The Addendum "I tried to write shorter ~Mark Twain
route99west.com/addendum
is an occasional journal of Oregon, from arts and books to public policy & transportation.
All content © 2006- by Alexander B. Craghead, except where otherwise noted.
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Book Reviews
Meet the G9
Portland Streetcar Obamamania
Bachelor's Special #1: Instant Noodles Review
Week in Review... in review.
Week in Review, Vol. XI
Week in Review, Vol. X
Week in Review, Vol. IX
Blogroll Additions
Review: Vanishing Point
Week in Review, Vol. VIII
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Other Notable Blogs
Cafe Unknown
Travel, History and Portland Oregon by Dan Haneckow
Jack Bog's Blog
By Jack Bogdanski of Portland, Oregon. (Like he needs any other introduction by now? -- A.B.C.)
For Portlanders Only
"Why buy a mattress anywhere else?"
Good Stuff NW
Featuring stuff that is good in the NW
LOST Magazine
LOST Magazine is an online monthly magazine that combines elements of many other literary, online, and national magazines with a singular mission--to reclaim in writing lost people, places, and things.
Mapes on Politics
Way West of the Beltway
Outside Is America
A journal about photography, roadtrips, trains and life, with occasional detours into movies, baseball, music, family and more.
The Photographers' Railroad Page
Good photos usually have good stories to go with them.... The goal of The Photographers' Railroad Page is to provide an outlet for top quality photographs and their story.
Portland Food & Drink
Throwing Ourselves on the Grenade of Bad Food to Save You
Portland Transport Blog
A Conversation About Access & Mobility in the Portland/Vancouver Region
PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media -- and booksellers
Rambling West
The musings of a farmer with a typewriter and camera
Stumptown Confidential
Documenting Portland, Oregon architecture, history, and culture through photos, postcards, and words.
The Unauthorized Observer
Observations on faith, photography, trains, baseball, the city where I live (Fullerton, Calif.), anything that I find funny (a lot of things) or irritating (some things) and various incidents involving friends and family.
Under the Weather
...the open road, fatherhood, family life, music, railroads, photography, popular and unpopular culture, sex, violence, religion, the oppression of consumerism and capitalism and the general bullshit that makes up modern life.
Urban Planning Overlord
A blog to counter the myths, lies, and demagoguery others use against sound city planning to further their own ends, fair and foul - but also to urge the profession itself to pull back from the occasional wretched PC exces.
VanPortlander
Living in Vancouver; working in Portland. I have some thoughts.
Whiskey, Texas
...life and experiences in Texas and the Southwest. Recurring themes: Photography, railroads, fading ads / ghost signs, fallen-flag railroad logos, boxcars, bicycling, Texas music, pop culture, sports, road trips, literature, kids and family.
World Scott
The Travel Writing and Photography of Scott Lothes
Blegs & Bargains
Amazon Book Wishlist
B&H Wishlist
My eBay Listings
Powell's Books Wishlist
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Blogroll Additions
Just a brief note that I've added three more links to the blogroll. Labels: Blogging, Food, Public Policy, Site News
First up, freelance writer Kathleen Bauer's Good Stuff NW, a real gem of foodie goodness. I get hungry anytime I read it.
Next up is Mapes on Politics, the blog written by Jeff Mapes for the Oregonian. In a world of often useless political e-ramblings, Jeff brings a welcome adult note to the field.
Lastly, another foodie blog, Portland Food & Drink. Their slogan -- "Throwing ourselves on the grenade of bad food to save you" -- probably says it best. Gossipy, frank, and intelligent, it's like happy hour with food world insiders.
I'm really picky about adding blogs to the blogroll, so I'm highly recommending these.
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Review: Vanishing Point
Labels: Art, Book Reviews, History, Photography
David Plowden: Vanishing Point: Fifty Years of Photography
By David Plowden, forward by Richard Snow, introduction by Steve Edwards. W. W. Norton & Company, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110; http://www.wwnorton.com/; 11.3 x 12.5 in; hardbound; 340 pages, 237 b/w photos; $100.00
A trip to the photography section of a well-stocked bookstore will yield shelves full of photographer's monographs. Countless spines arrest the eyes, each one vying to be the stylish work that convinces you that this photographer is the American Master.
And then there is David Plowden.
Plowden is one of the few living links between today and the greats of documentarian photography, the geniuses of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and others who participated in the Farm Services Administration's photography project during the Great Depression. Their work, seminal to the documentary style, was paradoxically emotive, evoking a minimalistic visual poetry. Plowden -- who struck up a friendship with Evans in the late '50s -- built upon this tradition, mixing a lyric style of photography with a documentary sensibility.
Over the course of his career, Plowden has published numerous books, almost always organized along topical lines: great lakes steam boats, great bridges of North America, vanishing small towns. He also has a fascination for railroads, the first love on which he lavished his camera -- indeed his first published photo was in TRAINS Magazine in 1954. This love expanded to encompass all manner of industrial subjects, from steamships and tugboats to steel mills and grain elevators. Now 76 years old, Plowden is at the end of his career, and it seems natural that he would publish a retrospective volume of his photography. Vanishing Point is that work.
The book opens -- after two images and a table of contents-- with a forward by Richard Snow, formerly the editor of American Heritage. Here Snow ably pens a brief discussion of Plowden's career. The brush strokes are light, and those familiar with Plowden's work might criticize it as being repetitive or unnecessary, but it provides a valuable taste of the text and photos to follow, almost as if it were a kind of abstract of the remaining book. A gentle start: so far, so good.
All this changes changes with the turn of the page and a remarkable 14-page introductory essay by Steve Edwards. Edwards brings his journalist sensibilities to the fore as he spins the story of the life and career of David Plowden. In so many ways, the story the journalist tells seems almost cinematic: a troubled childhood in New England, a youth amongst railroad men, a struggle to study a discipline he hated (economics) at Yale in hopes of making himself a better railroad employee following graduation. The reader is treated to the full transit of the photographer's disillusionment with the railroad world and with more common paths of life that would eventually bring him to photography. And here he works for Winston Link, studies under Minor White, and becomes fast friends with Walker Evans.
Edward's portrait is deftly penned with a light touch and a sensitivity to emotions and motives that makes the reader feel they can get inside -- if only for a brief moment -- the heart and mind of the photographer. He is sympathetic, but candid too; Plowden's single-minded devotion to his art often came at the expense of a relationship with his children and eventually cost him his first marriage. The event is part of a repeating pattern of loss that seems endemic to Plowden's drive. Edwards relates a point in 1960, after Plowden had left the studio of Minor White, feeling he had made a great mistake to study photography. The scene is rural Maine, and the photographer is standing the the cab of a steam locomotive on the very last steam-powered run on the line."'While that engine died, I sat in the cab in Brownsville Junction and watched the gauge drop to zero,' [Plowden] says. The loss was palpable; the very thing that had provided so much joy and escape during his troubled childhood had vanished."
In the space of a few short sentences, Edwards gets to the burning core of Plowden's modus operandi.
