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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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, July 10, 2008
Review: Here There Nowhere
Labels: Art, Book Reviews, Books, New Books
Here There Nowhere
Paintings by Michael Brophy with essays by Jonathan Raban and William L. Lang. OSU Press, 121 The Valley Library, Corvallis, OR 97331-4501; http://oregonstate.edu/dept/press; 12.0 x 12.0 x 0.25 in; paperbound; 60 pages, 20 color images; $25.00
The landscape of the Pacific Northwest is an ever-changing one, and so it should be no surprise that artistic views on that landscape have also changed radically over time. By the close of the last century, Oregon, once labelled the "Pacific Wonderland" on the state's automobile license plates, had become a battlefield of ideas and ideals. Portland artist Michael Brophy has been trying to capture that essence of division and change over his career as a painter, with his most recent expression taking place in a series of large canvases all painted in 2007. Brophy calls this series Here There Nowhere, and it is the subject of a recent book by the same name produced by Oregon State University Press.
The beginning of the book form of Here There Nowhere is heralded with an essay about the history of landscape painting in the Pacific Northwest, written by Jonathan Raban. The essay, titled Battleground of the Eye, may seem familiar to readers; it was adapted from the introduction Raban wrote for 2001's The Pacific Northwest Landscape: A Painted History, printed by Sasquatch Books. Although this is not new material, it helps to ground the painting series into the wider context of the artistic representation of the landscape of the Pacific Northwest. The only error I noted was that the Northern Pacific that entered Tacoma in 1883 was not the creation of the legendary James J. Hill, but of industrialist Henry Villard; a minor esoteric quibble perhaps, but it would not have taken much to fact check the essay one more time.
Following Raban's essay come the paintings themselves. Brophy delivers us images on a heroic scale, reminiscent of revolutionary art from South America or Russia during the last century. These are grand canvases with grand ideas. And yet, the content chosen to express those ideas is inherently anti-heroic, mundane, dull. Brophy likes repeating patterns and vast expanses of subtleties over the boldness of an up-front statement. It doesn't look like he's trying to be pretty. Darkened fields, broad skies, blank cliff faces; they are all empty landscapes, and rarely is a human figure seen. 
Michael Brophy, Crack of Dawn. 2007, oil on canvas, 74 by 80 inches.
Image courtesy Laura Russo Gallery.
It is perhaps the night images that stand out the most. Night Truck and Meadow both are evocative. The strongest of these is perhaps Crack of Dawn, a canvas with a deep wet cloud cover and a thin strip of dawn that any local will immediately recognize as the aggregate of countless mornings. Here we see how subtlety and muted color choices are key to understanding Brophy's take on the landscape. Not all the night images work in the book, however: Full Dark is a study in subtleties that sadly does not translate well to print at all.
There is also an odd disjointed feel to the series. Some of the images have a dark, painterly, brooding approach, like Blowdown or Aftermath; the palette of the former reminds me of something from Carl Hall. On the flipside are strong traditionalist images such as Ruin, which feels sentimental in nature, or Day, with a painterly realism of something very tangible, in this case the rear of a semi-tractor driving some two-lane road to nowhere in the vast inland Pacific Northwest. 
Michael Brophy, Ruin. 2007, oil on canvas, 74 by 80 inches.
Image courtesy Laura Russo Gallery.
If anything rescues the disjointedness, it is a common theme of nearly cinematic ideas; every time I flip through the images of the series I start feeling like I am looking at a storyboard for a movie about life in the forgotten flyover corners of the much over-hyped PNW paradise. What is amazing is that Brophy offers us a social commentary, a critique even, of how we view the world, and yet he does not choose the traditional route of painting scarred industrial landscapes or denuded forests or the like. Instead, he simply shows us that this is how we usually view the world, through mundane eyes that see only the same boring monotony. In a way, his critique runs deeper than the typical environmental or social commentary, pointing that the problem isn't the clear-cut or the junk-pile, but instead it is our viewpoint. It is internal, it is within us.
Reproduction and presentation get fair marks. Brophy's paintings are all very large works, standing at 74 by 80 inches. To stand before one is to be dwarfed, even for a tall person, and any attempt to depict this series with any justice on paper must be admired for audacity if nothing else. I don't quite think that the publisher managed to pull this off; one square foot just can't give you the sense of scale that standing before the real thing can. Further, I feel that some of the subtlety of the originals has been lost in the reproduction.
