A Feather in Your Cap, A Feather in Your Nest

The impulse to collect things is one of the most agreeable things about people. Of course, I would say that, since I make my living providing them with the objects of their desire. The reasons they accumulate what they do, and the strategies they use, and how they define what they're after is always interesting to me. And the variety is pretty much endless. It occurs to me now that most of the blogs I enjoy are maintained by collectors, or artists, or both.

One of the smartest people I know, in the long course of writing a dissertation about Native American imagery in the modern art of Germany, found some relief in collecting images that were sort of tangentially related to her topic. She started acquiring pictures of non-native Americans dressing themselves in costume, and eventually assembled a neat little collection. She graciously agreed to let me share a few of her prizes here.

The picture below is the scholar/collector herself. And below that, your correspondent, striking his usual contrarian pose.

Today's Word is Dapper

This gent knew how to look good, and he headed down to the local studio to have a permanent record made. Maybe to send to his sweetheart. I suspect he chose to be pictured while seated so that those cool socks would show.

And I'll bet the little white dot on the end of one shoe, a processing error, bothered him a little.

It's a Dog Eat Football Team World

One of the most bizarre double exposures I've ever found, a photo of a dog merged with another of a football team.

No athletes were harmed in the making of this picture.

More Than One Way to Read A Sign

Got AIDS
See The
Root Woman

Talk With
The Lady
That Can
Trun Water
Into Blood

The photo of this group of hand-painted signs was taken in the early 90s, as best I can remember. They were nailed to improvised supports, right by the sidewalk in a poor area of a small Southern city. When a local told me about the sign, he warned that going into the neighborhood might be dangerous, but I had no problem in the few minutes I was there. I think the signs are evidence of more than one thing, among them:

that there was a plague in America

that desperately sick people who can't be cured by conventional medicine will sometimes try dubious therapies

that there are opportunists who cynically offer hope in exchange for dollars, and their marketing is frequently directed at people already poor

that there are remnants of magical healing practices still present in modern America,

and that handmade signs are far more interesting than commercially made ones.

Maybe there are other readings, too.

Bone-a-fied Stamp

One of those probably now obsolete rubber stamps with the rotating rubber belt of words. This one features parts of the human skeletal system. The belt is too brittle to risk using it anymore. A doorman at a nightclub could have had a lot of fun with it, I guess.

I digitally flipped the second image so it's easier to read.

Hard Questions

A few years ago a book of photographs of lynching victims was published. I struggled with my response to it, loudly harangued my dearest with concerns about its ethics, and finally gave in to a kind of fatigue, still conflicted and uncertain. I certainly don't intend to engage my much-appreciated readers here in a discussion about all that. But I do want to direct you to a relevant article in the New York Times by Michael Kimmelman here, about a show at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris which concerns itself with transgressive and provocative photographs. I'd love to see that show.

Begging the Question

Since a theme seems to be developing here of looking at something and simply asking Why?, here's a snapshot that just begs the question.

(I bugged my friend Pat to sell me this image for more than a year. He refused. Then one day he simply gave it to me. Thanks, Pat.)