After this come the photographs themselves. Plowden was once scoffed at for being a "topical" photographer; here he wears this on his sleeve, dividing the book into seven thematic chapters of plates. Each is designated by only a roman numeral, with no title, no explanatory text, no attempt at interpretation. It is only the chapter divider, the plates, and in tiny text at the bottom, a plate number and very cursory caption.
Although railroads were Plowden's first love, they are not the focus of the work, and indeed the images of railroads he presents here are not the strongest images in the book. The most amusing thing about these images is the first plate, a photo of a Great Northern steam-powered freight near Wilmar, Minnesota: it violates nearly every rule of railroad photography convention, with no light on the nose of the locomotive, a broad foreground space of snow and haphazard weeds, and a line of poles and wires directly in front of the engine!
In addition to the train-centric images are more domestic moments, with the engines getting washed, maintained, and fueled by engine terminal crews. These images display a cinematic quality that is similar to Link, and indeed many of the plates date from 1959-1960, around the time of Plowden's association with that famous photographic dramatist. There is, however, one key element that is notably different; while Link resorted to everything short of building a personal hydrogen-powered sun to light his subjects with Hitchcockian precision, Plowden has worked only with available light. The result? His images seem fresher and more natural than Link's, as if the events in them had taken place but a few days ago, rather than decades hence.
Far more stunning than the railroad plates are the nautical images, such as plate 31, "Tugboat Julia C. Moran Undocking Liner, Hudson River, New York City (1975)". We are on the forward deck of a Hudson tug, barely seeing more than a few inches of the con. Out forward is a single man -- one of the few humans that Plowden has included in his Hopperesque de-peopled world -- unwrapping one of the ropes that holds the liner to the tug. And behind hims soars the great silver rivet-speckled bow of the hull of an ocean liner, so massive that her decks and superstructure are lost somewhere in an Olympian height beyond the view of the camera.
Bridges are, of course, one of David Plowden's greatest loves, and with boyish glee he gives us great hulking massive flying piles of steel. My favorite is probably one of the closest to me, an image of Newport, Oregon's Yaquina Bay Bridge shown in plate 61. The photo looks down the empty length of the span, and flanked between two gothic concrete spires curves the steel arch of the main bridge. The top nearly disappears into coastal fog, and the far end is barely even there at all. Beyond, there is no world, no ocean, no hills.
Next comes a chapter on industrial subjects, lead by a large set of photographs of the steel making process. Giant metal buckets, glowing molten steel, flashing dancing sparks. After a tour of this mechanical Hades, Plowden takes us on a journey through a litany of "back end" jobs, a hidden world of industry and commerce that few get to see. We see the great ore docks. We meet the solitary men who work in the bellies of steamships. We walk among lunar piles of coal and of iron ore. We get lost amongst the clinical inhumanity of a nuclear power plant.
The fifth chapter could be best described as wastelands. The images here are perhaps the most complex and most postmodern of the book. This America is one that is decaying, where every house hasn't been painted since FDR was president and each car looks like only Richard Roundtree would want to drive it, if it were still 1975 anyway. The bleakness, the desolation, the emptiness here is almost disturbing. Every now and then, I catch a sensation that reminds me of the empty highway-spaces of Jeff Brouws. There is a vague notion of social commentary emerging here, especially in the few plates here that show people; what is the future of the freckle-faced boy from rural West Virginia in plate 132? What kind of life awaits the girl staring out the window in plate 136? The state of paint and repair of her Pennsylvania home doesn't give much hope of stewardship for the world she is about to inherit. And in plate 143, shot in 1967, even the iconic form of the Statue of Liberty is framed by power poles and trash.
Love re-enters the picture in chapter six. Here is rural America, and rural Americana: the small town main street, the general store, the hardware store. This is the world that is fast fleeting, a victim of a rural populace mystified at the decline of tradition and Main Street while they push their shopping carts down the aisles of Wal-Mart. The shop-keepers -- when they appear at all -- are old, their faces as cracked as the paint of their wooden floorboards. And now and then we get children, too, and an old couple in Iowa who keep a clapboard house with Swiss net curtains, and we get the silence of over-furnished empty front parlors from houses that were built when people knew what the heck the word "parlor" even meant.
Storm clouds on the plains of New Mexico opens up the seventh and final chapter of Vanishing Point. It is the same image that is used on the dust jacket, a powerful, sweeping metaphor for the elegy that is the remainder of the book. From here out, there will be no more people, not a single solitary one. Indeed the only identifiable living creature is a single horse -- pale like that ridden by Death in the Four Horseman of the Book of Revelations. It stares out at us kindly from a single small square window in the side of a barn in plate 221. We are alone now, in the plains, navigating by grain elevators. We walk freely amongst barns and inside of feed mills. It seems that dust still hangs in the air, as if someone was just here, just working, but where have they gone? There is a profound solemnity, as if in church, and each successive image shows us less and tells us more.
The final image -- plate 235 -- returns us back to where we and Plowden both began. It is a railroad track. Frost once wrote of two roads that diverged in a wood, one well taken, and one rarely so. Plowden, like the poet, took the one "less travelled by". Here, though, we see the mainline -- the path well worn -- and the diverging route merging towards a switch that unites them. Are we looking backwards from the diverging route of Plowden's life, to see what has gone now collectively behind us? Or are we looking ahead, and seeing that even the route less taken eventually winds to the same common end? Take care and note: there are no buildings. There are no people. There is not even a train. There is only a track that crests over a small rise and disappears, and beyond that, empty hills bearing no promises. It is an evocative image on which to end the collection of photographic plates, especially considering that the book is meant as a retrospective of an entire career.
The closing text of the work is from Plowden himself, and his voice crackles with energy. Here he is full of humor and wit, buoyant in a way that is natural to those who have such a keen sense of loss and of the fleeting nature of time. Here we are imbued in a world of technical geekdom but told in such a loving fashion that, like the sometimes nonsensical phrasing of a T.S. Elliot poem, the reader is enthralled. He tells a hilarious narrative of his bad luck in camera choices, contraptions that seemed bent on being too bulky, too complicated, or too delicate to stand up to the demands he would place on them. The notes read like a letter from a favorite grandfather that you rarely see. It is perhaps the most valuable text in the book, and as precious as any of the photographic plates bound within the book's pages.
This is a heavy book, weighing in at over five pounds. The binding is stout but never gets in the way of viewing the photographic plates, even in the middle of this thick volume. The paper is strong and bright and feels good under the hand. Reproduction on the photos is outstanding with fine tonal range. The design work on the book tends towards minimalist, with subtle tones, simple font choices, and bold charcoal-hued chapter dividers bearing stark roman numerals and nothing more. All the plates are produced in a nearly full-page format, with white margins neither distractingly thin nor drastically wide. Image grouping is carefully planned; where images face each other across pages (which is most of the time), the images act as a kind of diptych, reflecting some common graphic value or subject theme, while images that are strongest on their own are displayed solitary against a blank page. The book looks and feels like every penny of its $100 price.