Following the images comes an essay by William L. Lang. Lang brings us back to the subject rather than the medium, concentrating not on Brophy's paintings so much as on the story they are a part of. He ably discusses the relationship of humanity to the land of the region, with occasional examples pulled from Brophy's work. Although a short and interesting read, I feel that Lang's comments are in some ways duplicative of Raban's text, while at the same time weaker and not relying enough on how an artist such as Brophy sees this world. What I wish had been included was a short piece by the artist himself, but such is not included in the book.
Overall, Here There Nowhere is a slim but important volume that highlights how landscape painting in the Pacific Northwest is evolving. For artists or students of art in the region, it would make a valuable addition to the bookshelf.
Here There Everywhere is available from Powell's or Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher. Thanks to Laura Russo Gallery for supplying images and other assistance with this review.
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Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Week in Review... in review.
Since December, I've pumped out 11 weeks of Week In Review, but I just don't think I can put out a 12th. Labels: Blogging, Book Reviews, Food, Site News, Week in Review
I've learned a few things. First off, it's still too blog-centric. When I began The Addendum it was meant to be just that, an addendum for things that didn't have place in the regular route99west web site, but which were still begging for an outlet. Casual efforts, off-topic items, rants and raves, and the like. WIR was an attempt to introduce some regularity to the mix.
I have discovered I don't like regularity.
Once you start going down the "true" blog road, it becomes a kind of obligation. "What will I write about now?" That kind of thing. It can quickly become a contest to see who can write about something soonest, and with as many blogs as there are our there, why bother? You'll never be first.
Nor will you be original. The vast majority of blogs -- including my own WIR posts -- are basically responses to the work of others, most often the old media. It's all too much a mix of incestuousness and parasitic journalism.
Not everyone is like this though. More recently, I have been inspired by KAB's Good Stuff NW (who recently celebrated her 400th post by-the-way, congratulations!) to do some food writing. This is a topic I've wanted to get into for some time, but I just never quite got an idea of where I could begin.
Now, however, I do: the plight of the bachelor chef. I'm working on a few original content posts (wow, what a novel idea on the Blogosphere!) including solutions from the gourmet (cook it yourself in under 30 minutes with no canned, frozen, or packaged ingredients) to the not-so-gourmet (cup-o-noodles reviews, anyone?). And more importantly, I'm having fun writing them!
Now this is what the Addendum was for.
So, changes are coming to the blog. No more WIR. Instead? Less frequent but more original content, and maybe even a bit of firsthand journalism. One feature that's not going away are the book reviews, probably one of the more enjoyable features I write for The Addendum. In fact, I may have some news about those in the near future. And I'll still have thoughts and observations about journalism, local current events, government, and transportation topics too when appropriate.
But right now, can I just say, I can't wait until strawberry season?
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Thursday, January 31, 2008
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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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 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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Saturday, November 3, 2007
Review: Street Smart
Labels: Book Reviews, New Books, Portland, Public Policy, Transportation
Street Smart: Streetcars and Cities in the Twenty-First Century
Edited by Gloria Ohland and Shelley Poticha. Reconnecting America, 436 14th St., Suite 1005, Oakland, CA 94612; www.reconnectingamerica.org; 10 x 11.8 in; trade paperback; 92 pages, 82 color and 8 b/w photos, 19 illustrations, 3 maps; $25.00
In today's American public transit scene, the word "streetcar" likely holds more cache than any other. Numerous heritage and modern streetcar lines have been opened in the past decade, and with an increased appreciation of the concept on the part of the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) of late, there are new proposals across the country. In Street Smart the editors attempt to address and explain this streetcar boom.
Although the book focuses on recent streetcar systems, it attempts to provide more than simply an overview of equipment and routes. Instead, the editors focus on providing the wider context, not only of how we got here, but of what streetcar systems do, and where they might take us in the future. The format is an anthology, consisting of articles and essays by professionals within the field, from planners to developers to streetcar operators. The book is divided into eight parts, including an introductory section, followed by sections on the history of streetcars, planning, financing, a set of our case studies, economic development, technical design, and a technical appendix.
The content of Street Smart is somewhat uneven, due to its anthology format. As an example, the definition of what a streetcar is: one author draws a sharp line between streetcars and their light-rail brethren, while another lumps light-rail forerunners like Pacific Electric with streetcars. In another place, one author describes streetcars as modern and relevant to today's transportation needs, and not "quaint" parts of a "by-gone era". Yet the editors chose to include an essay on why conservatives ought to support streetcars that calls on the imagery of Gilded Age America, with all its Queen Anne gingerbread glory, and a return to simpler times.
