why would someone rather die, than take a shot?

Who would rather die than admit they might be wrong, as to the necessity of the vaccine to “not die?”

 

 

It’s the most illogical thing I can think of, but I’m happy to admit humans are not essentially rational creatures.

Still, though.

To choose to die, for an idea?

Who does that?

And then it hit me.

Warriors do that.
Soldiers.
In Wars.

 

 

If you fight and die for your country, or for any cause you believe in. If you’re a non-state actor, or a guerrilla, and you give up your life for your ideals.

That’s normal.

Right?

Isn’t that a version of what we’re seeing?

We’ve called it a Culture War for so long, red vs blue, liberal vs conservative, rural vs urban.

Then You-Know-Who stirred up the crazies for 5 years, and normalized awful behavior, unleashing hidden hatreds.

Are we really THAT surprised, in the aftermath of mass shootings, and people dying rather than wear a mask, that this is the next, natural evolution?

People die in Wars all the time.

Wars have victims, and collateral damage.

 

 

Sometimes, though, a group’s fight is so easy to believe in, it seems absurd the battle rages on.

In this case, I’m thinking of women’s rights, given women make up half of humanity: our mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, partners, friends, teachers, colleagues.

 

 

How everyone doesn’t get behind equal pay, women’s right to control what happens to their bodies, safer streets, more political representation, anti-domestic violence laws, more humane systems for sex workers, or trans rights… the list goes on.

As I’ve trotted out before, my wife went to Vassar and Smith; she educated me directly on feminist issues back when we met in the late 90’s.

When we hear about the percentage of women who’ve been sexually abused, or physically assaulted, the reality of violence against women is unconscionable.

And for how important the issue is, it gets far-too-little play in the mainstream media, IMO.

 

 

What put me in this frame of mind, you ask?

Today, we’re going to look at “Holy,” by Donna Ferrato, published by powerHouse in 2021, and it will explain a lot of why I went postal up there.

(Maybe it’s time to retire that word, postal? I don’t remember the last time a postal employee was involved in a mass shooting, do you?)

 

 

As to the book, it’s in-your-face, unabashedly feminist, body positive, sex positive, honest and brash.

It’s confrontational, and positions Donna Ferrato as a warrior with a camera, fighting to tell vital stories about violence against women, as a photojournalist, for decades.

The book’s premise is that Christianity’s trinity is fundamentally flawed, because the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are all male figures.

So Donna Ferrato creates her own version: the Mother, the Daughter, and the Other.

Those three chapters become the structure of the book.

Throughout, there is hand-written-style text included with the image, to story-tell, fill in details, and set the context. (Captions at the end offer more details.)

I often recommend creating balance in a book’s emotional tenor, but sometimes, visions this intense will keep-it-real all the way though, with that energy ramped up.

(This one reminds me of Nina Berman’s “An autobiography of Miss Wish” in that regard.)

 

 

We see images of women who fought for their freedom; for the safety of their children.

Women who stood up to their abusers, or stood on street corners risking grim death to pay the bills.

There are women breaking into their houses to get their shit back from asshole ex-husbands, and women of all kinds, wearing full back-tattoos, or two black-eyes from the cover of a magazine.

 

There are girls, of course, and home births. Family photos.

We learn of her father’s bipolar disorder, and then his death is included too. As is her mother’s.

This book is Spinal Tap cranked up to 11.

It’s Pat Benatar on crystal meth.

Or Olivia Rodrigo smashing guitars like Pete Townshend.

(Wait, wasn’t there a female singer who just made the news for breaking her guitar? Give me a second. I’ll Google it…OK, I’m back. It was Phoebe Bridgers on SNL.)

As I was saying, I support the cause, and am all for the idea of this book, but also appreciate the book itself.

It’s so well-executed.

See you next week!

To purchase “Holy” click here