Vanishing Point is a monumental volume befitting the lifetime's work of one of America's greatest photographers. There is no question that this is one of the finest books I have had the pleasure of adding to my collection in years. It is a shame that some in the world of high art have derided Plowden as a "topical" artist. For every avant-guard photographer the art schools crank out, few will ever achieve the richness and depth of the American soul that David Plowden has. His work stands alongside the paintings of Edward Hopper and the literature of Mark Twain as essential to understanding the uniqueness of American culture. With an outstanding introduction, a collection of stunning plates, and a precious gem of an afterward from Plowden himself, Vanishing Point proves itself the definitive work of Plowden's life. No serious photographer of American culture should be without it. Photography books this fine are rarely printed en-masse; when this book finally sells out, it will likely begin to appreciate in price steadily. Buy it while it's new, before you have to pay twice as much for a used copy.
Vanishing Point is available from Amazon or Powell's.
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Week in Review, Vol. VIII
There's been a lot of infrastructure news this week. First up, Seattle's Sound Transit might get an expanded authority to oversee general road projects in the region. I'm not sure if this idea is a boon of synergy or a monopolistic boondoggle. Labels: Automobiles, Food, Media, Photography, Public Policy, Railroads, Technology, Transportation
Rail has been front and center in a lot of the news. In Oregon, Governor Kulongowski has told the Central Oregon and Pacific that there will be no discussion of helping out with maintenance or rehabilitation costs unless the company reopens the Coos Bay line first. (Good for Ted!) Meanwhile, the Port of Tillamook Bay's coastal line has until February 7th to get their FEMA request in. I don't know if this means they need their 25% share by then, or just a pledge towards it, or what, but I can hear a loud ticking reminiscent of the intro to 60 Minutes. Lastly, a proposal to restore the Amtrak Pioneer continues to drag along.
Then there's the continuing saga of the bridges. Of note: Salem wants $680 million for a new one, while the Portland metro area's new Columbia River crossing just may not pencil out.
At the rate that infrastructure costs are climbing, we'd either better start flooding the market with steel to bring prices down, or face the possibility of reduced weight capacities and a reduced flow of people and commerce.
Meanwhile developments in cellulosic ethanol may make this plan obsolete before it's finished. Hat tip to Bojack.
In related auto news, Autoblog gets a first drive of the Tesla, and reports that speed bumps aren't green! Finally, a PC reason to get rid of those bone-shakers!
Oh, and one more via Autoblog: the strangest cooking contraption ever. If George Foreman endorses it, watch out America.
Lastly, news that Jaguar may be planning a hard-core sportscar. I'm drooling already.
Lewis County was hit pretty hard by the flooding on December 5th. Among the victims of the rising waters was the Black Sheep Creamery. Irony of ironies, while the local residents hand-wring over the reopening of the local Wal-Mart, the creamery is relying on rebuild money from a fundraiser in -- guess where? -- Portland.
Am I the only one who finds it strange that it's the cities of the region that may be the salvation of small family farms?
Speaking of food, Good Stuff NW reports of the rebirth of a local grocery store. My only question, can I have one in my neighborhood? Please?
And in Seattle, things aren't all they are cracked up to be. Says Portland Food & Drink's "Food Dude", "No wonder our washed up restaurateurs are ending up in Seattle."
Ouch.
Before I go, a two photographic notables around the web this week include a photo essay by Martin Burwash the decline of rural Washington, and a nice collection of images from Elrond Lawrence on the vintage signs of Salinas. Love the neon, El.
Take care, all.
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Review: Jumptown
Labels: Book Reviews, Portland History
Jumptown: The Golden Years of Portland Jazz, 1942-1957
By Robert Dietsche. Oregon State University Press, 500 Kerr Administration, Corvallis OR 97331; http://oregonstate.edu/dept/press/; 9.7 x 6.9 in; trade paperback; 229 pages, 160 b/w photos, 48 illustrations, 1 map; $24.95
A visitor to Portland today might not realize that the city has a rich history in jazz. Fueled by the shipbuilding boom of World War Two, the city's black population grew rapidly throughout the 40's, creating a vibrant community on the east bank of the Willamette. This was a land of wild nightclubs, neighborhood bars, shady speakeasies that were open all night. Big names came to play, artists like Duke Ellington, Dizzie Gillespie, and Louis Armstrong, but the city also produced a number of local talents, like Wardell Gray and Doc Severinsen. It was not, however, to last; the construction of the Memorial Coliseum wiped out much of the jazz scene, and much of its history was lost. Dietsche's Jumptown: The Golden Years of Portland Jazz sets out to record that lost history.
Jumptown is by-and-large a narrative prose history. The story of the Portland jazz scene flows generally in a chronological line from the 1940s through to the 1980s, with each chapter focusing on a particular location that was key to the jazz of the time. The text relies heavily on direct research, consisting primarily of interviews with direct participants; many quotes and extended passages are included verbatim. Supporting this are numerous photos, many culled from those individuals. There are also reproductions of numerous LPs including recordings of local talents.
This work contains a wealth of information on the history of Portland music and Portland's black neighborhoods. The book is not written for jazz neophytes however; many portions seem to be a stream of name-dropping, as if the book is a bop version of the Chronicles in the King James' Bible. Without this context, many passages will feel confusing or dense, and even with it, it seems to be more a who's who list than a story. The book does yield up some gems of local history, however, including the locations of most of the big clubs and some entertaining anecdotes in the words of witnesses and participants themselves.
The book is printed in the dimensions of a typical hardbound book, but is in a softcover trade paperback binding. Paper weight is smooth and the photos are reproduced adequately. The back of the book contains a discography of Portland-related music that proves handy.
Though a bit thin, the book is the only work I am aware of dedicated specifically to Portland jazz culture. Jazz lovers will no doubt understand the laundry list of names better than the average reader, and there is enough obscure history of the city that it will prove a worthy edition for Portland historians wishing for a truly broad library.
Jumptown is available from Amazon, Powell's Books as well as directly from the publisher.
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Friday, January 25, 2008
Trimet Publicizes Security Increase
As I opened iTunes tonight, I noticed a new TriMet TV podcast. TriMet TV has been rather absent of late, the last episode having been put out prior to New Year's. So what prompted the transit agency to issue another episode? Labels: Media, Portland, Public Policy, Transportation
That's right. Security:"We recently hired 16 new security guards, for a total of 36.... The number of officers has increased by 10 percent, and will expand by another 10 percent when the new MAX Green Line opens in 2009."
Interesting to see them taking a more assertive role about their security public relations profile. Is it enough? Some yokel police chief somewhere thought TriMet needs another 150 or more officers to really get a handle on crime. Me, I think that's a case of a police officer trying to shove his work on another agency.
Regardless, it's good to see another 16 officers on the system. Video and transcript -- including some Fred Hansen tough-talk, heh -- at TriMet's webpage.
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Four from the Gorge
I've always been a bit of a procrastinator, and developing film is no exception for me. I tend to let rolls pile up until I realize I'm nearing a three-figure processing bill, and only then do I hit the lab. It could be better if I had lab space at home, but laziness combined with a lack of time tend to prevent me from getting there. Instead the rolls fill the fridge and eventually I end up taking them to Blue Moon. Such an event happened this week. Labels: Art, Photography, Railroads, Transportation
I'm still sorting through the images, but here are four, all from May in the Columbia River Gorge. 