The tone of the work is consistently upbeat, but this is to be expected from a book produced by an organization that is promoting the mode. Indeed this is less a book for the general public than a kind of textbook for transportation planners and city-builders. To achieve this, there is a significant focus on the Portland Streetcar, which is front-and-center in most of the articles. This is relieved somewhat by Chapter 5, with its four (non-Pacific Northwest) case studies. Afterwards, however, we delve into economic development, which is almost 100% Portland again. While interesting, especially for outsiders, I'm left wondering if the editors couldn't find examples of significant streetcar-driven development in other cities that could have been equally highlighted. The rest of the book is almost entirely technical minutiae. I can't help but feel that this is an odd way to end the anthology; the book would benefit from a concluding chapter which might include a glance into the future of streetcar technology and ideas, as well as summarize the editors' vision.
The book is lavishly supported with photos and other images. Some of these are quite spectacular, especially the many images of the San Francisco Muni's historic F-Line streetcars, one of which adorns the cover. Just looking at them makes you want to jump on board. The graphic design is quite slick, and the book is printed on a heavy stock in four-color process, making it feel luxurious to hold. Reproduction, however, is uneven, with at least two images displaying some major rasterization, and a handful being slightly on the soft side.
But let's not nitpick. Street Smart is an excellent, perhaps unprecedented book. Although slightly rosy-toned, the book is a wealth of information, and an sure primer for anyone wanting to know more about streetcar systems from a functional standpoint. It's worth buying for anyone with an interest -- professional or otherwise -- in land use, transportation, public transit, or economic development.
Street Smart is available from Powell's Books as well as directly from the publisher.
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Monday, October 29, 2007
Update: The Night Journal
I previously reviewed The Night Journal both for TRAINS Magazine as well as Amazon about a year ago. Digging through the author's website, I discovered it is now available in paperback. Labels: Book Reviews, Books, Railroads
Get it here from Powell's, or here from Amazon.
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Monday, November 6, 2006
Review: Logging Railroads of Weyerhaeuser's Vail-McDonald Operation
Labels: Book Reviews, History, New Books, Railroads, Transportation
Logging Railroads of Weyerhaeuser's Vail-McDonald Operation
By Frank W. Telewski & Scott D. Barrett. Oso Publishing Company, P.O. Box 1249, Hamilton, MT 59840; www.osorail.com; 9 x 11.5 in; hardcover; 354 pages, 371 b/w photos, 10 illustrations, 65 maps; $49.95
Logging railroads seem like a thing of the distant past. Mention them to someone and most won't even know what you are talking about, but the few who do will probably conjure up images of teakettle steam engines hauling Paul Bunyan sized logs down tracks in some range of mountains that might have come off of a backdrop for the TV show Bonanza. Few realize that logging railroads survived well past the Second World War, or in the case of Washington State, even until today.
One of the last and biggest log roads in Washington State was Weyerhaueser's Chehalis Western. Having taken over the Milwaukee Road's branches south of Tacoma in 1980, this line ran large log trains from Chehalis to the port of Tacoma -- behind the last GP38-2's built by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division -- until 1992. With the publication of the lengthily titled Logging Railroads of Weyerhaeuser's Vail-McDonald Operation, there is finally a work that tells the story of this line, and its adjacent feeders, the Vail branch, and the Curtis Milburn & Eastern, starting in 1924 and running through to 1995.
This book is printed in a large hardback format identical to many college textbooks, and indeed it carries a feel of a textbook history inside as well. Reproduction of the numerous black-and-white photos is top notch, and many maps are also included. The work is organized into thirteen chapters and includes numerous technical appendices, which reflects its highly specialized subject matter.
The content overall is solid. One could wish for a more up-to-date final chapter from a book so freshly published, but as well researched and lavishly illustrated as the book is, this hardly is a critical flaw. Today, what remains of the line is primarily operated by Tacoma Rail, and plays host to tourist railroads Mount Rainier Scenic, and Chehalis-Centralia, and this book has become a must have for many of their employees. Fans of the Chehalis Western, the Milwaukee Road, or today's shortlines south of Puget Sound would also enjoy this book.
