What?s the Matter with White People? Why We Long for a Golden Age That Never Was by Joan Walsh My rating: 5 of 5 stars A resonant and highly readable political memoir that attempts to unlock some of the most stubborn mysteries of modern politics, including why false promises work so well, without falling back on the tempting conclusion that people are just dumb. Walsh writes from a highly personal perspective, and it works. View all my reviews
Continue readingReview: public phenomena
public phenomena by Temporary Services My rating: 5 of 5 stars A cool little art book about the everyday, and mostly inadvertent, aesthetic experiences that turn up as people attempt to the adapt the urban environment to their needs (and occasionally as the urban environment adapts to people). Photos range around the world showing everything from post-snowstorm parking blockades in Chicago to makeshift barriers in Ljubjana to ghost houses all over. The book itself is a form of the adaptation it celebrates. Taking note of the aesthetic content hidden in plain view by the side of the road is a
Continue readingReview: The Odyssey
The Odyssey by Homer My rating: 5 of 5 stars It’s Homer! The epic is foundational for Western Civilization as a good read in any case. I’m no expert on translations, but I found the Lombardo version colorful and readable. View all my reviews
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Book Review: Shaved Ice and Wild Buses: Street Art in Suriname
Schaafijs en wilde bussen: Straatkunst in Suriname, by Chandra van Binnendijk , Paul Faber and Tammo Schuringa, KIT Publishers, 160 pages, 2010. ISBN 978-9-4602-2054-8. Dutch, soft cover, 19.50 euros
Continue readingReview: Touchless Automatic Wonder: Found Text Photographs from the Real World
Touchless Automatic Wonder: Found Text Photographs from the Real World by Lewis Koch My rating: 5 of 5 stars Wisconsin photographer Lewis Koch provides very powerful settings for found text. View all my reviews
Continue readingBook Review: South African Township Barbershops and Salons
South African Township Barbershops and Salons, Simon Weller, Mark Batty Publisher, 128 pages, 2011. ISBN 978-1-935613-04-6. Hard cover $27.95 If African Signs, with its minimal text but rich collection of photographs, provides a window to African vernacular culture, South African Township Barbershops & Salons passes through that window to provide something of an inside tour. Simon Weller, a professional photographer, not only document numerous advertising signs but also spent time with the hair cutters and their customers as well as several sign painters. He aims not just to show the art but also the culture in which the art is
Continue readingReview: The Calumet Region: An American Place
The Calumet Region: An American Place by Gregg Hertzlieb My rating: 5 of 5 stars A wonderful book, with photos of places I’ve been wanting to photograph for years. View all my reviews
Continue readingReview: The Iliad
The Iliad by Homer My rating: 5 of 5 stars An eminently readable translation brings the appalling gore, risible gods, tragic heroes and wondrous poetry to life. A great way to reacquaint, or acquaint, yourself with one of the world’s great works of literature. My reading partners via readingodyssey.org help a lot too. View all my reviews
Continue readingReview: Ancient Greece: A Very Short Introduction
Ancient Greece: A Very Short Introduction by Paul Cartledge My rating: 4 of 5 stars Cartledge makes an admirable run at covering a thousand years of history in just a few pages. His focus on key themes and representative cities results in a nicely coherent introduction. View all my reviews
Continue readingThe Beauty of Silence
Just saw The Artist. It reminds me of what was lost when sound came into the movies. Filmmakers achieved an amazing level of visual sophistication and power before sound, and it took years — some would say decades — to regain the artistic momentum stopped dead by sounds’ enormous technical overhead. Indeed, there is an argument that the artistic requirements of building movies around dialogue are inherently at odds with realizing their full visual potential. That’s a bit overstated, but there’s a point to it. If The Artist, produced when filmmakers are basically amateurs in the art of silent movies,
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