The Portland section of Amtrak's storied Empire Builder heads west towards Portland in the morning light, east of Goodnoe, WA.
Goodnoe, WA. An eastbound BNSF Railway stack train heads through the scrub and gloom of mid-day.
A westbound BNSF Railway manifest freight at Maryhill, WA. 
Near Lyle, WA, an eastbound manifest passes by in rather grim afternoon light.
The versatility of the black-and-white film once more impressed me. The days these were shot was not all that blessed by weather, and I hadn't expected any images to turn out as well as these. None of them break the bank in any compositional way, but I think they all turned out solid. I would like to hand-print a few, however. I miss the darkroom so much....
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American Graffiti
Labels: Art, Civics, Photography, Portland, Site News
2: Inside and Out
Graffiti seems to trouble some photographers, especially railfan photographers. The "big question" seems to be if its legitimate art, and most seem to say no. Yet some photographers can't help but take pictures of it. How many photographers of railroad subjects wouldn't recognize the cigar-smoking mug of the Colossoss of Roads? (Sidenote, he reminds me a bit of General Alcazar in TinTin). Jeff Bass, amongst others, has made many compelling "captures" (as he likes to say) of graffiti, images I can't help but admire.
Truth be told, graffiti is there. It's part of the real world we live in. To pretend that freight cars in LA ought to be shiny and sparkle is to live in a fantasy land inside our heads, not in reality. There is at least a little bit of photojournalism in railroad photography, isn't there?
Yet it does tear at me. I'm a big believer in order. Which isn't to say my desk doesn't look like a war zone. It's more that I feel that we need more respect in the world, not less. Humor is fine, farce is fine, sarcasm is fine. We're adults, we should be tough enough to stand that. But graffiti... isn't that basically vandalism?
And so I'm stuck taking photos of things I don't approve of.
In 2006 I took a traditional photography course at a community college, in order to get some training in basic darkroom technique. (I'm a wannabe dinosaur, forgive me my strange habits). For my finals project, I concentrated on railroad graffiti. It was on my mind a lot as I traded emails with Jeff and with my friend Scott Lothes on the subject, trying to make sense of it all. In the end, the correspondence and the project ended up merging late last year.
At the end of the project, my attitude is still ambiguous. I feel that if I'm really trying to do something meaningful about understanding the railroad landscape, I can't ignore graffiti. Yet in a way it's a glorification of it to photograph it. I'm still searching for an answer. Perhaps I will never find it.
Check out the essay here and see if you can find any answers of your own.
Thanks to Jeff and Scott for helping out with this project, and thanks to Martin Burwash for his candid critique.
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Thursday, January 24, 2008
Week in Review, Vol. VII
Well can anyone remember a stretch of cold weather thats lasted as long as this? Sure, we've had colder winters, and more snow, and more ice. However, I cannot recall a winter in my (relatively short) lifetime thats been as cold for as long. It's enough to make me want to stock up on things like scarves, gloves, and flannel-lined pants. What is this... Ohio? Labels: Art, Automobiles, Books, Civics, Photography, Portland, Public Policy, Railroads, Transportation, Week in Review
Let's dig right into the big stuff: OHSU. Following a ruling that removed indemnification for OHSU employees, the educational hospital announced closures and major service cuts.
Local blogger extraordinaire Jack Bogdanski doesn't buy it, and he's not alone. Big O columnist Steve Duin more-or-less agrees.
The TriMet security saga continues. Following a rather botched public hearing on their proposal to reduce Fareless Square hours of operation, the agency withdrew the plan. (See the Trib's take here).
Of course the proposal is not quite dead yet. Instead it's going to be "studied" more. Some, however, are of the opinion that the supposed link between farebox recovery and violent crime is a farce.
I must agree. The crime problem on TriMet is real, but it's more widespread than MAX and it's not primarily downtown!!. Indeed I had a discussion with a friend at one of the major newspapers in town, and he did a bit of research on the MAX attacks. Guess what? Most of the criminals involved in the crimes lived within 1-2 miles of where the crimes had been committed.
We need to have a serious discussion about security -- system-wide and in all modes -- not about Fareless Square. This isn't to say we won't be looking at fares as part of a solution, after all security must be funded, and costs are not going down for the bus system. But our first concern needs to be security personnel on the ground, and probably station redesigns to eliminate security hazards like brick walls people can hide behind.
TriMet's Mary Fetsch on today's Lars Larson show has mentioned that the agency is re-adjusting its security to put security officers on transit vehicles at least 75% of the time. Yet the agency is still proposing that Fareless Square's elimination is a tool towards increasing security. To be fair, she did mention the disconnect with the Fareless proposal and the large number of incidents occurring in Gresham.
Sam Adam's street maintenance plan won't be split into three proposals after all. The reason offered: advice of legal counsel to the City. Willamette Week, however, reports a different take: it's all about a deal with the Oregon Petroleum Association that gives them a lower rate."They didn't get what they wanted, but we compromised on their rate," Adams said.... "Now that they've agreed not to pursue a referral, I feel comfortable moving forward with one ordinance," said Adams, who's running for mayor."
Gotta love Portland politics.
Meanwhile, the Columbia River Crossing is in the midst of proposing a toll for the new Interstate 5 bridge. (Hat tip to Portland Transport).
I am actually, amazingly, in favor of tolling on freeways. However, I can't see how tolling just this bridge will work. And I am highly skeptical of all these electronic tolling systems. One of the points of this project was supposed to be to remove an alleged choke-point on I-5. As the project proceeds further and further, it's becoming more and more apparent that the new bridge will itself be a choke point, and a highly overpriced one at that.
I think we have now reached the point where the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Lets just maintain the current, perfectly safe bridge, and forget it. I won't dare mention the idea of a supplemental bridge cutting across Sauvie's Island to connect Washington County to Clark County, of course....
Rounding out the news, the Daily Astorian has an update on the Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad. The line, which links rural Tillamook with national markets, experienced major damage during early December 2007, and remains out of service. Reading the tea leaves, it's really starting to look like the Tillamook Branch may be gone for good.
This is a major challenge for how the state addresses the needs of low-volume rural areas. If the rail line is not rebuilt, it will have a major impact on Tillamook County's economy. And if the state does not provide some alternate solution, it will be telling rural areas across Oregon that they are not a priority in Salem -- a mixed message at a time when ODOT is promoting the Connect Oregon project.
I have a soft spot for British automobiles, having grown up in the back seat of a 1959 Triumph TR3. Thus the future of the Jaguar marquee has been of great interest, which is why this report about difficulties between current owner Ford and future owner Tata Motors is slightly disturbing. Lets hope this doesn't mean the deal falls off.
Strange things amuse me, and perhaps this is too obscure. However, it appears Union Pacific does have a sense of humor about itself.
Heh.
Once upon a time in Public-Broadcasting-Land, there was a show called Masterpiece Theater. It was a variety drama show, much like the old "Carnation Milk Presents" shows that aired on broadcast television in the U.S. throughout the '50s. (In fact, oil giant Mobile used to sponsor Masterpiece, and it was known as "Mobile Masterpiece Theater"). Each week the host -- first Alistair Cook, later New York Times columnist Russell Baker -- would introduce a classic work of literature (and occasionally an original screenplay) that had been made into a film. In some ways this series was the ultimate intellectual feather-in-the-cap for PBS.