Logging Railroads of Weyerhaeuser's Vail-McDonald Operation is available occasionally from Amazon as well as directly from the publisher.
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Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Review: The Night Journal
Labels: Book Reviews, Books, New Books, Railroads
The Night Journal: A Novel
By Elizabeth Crook. Viking/Penguin Group, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014; http://us.penguingroup.com/; 6.3 x 9.1 in; hardcover; 464 pages; $24.95
Few novels delve into the world of the railroad, and fewer still successfully; Elizabeth Crook has written not only a fine novel of the late 19th century railroad world, but a fine novel, period.
In the 1890s, Hannah Bass, a Harvey girl working a remote hotel in New Mexico meets, and then marries, a famous surveying engineer for the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, a man patterned after William Raymond Morley, the discoverer of Glorieta Pass. The political conflicts of pre-statehood New Mexico, the ever-expanding Santa Fe, and the disappearance of Hannah's husband all weave into a story in the present day, involving Hannah's granddaughter and her discovery of a legendary, long-missing journal written by Hannah.
With a well timed plot and interesting characters, the novel also contains one of the most gruesome and realistic potrayals of a steam-era train derailment. Crossing the genre border between mainstream historical fiction, mystery, and railroad literature, The Night Journal should be a pleasure to any reader of fiction.
The Night Journal is available from Powell's Books as well as from Amazon.com.
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Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Review: Leaders Count
Labels: Book Reviews, History, New Books, Railroads, Transportation
Leaders Count: The Story of the BNSF Railway
By Larry Kaufman. Texas A&M University Press, John H. Lindsey Building, Lewis Street, 4354 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-4354; http://www.tamu.edu/upress/; 9.1 x 6.1 in; trade paperback; 384 pages,; $14.95
Once upon a time, there were dozens of so-called "class one" railroads across the American continent, wielding massive political power and reshaping the nation. Today, most of those companies are gone, thanks to a corporate consolidation craze that began prior to World War One and continues today. In the 21st century American west, there are now only two major railroads: Union Pacific, and the BNSF Railway. Leaders Count is the "official" corporate history of BNSF, published under contract by them and distributed by Texas A&M University.
The book divides into roughly three sections. The first deals with the history of the BN heritage companies through the 19th and early 20th centuries. The second portion deals with regulation, the forces leading up to the BN merger, and the early BN period. The last segment covers the BNSF railway, from formation through to the present.
The book has a reputation of being a hard hitting self-examination of the company, it's successes, and it's mistakes. By-and-large, Kaufman does a decent job of telling the corporate history, but from the beginning there is an undercurrent of BNSF and its heritage roads being on the side of angels, and rival companies such as Union Pacific (UP) being less than stellar. While there is some truth to UP having a greater number of scandals in its past, BNSF's heritage companies were hardly innocent either, especially the Northern Pacific.
Minor factual errors in the book make me question how much primary source research Kaufman actually did. Another example of his lack of deep research is his knee-jerk acceptance of conventional wisdom, especially regarding the demise of the Milwaukee's Pacific Extension.
The segments dealing with regulation tend to be wonkish, but the segments regarding the creation of BNSF predecessor Burlington Northern are as good as anything I've seen in print on the subject yet. The newer portions of the book cover the creation of BNSF well, but tend to gloss over differences between BNSF previous leaders such as Rob Krebs and Gerald Grinstein. It's clear this is the sanitized version of BNSF, told from a board room perspective, and meant not to offend anyone still around.
Kaufman closes his epilogue with text about BNSF today, sounding much like a company press release. While there's a lot of value to his final analysis of the future, you can't help but feel that it's not an unbiased view, despite his claim in the preface that the company had never exerted the slightest influence on what he wrote.
Why was this book written? About half-way through, it occurred to me that the book in many was resembles a text-book; I wonder if the company uses it in their Management Training Program? Leaders Count is printed in trade-paperback form, the same rough dimensions most Bibles are published in. Indeed there are two versions: a plain cover versions issued in 2003 -- likely largely used internally by the company -- and a version sold to the public with a photo cover. One wonders if there is also a red letter edition.
Leaders Count is certainly not unbiased, nor does it live up to it's reputation as a truly critical self-examination of company policy and leadership issues. That said, the book is probably the most concise corporate history on BNSF and it's predecessors. For anyone who wants to have one, comprehensive history text on these companies, this is it, and with used BNSF issued copies in paperback for about $5 a pop, it's a steal. Just be prepared to read; this is no picture book and it's no pulp novel either.