Apparently that's not so much the case anymore. PBS has re-branded the series as "Masterpiece Classics" -- a case of painfully obvious duplicative phrasing if ever there was one -- and has replaced Baker with actress Gillian Anderson. The move is reminiscent of NBC's recent decision to use the actor Micheal Douglas as voice talent for the NBC Nightly News. As the Ellen & Jim blog put it:"The appearance and demeanor of the introducer, Gillian Anderson, her talks and inset commercials (if we needed more evidence) show how little respect the PBS stations now have for their audience. Their original goal which was to have an alternative place for intelligent talk and decent art. Anderson is made up grotesquely; she leers at the audience; I expect she knows little of Austen for real or the 18th century, but the people who wrote the speeches clearly also know little. I didn’t stay for her closing one -- it actually comes after a commercial. PBS now puts commercials inside their shows. They assume the audience will sit through the commercial for the sake of watching and listening to this woman again."
Ouch.
They're also getting heat for having cut up the recent Jane Austen film adaptations so much to have made a joke of the original material. (Hat tip via the Chronicle Blog).
Kevin Scanlon sends along notice of an interview on Public Radio International's Studio 360 with the photographer David Plowden. Plowden has recently published a retrospective book titled David Plowden: Vanishing Point: Fifty Years of Photography. (I will be reviewing it sometime next week). Studio 360 took the time to visit with Plowden in New York and has made their interview available in audio format. The interview is about 12 minutes long, and in it you can hear Plowden's sense of wonder and personal curiosity shining through. For an admirer of Plowden's work, I found the interview informative and inspiring:
In addition to the main interview, Studio 360 has made available a 4-minute bonus interview with Plowden on his fascination with bridges:
If the embedded players do not work for you, the interviews are available as downloadable .mp3 formats from their issue archive page. (It's on the right).
One last note before I go. While we're discussing photography, Martin Burwash has another photo essay up. Check it out.
Have a great weekend, and look for some book reviews before the next Week in Review.
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Thursday, January 17, 2008
Rescue Costs = Need to Bill?
Once more, the case of some missing climbers on Mount Hood is making the headlines. Thankfully, both climbers came down the mountain alright. But that doesn't stop the talk radio set (who I refuse to link to) from arguing that we ought to bill climbers for their rescue. Labels: Outdoors, Public Policy
When your house burns, does the fire department send you a bill?
When you are threatened or mugged, does the police department send you a bill?
We already pay the bill for mountain rescues. Its called our taxes.
The idea of user payment has become the darling of the libertarian wing of the political right. It makes me sick. Everything in life cannot be paid via user fees, and emergency services are definitely inappropriate for such fees. The last thing we as a society want is to see people not call a rescue service -- and subsequently die -- because they are afraid to pay a bill later.
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Week in Review, Vol. VI
Okay, what is this? Is the Willamette Week taking a page from the Onion? If so, can't hurt. Labels: Blogging, Civics, History, Media, Photography, Portland, Portland History, Public Policy, Site News, Transportation, Week in Review
While you're there, check out this acerbic piece by Corey Pein. I don't think I've read as entertaining of a summing-up of the Portland political landscape in a while. Informative while hilarious; well done.
And while we're on Portland subjects, just a brief note that quid pro quo is alive and well.
Tuesday, the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission released their report to Congress containing recommendations on future surface transportation policy."The Commission is working to examine not only the condition and future needs of the nation's surface transportation system, but also short and long-term alternatives to replace or supplement the fuel tax as the principal revenue source to support the Highway Trust Fund over the next 30 years."
Since the report was released only two days ago, I have yet to open it much less digest it. Regarding the production of the report, a source of mine wrote:"...all work was done by or for US-DOT directly. I reported to Susan Binder, executive director of the Commission and deputy secretary of USDOT. She reports to Mary Peters, [Secretary] of US-DOT who reports to George W. Bush who probably doesn’t know or care what we are doing. But I am in the fourth layer down from The Top. This is the highest I have ever been or am ever likely to be."
It will be interesting to see what exactly the report -- called for in 2005's transportation funding bill -- consists of, much less recommends. Apparently one of the recommendations is a $0.40 hike in the Federal gas tax, something that Portland Transport reports isn't going down well with the administration. I'll take a look at the report later this week, and will likely have some thoughts.
While researching obscure Cuban cocktails I located (via this article) a cool little publication called Lost."LOST Magazine is an online monthly magazine that combines elements of many other literary, online, and national magazines with a singular mission--to reclaim in writing lost people, places, and things."
For lovers of history, nostalgia junkies, as well as obsessive collectors of obscure trivia, it's a really cool site. Lost is a welcome addition to our blogroll. Check it out.
Speaking of lost things and blogrolls, I stumbled onto this cool site this week. Sleek design, neat concept, great content, luscious photos. Sadly, it's not updated anymore. As a former boss of mine used to say, "drat".
All the blog overload has lead me to try out an RSS reader. No Safari has one built in, but all the geeky types are using standalone RSS Readers. With an overload of blogs to keep up with, I thought, hey, why not try this out? So lately I've been trying a few, and I've found my favorite so far, an app called Vienna. It's sleek, so far it doesn't hiccup too much, and on an added note I can view web pages directly in it rather than opening a browser. (It uses the Safari architecture to power a simple browser function).
While we're discussing blogs, here's one more "best images of 2007" post, this one on Elrond Lawrence's Outside is America. Nice stuff, El.
Keep Portland Weird may be an understatement on this one: it was No Pants on MAX Day on Saturday.
What's worse? Hockley has photos. Click if you dare.
How about a blast from the past to clean those images off the insides of your eyelids? Stumptown Confidential has Portland circa 1964, and Dan Haneckow has a farewell to Nick's Famous Coney Island.
Nick's reminds me a bit of the pictures of the original Camp Washington Chili in Cincinatti. Camp Washington modernized in the last decade or so; Nick's stayed blessedly old school and blessedly Portland.
Alas, no more. Wonder if it will be condos, or apartments?
More Portland news: Friday the city will be putting on a press event celebrating the 50th anniversary of... parking enforcement?"(PORTLAND, OR) -- The City of Portland Office of Transportation's Parking Enforcement Division will celebrate its 50th anniversary on Friday, January 18, 2008. The media are invited to attend this special event that includes an entertaining slide show presentation on the history of parking enforcement in Portland."
What next? Can we have a 100th anniversary of indoor plumbing event?
Rolling Stone brings us this story about the decline in audio recording quality.
I'm from the mp3 generation and love their flexibility and portability. That said, vinyl is way better than anything you can hear these days. Once more its a case of modern digital technology replacing a superior analog one. Mass production always has more upsides than downsides, but it's always a loss in quality too.
A few additions to the blogroll this week:For Portlanders Only;
Good stuff all.
Elrond Lawrence's Outside Is America;
Kevin Scanlon's The Photographers' Railroad Page;
Martin Burwash's Rambling West;
Dave Styffe's The Unauthorized Observer;
Scott Lothes' World Scott.
I'm confused. Is this a promotion for a new form of mass transit, or a statement in favor of private automobile commuting?
Last up, a bit of sound advice from the Powell's blog. I may be following it myself more in the future.
Until later, folks.
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Sunday, January 13, 2008
Fareless Square Changes?
In response to security concerns about TriMet, the agency is holding hearings on reducing the hours of Fareless Square. Labels: Civics, Portland, Public Policy, Transportation
How reducing hours on downtown's Fareless Square will improve safety in Gresham, where most of the violence on the system occurs, is beyond me. Here is the Trib's story on the matter.
The hearings are this Wednesday, the 16th, one near Lloyd Center and one downtown. (See here for details).
Personally I don't see how this is going to help things at all. The majority of the crime is not downtown, but at the extremities of the system, especially Gresham. What is needed is more enforcement, not an inconveniencing of non-criminal users.
Further, the downtown area is a site of numerous bars, clubs, & entertainment venues. It seems smart to leave Fareless Square operating all evening, allowing less-than-sober (but law abiding) Portlanders to get around downtown without being behind a wheel.
And meanwhile, enforcing the new fare restrictions will require yet more fare inspectors and transit police downtown, when where they are needed, once again, is in places like Gresham and to a lesser extent Hillsboro.
If you can't make the meetings, you can send written testimony by mail to:
TriMet-MK2
4012 SE 17th Ave
Portland, OR 97202
You can also submit comments via email at comments@trimet.org . The deadline for both is 5 PM, Thursday, February 21st.
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Questions for Sam
Recently, Portland City Commissioner (and Mayoral candidate) Sam Adams and County Commissioner Ted Wheeler have been promoting a new revenue plan to fund street maintenance. The fee would be a City of Portland fee, and the city has put up a website for the proposal: Labels: Civics, Portland, Public Policy, Transportation"The Safe, Sound and Green Streets Proposal was conceived to address longstanding transportation maintenance issues in the City of Portland and deficiencies in Multnomah County's Willamette River bridges. The Oregon state gas tax was last increased in 1993, which has meant that funding for transportation safety and maintenance has not kept pace with inflation or the increasing demands of a growing population. As a result, the City of Portland has $422 million in unmet maintenance needs. Likewise, Multnomah County faces a $485 million shortfall for bridge maintenance. Because of this underinvestment, our community faces needless deaths and injuries on Portland's streets that create an estimated annual economic impact of $412 million.
Many have come out of the woodwork to oppose the plan. Certainly questions remain about how equitable it is, and whether the city has had its budget priorities straight in the past, or if the populace is now being asked to bailout a shortfall that is the consequence of bad investments. Even the Willamette Week has criticized the proposal.
To address these unmet needs, the Safe, Sound and Green Streets Stakeholder Committee was formed to develop a proposal that would begin to address the worst of the city's unmet maintenance needs. Specifically, these include city arterial streets in poor and very poor condition, City and County bridges, signals in poor condition, and key safety needs. The proposal envisions new funding sources for both the City and County as well as a specific list of street maintenance, bridge and safety projects that would be completed with new revenue."
Sensitive as I am to the need to fund public infrastructure, my initial reaction to all such plans is skepticism. I must give Sam & Co kudos, however, for providing a budget for the proposal. I also must credit Sam with guts to push for this at a time when he's seeking a higher office.
The heart of the matter is the argument that gas tax revenues no longer supply enough revenue to cover transportation projects. The state gas tax is a fixed rate of $0.24 per gallon. While gas prices have been rising, gas taxes have remained at a flat rate, denying the public any direct benefit of higher gas prices. In short, less percentage of your money spent at the pump is returning to the streets, and more is going to the gas company.
The Portland Department of Transportation also argues that "[t]he Portland region receives only 46 cents back for every dollar we send to Salem in gas tax and vehicle registration fees". Even if true, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. One of the roles that a large city plays is to be the engine -- in public revenue generation as well as economically -- for a state or region. (If true, though -- and it likely is -- it certainly counters arguments that the rest of the state is subsidizing Portland's transportation choices).
One of the best arguments for the need for new revenue is that "[s]ince 1993, the cost for materials to repair our streets and bridges has increased by 70%..." As the P-DOT website says, "one dollar in 1993 equals 58 cents in today's market." Rising costs of concrete and steel have driven up construction costs for both the public and private sectors. Many projects -- including the new Westside Express Service -- have made major project design cuts and still are having problems staying within the originally budget numbers.
Even if the shortfall is conceded as real, is this proposal to fill it the correct choice? As the Willy Week puts it:"The tax does far more than fix potholes: Adams' office has emphasized the city's deteriorating streets, often stressing $422 million in unmet maintenance needs. Nobody would deny the city's streets are in lousy shape, with a growing 627-mile backlog of streets in crummy condition. Yet a healthy $24.2 million -- or about 5 percent of the total tax -- won't go for maintenance but for building 112 miles of new 'bike boulevards'"
It's certain that there's going to be some major questions about the "bike boulevard" proposal. Beyond just explaining what exactly they are, where they go, or what they look like, there's going to be some vocal opposition. As it stands, bikes do not pay into the transportation system in any user-based way, unlike cars & trucks. This may end up becoming more fuel for proposals to require bike registration or bike licensing.
This FAQ helps to answer many questions about transportation in Portland in general, as well as how the city got to where it is today. For example, it points out (correctly) that the P-DOT does not pay for the construction of streetcars or light rail with state gas tax dollars. What it leaves out? It doesn't say anything about non-gas tax revenues, the impact of LIDs on overall city property tax revenues, nor on whether gas taxes help subsidize improvements near such developments. Also, how does P-DOT pay for the streetcar's operations?
One question that nags me. How much of the funds raised will go towards actual shovels in the ground? I grant, some costs will have to go to overhead like engineering and some planning. But still -- how much of this is funding the projects, and how much of it is going to pay for, say, more personnel at P-DOT?
P-DOT also claims that the department has had to cut their budget for the last 7 years in a row. It would be interesting to know in what areas these cuts were made, and why.
In the FAQ, there is the following question & answer:"Question: Due to a strong economy, Portland had higher than anticipated revenue over the last 2 fiscal years. Why didn't City Council spend some of these funds on transportation?
I think this gets to the heart of questions like those raised at VanPortlander. Can the situation that P-DOT finds itself in now be partially the result of the council placing their budget priorities in other areas?
Answer: These one-time-only general funds were allocated for other council priorities like police and affordable housing. Transportation received one-fifth of these funds for specific safety projects. This amount is not sufficient to cover P-DOT's ongoing maintenance funding shortfall. Had more money been given to transportation, other essential public services such as parks and public safety would have received less."
P-DOT states that other cities are seeking similar proposals to pay for their own projects, and this is quite true. This is true, but how well is it working? In some cases, not so well.
I think Adams and P-DOT makes a strong case for the budget shortfall and for their proposed solution. It remains to be seen if it will fly with voters, however. A number of gas station owners are attempting to band together and put the issue on the May ballot. If they succeed, we will see a public debate about the city's budget priorities emerge. Let's hope it's not as ugly as the Interstate debacle was.
If it is, though, I'd better stock up on popcorn.
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Friday, January 11, 2008
Books & Powells -- An Update
Reader Slammin' Sam posted in the comments that my Powell's rant was unnecessary, pointing out that the Powell's wishlist function can indeed be made public. Labels: Blogging, Book Reviews, Books, New Books, Portland, Used Books
Remind me not to listen to certain Powell's employees when it comes to technical questions. You know who you are! (And I'll see you at lunch Monday no doubt).
So now, viola, the Addendum has a Powell's Wishlist now.
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Thursday, January 10, 2008
Week in Review, Vol. V
Reason has an interesting review up of Andrew Keen's Cult of the Amateur. An interesting topic, and I'm not sure I wholly agree with Keen, but I am sympathetic to many points he makes. Labels: Blogging, Book Reviews, Books, Civics, Media, Photography, Portland, Public Policy, Railroads, Transportation, Week in Review
And yes, I'm aware of the hypocrisy of saying that on a blog.
Speaking of book reviews, there's been a lot of bally-hoo about their decline in recent memory. You know the drill, the usual "the Internet killed the radio star" schtick. There's definitely a bit of truth to it, although I wouldn't go shouting about the demise of the book just yet.
Still, I must admit that the concern inspired me to begin adding book reviews to the Addendum.
Of course, as a freelancer, book reviews can be a major pain. Getting review copies is difficult, and I just plain can't afford to buy every book I want to review. On the other hand, I'm a confirmed book-a-holic. End result? Most of my reviews will be of books going into my library anyway. This includes both new and out-of-print, used books, but hey, we live in the state that gave the world Powell's Books, so that's not that big of a problem now is it?
Naturally, if you'd like to help, you can always buy me a book to review. Heh.
While we're on the subject of book buying and wishlists and the like, a minor rant. Why can't Powell's have a wishlist function similar to Amazon, that would let others see what you are wanting to buy? It would be especially handy during the holidays, and I would far rather send prospective gift-buyers and friends to Powell's than to mega-monster Amazon.
It wouldn't hurt to let use have some simplified profiles too, for those of us who post reviews on their site.
And one more book-related item. I would be remiss not to add the PowellsBooks.Blog to the blogroll at left.
And then there's the Blogosphere! Yet more additions. Photographer & graphic designer Dave Styffe brings us The Unauthorized Observer; a very noir title for his SoCal photoblog. This is followed up by news that Elrond Lawrence has started another, titled Outside Is America.
Whew. Lothes returns, Carr and Kooistra surface, and then Burwash goes blogging. And now Lawrence and Styffe.
What is this? 1998 all over again?
The holidays are over at last, and many are still groaning under the weight of the feasting. it wasn't the vast Christmas repasts that hit me, though, so much as the culinary delights of Portland.
How about a little Cafe Cubano and Camarones Enchilada?
This is bad. I think I have a new addiction.
I almost feel sorry for the Portland Building. How overjoyed the city was when it was first built. A fine example of cutting edge, post-modern architecture, designed by rising-star architect Michael Graves. We were lucky, and it made Graves a real powerhouse, designing everything from major buildings to consumer goods for Target.
Time has not treated the building well, however, and it has become the building Portlanders love to hate. (Granted, it is a bit of a maintenance nightmare now).
Poor thing. Portland is one of those cities where nobody will ever stare at you, because you'll never manage to be the weirdest person on the block. In a way, the Portland Building fits in a city like that -- hell if anything it's too tame for a city like that.
Oh, don't get me wrong though; I don't like the building either.
Politics schmolitics. Eric Sten resigns and Sho Dozono files to run for mayor.
Plenty has been said elsewhere about these events. You can always go over to Bojack for the latest.
Sten's departure will leave a much larger hole in the council. Presuming that Adams is elected mayor, it means two spots are open, in addition to Randy running for his seat again. Sten's departure makes it far easier to change the majority make up of the council in one election sweep.
As for Sho? I'll say only this: Sho fills a vacuum. Before him, there was the potential for a serious contender to emerge. Sho seems like a nice guy, but Portland politics isn't about being nice. If I were Sam, I'd be really happy about all this.
Will the weather madness never end? Vancouver gets a tornado. They do happen in the region now and then.
As usual, the media are making a big fuss, giving us tornado survival advice now that the tornado is gone and after having given no warning.
I like Tigard Mayor Craig Dirksen. He's a nice guy, and he has the best of intentions. I often find myself defending him when people suggest he's too soft. For once though I must issue a minor rebuke. In his state of the city address, Craig says he has really only good news to tell you.
Then there's this story.
And while we're discussing transportation financing, Sam has a plan for Portland.
I'll have more to say about this later. For now, folks, I've got to run.
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Sunday, January 6, 2008
Review: The Lure of Japan's Railways
Labels: Book Reviews, Photography, Railroads, Transportation, Used Books
The Lure of Japan's Railways
By Naotaka Hirota. Japan Times, 5-4, Shibaura 4-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 108-8071, Japan; http://www.japantimes.co.jp/; 11.3 x 8.4 in; hardbound; 168 pages, 8 color and 108 b/w photos, 2 diagrams, 1 map; $25-$40 used.
New books come out by the boatload these days, but how many of them are truly memorable? Now and then a gem shows up, but most of them are pretty stock stuff. Old books, though, can be a wealth of material, and that is one of many reasons for the success of Portland's Powell's Books. Among its exhaustive collection, a remarkable book came my way, Naotaka Hirota's The Lure of Japanese Railways, a masterpiece that is more than just a railroad book, but rather a photographic window into another time and place: Japan, circa 1969.
Following a brief introduction by the photographer, the book is divided into four sections; a short series of color plates, a vast number of black-and-white plates, a technical appendix on the status of Japan's railways, and a section of captions. Most images are either double truck or full page, grouped by titled themes, and are accompanied by only a small plate number for a caption. Stylistically the photos take center stage, with the text playing a minimal and highly supportive role: this is a true photographer's monograph and nothing else.
Hirota is a contemporary of American railway photographers like Richard Steinheimer. His work has been noted occasionally in U.S. publications, including 2003's Starlight on the Rails. Hirota lives up to his contemporaries well; his images display a thoughtful creativity and a playful composition that raises the book's subject matter to a far higher level than most railroad books achieve. Hirota has a keen photojournalist's eye and virtuosity, and is as adept with human interest subjects as with abstracts, motion-heavy images, and scenic landscapes. There is excellence here.
The subject matter itself is extraordinary, a time capsule of a "modern" 20th century Japan. Teakettle steam engines take diminutive passenger trains to rural stations; massive steam locomotives assault snow-laden lines; sleek white bullet-nosed Shinkansens speed at aircraft-like velocities past iconic Mount Fuji. Hirota doesn't miss the context either, and in some cases puts the context right up front where it can't be ignored. Plate six, for example, places a field of yellow flowers in soft focus for over 80% of the frame; it's only at the very top that you see the white-and-blue Shinkansen streaking by in a blur. The bold imagery is a delight to behold. In a somewhat less provocative example, Hirota places workers and commuters in the forefront of images throughout the last half of the work.
The Lure of Japan's Railways doesn't come without flaws. Many images are printed double-truck, which in a book this size is sometimes awkward; the center of plate 31's speeding Shinkansens gets lost in the fold, robbing the image of much of its impact. Overall reproduction is excellent, although I wish that the black-and-white images were printed on the same gloss stock paper as the color images up front. The book originally came with a dust jacket, but some examples I've seen at booksellers have long since shod theirs.
In the end, The Lure of Japan's Railways is more than just a railroad book, or even a railroad photo book. It is an excellent work that stands as a remarkable touchstone of 20th century photojournalism. Anyone with an interest in photojournalism would do well to have the book, and it would be welcome as well to those with an interest in industrial photography, railroads, or the culture of Japan.
The Lure of Japan's Railroads is occasionally available from Powells and Amazon, and usually trades between $25 and $40 for a good to excellent copy.
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Saturday, January 5, 2008
Review: Highway: America's Endless Dream
Labels: Book Reviews, Photography, Transportation, Used Books
Highway: America's Endless Dream
Photography by Jeff Brouws, text by Bernd Polster and Phil Patton. Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 115 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10011; http://www.hnabooks.com/category/home/88; 10.8 x 9.8 in; softcover; 160 pages, 100 color and 37 b/w photos; $29.95
The open road is one of the central myths of 20th century United States. What makes it so alluring? Perhaps its not that hard to imagine, and not really all that American: was not Chaucer's Canterbury Tales a road-trip story? Jeff Brouws is probably more well known recently for helping produce two books of excellent railroad images, the critically acclaimed Starlight on the Rails, and the Richard Steinheimer retrospective A Passion for Trains. But Jeff is a photographer in his own right, and has a fascination for road culture that comes shining through in Highway: America's Endless Dream.
Highway is for the most part divided into six sections: an introduction, and three sections of photographs divided by two essays. Most of Brouws' photos are shown full page, though there are a few pages that show two images per page at 1/4 page size, side-by-side. Additionally there are occasional pages of blank space, on which are centered quotes from notable individuals such as politicians, writers, and artists.
The book is a bit of an odd hybrid. At first glance it seems like it's a photographer's monograph. The presence of two lengthy essays written by authors other than the photographer, however, coupled with some odd inserted sections (such as a list of highway related literature, and another for road movies) makes it feel a bit more coffee-tableish. Not quite a in-depth history, not quite a shallow coffee table book, not quite a monograph; this split personality never stopped bugging me.
The photos, however, more than save it. Though not my first exposure to Brouws' photography, it is my first book acquisition that focuses purely on his images. For a lover of Rust Belt America such as myself, his color plates are mesmerizing. From portraits of people and buildings to detail heavy images that border on abstract or Warholian pop-art, most of the images are depeopled, as if desolation is a synonym for the highway. And perhaps it is. Many of his images are striking compositions that rival any black-and-white mastery; few are the times I see color photography that feels this good.
The text is not as much of a match. The essays seem at times well researched, and yet elementary errors are made. For example, in the introduction, Bernd Polster calls Route 66 -- finished in the 1930s -- the "first road to traverse the continent", totally ignoring the Lincoln Highway of fully twenty years prior. Phil Patton writes the first essay of the book, on the cultural story of the American highway; although an interesting topic the text has a jarring, uneven style, and as long as it is it would have felt better at the beginning of the book as an introductory text. The second essay is penned by Polster, and feels slightly duplicative of Patton's work. Polster, however, dwells a great deal on Route 66, to the point of feeling like overstatement; for an essay that concentrates more on historical narrative, it's hard to forgive such hyperbole.
Highway came out as a $30 book and feels like one. The thick softcover is given a good hand feel through the use of nearly full-width fold-back flaps. Paper stock is thick, and image reproduction is vivid, crisp, and clear, without being super-high gloss. Complimenting the rough-and-tumble images is a display font that has an edgy, gritty feel to it. It's a durable, pretty book you're not afraid to pick up and flip through, which combined with its excellent content makes it a better coffee table book than most true coffee table books will ever be.
The book is over ten years old now, having been published in 1997. Nevertheless, it remains a visually stimulating book, and a welcome addition to anyone who is interested in photography, pop culture, or the American highway. My slightly thumbed-through copy came used from Powell's for $25; pristine copies seem to trade for about $50 these days.
Highway is available from Amazon, as well as from Powell's Books on occasion.
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Friday, January 4, 2008
Week in Review, Vol. IV
It's been long enough since my last Week-in-Review that maybe I should call this a "Three Weeks in Review". In that time, I managed to pick up some new (to me) books, so there should be some book reviews in the near future. Stay tuned. Labels: Automobiles, Blogging, Photography, Portland, Portland History, Railroads
Today's windy weather had some interesting effects. Check out this slideshow of trucks blown over on I-84 in eastern Oregon. All I can say is, wow.
Last time I mentioned the continuing plight of the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation. Over the course of my break, the Trib put up a story.
Here is a wonderful online photo gallery of the now gone Penn Station in New York City. Hat tip to Kelly Lynch for that.
Aaron Hockley points us to For Portlanders Only, a hilarious page of images & video about what makes Portland unique. I have to say that Les Scwhab's free beef campaign and Bob the Weather Cat scared some of my non-Oregonian friends. More amusing to me is the anti-tourism campaign:"Tom McCall, ex-governor of the great state of Oregon, cordially invites you to visit Idaho, Washington, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, California, Hawaii, or Afghanistan."
If nothing else explains the Oregon psyche, that does.
Though I suspect top honors for oddest-true-story is this coverage of the one-year anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens. All I can say is, wow.
I've added two blogs to the blogroll on the left.
The first is the Portland history based site Stumptown Confidential. If your a history nut you should enjoy the image laden posty goodness there.
The second is Blair Kooistra's Under the Weather. Blair's blog has a bit of railfan photography, but it is much more than that and is quite well rounded. Fans of BoJack will probably like his non-railfan content.
Speaking of blogs, many of my fellow photographers seem to be getting active in the Blogosphere all the sudden. Scott Lothes has a new post, now brought to you from North America. Scott, here's hoping you have the time and inclination to keep this up. Meanwhile, Martin Burwash is trying his hand at photoblogging too; check out his homage to the railroad and Little Bighorn here.
The paper in Mac has a video story on the return of their galloping goose. (Warning, it took a while to load even on DSL. Slow connection...?) Good luck to them, but I kind of doubt that a stuffed-and-mounted, obscure piece of rail history is going to draw people off the highway to tour Willamina.
It is nice to see a piece of local history come home, however. It's by far preferable to the shotgun-approach many museums have towards old equipment. You know, the "get anything old while you can" approach that lacks any semblance of context.
On a marginally related note, I don't think I've ever seen a newspaper website before that has a department titled "Who's In Jail".
Lastly, Autoblog brings us this story about Steve McQueen's review of eight sports cars in 1966. As a friend of mine says, "all kinds of awesome".
'till next time.
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