Leaders Count is available from Amazon. and from Powell's Books.
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Wednesday, August 2, 2006
Review: The Men Who Loved Trains
Labels: Book Reviews, History, New Books, Public Policy, Railroads, Transportation
The Men Who Loved Trains: The Story of Men Who Battled Greed to Save an Ailing Industry
By Rush Loving Jr. Indiana University Press, 601 North Morton Street, Bloomington, IN 47404-3797; http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalog/; 9.3 x 6.2 in; hardbound; 360 pages; $27.95
Penn Central. To this day, the name of this corporation sends shudders through the world of finance. When it went bankrupt in June of 1970, it was the largest bankruptcy in United States history, and it held that title for the next thirty-one years. (It took the collapse of Enron in 2001 to supplant it). In The Men Who Loved Trains, journalist Rush loving tells the story of how Penn Central came into being, but even more importantly how a few men picked up the pieces afterward and pulled the railroad industry out of a tailspin that might have proved fatal.
Loving's work is essentially a journalistic book, rather than a scholarly one. It is written in a prose style and has an eminently readable pacing. Yet don't take this for being lightweight; that the author can weave such an unwieldy mess into a fast and cohesive narrative is a testament to his abilities as a writer. In ways, the book follows in the tradition of works such as Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff.
The story line follows the chronology of the demise of Penn Central, the struggle to pick up the pieces, and the creation, life, and eventual parting out of PC's successor, Conrail. Throughout the work we meet various key individuals; from the fiery Alfred Perlman to former CSX Transportation executive (and future Treasury Secretary) John Snow. Along the way, we come back again and again to John McClellan, tracking his career from entry level PC staffer through to planner for the Department of Transportation and eventually strategic advisory for Norfolk Southern. His career serves as a foil for the events of Conrail's life and death, humanizing a story of corporate battle and macro economics.
And what a story it is! Following the collapse of PC, many pundits were predicting doom for the entire railroad industry. The more optimistic felt that the Northeast lived behind a wall in which railroad transportation simply would never pencil out. Although a government takeover of PC would help keep the trains running, many in the private sector feared it as a dangerous first step towards nationalization. In the end, a select few fought an uphill battle for the creation first of passenger carrier Amtrak, and then of the freight railroad what would come to be known as Conrail.
Like Amtrak, Conrail has a belabored existence for much of its life. It inherited a property that was severely overextended and under-maintained. Only great gobs of public money could solve Conrail's problems, and even then there was no real guarantee it would turn the company around. Throughout its existence, philosophical and political opponents watched and salivated as they waited for the company to trip and fall.
As Loving tells, however, Conrail endured, returning to black ink, and eventually becoming a publicly traded, private sector corporation. Loving tells, too, of the irony that was the end of Conrail; the company became the subject of a bidding war between NS and CSXT, and was finally split between them in 1997, redrawing the Northeastern railroad map along lines that were eerily similar to what Al Perlman had wanted before he was forced into agreeing with the PC merger.
The book attempts to carry the story without bias, in the best journalistic fashion, and most of the time succeeds in doing so. There is, however, a distinct bias in favor of McClellan's employer, NS, and the between-the-lines feeling is that Loving and McClellan are friends. Still, Loving remains remarkable professional, remaining gentlemanly even when dealing with McClellan's arch-rival Snow.
Conrail was arguably the nation's most controversial modern railroad project. The Men Who Loved Trains tells an important tale of railroading, corporate intrigue, and a thousand might-have-beens that make it one of the hallmark railroad history books about the late 20th century, of importance not just to scholars of Northeastern and Midwestern railroad history, but to anyone with an interest in railroads, the politics of transportation, or public policy.
The Men Who Loved Trains is available from Amazon, Powell's, and directly from the publisher.
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Friday, July 1, 2005
Review: Westsider
Labels: Book Reviews, History, New Books, Portland History, Railroads, Transportation
Westsider: A Story of the Southern Pacific Portland Division Westside Line
By Dan Rehwalt. Grizzly Press, 76470 High Street, Oakridge, OR 97463; 5.25 x 8.25 in; trade paperback; 88 pages, 43 b/w photos, illustrations, and maps; $12.95
The trade paperback memoir is probably one of the most ubiquitous of books in small communities. A good percentage of retirees tend to think themselves ten-cent Hemingways, and thanks to cheap modern printing technology, they can realize their dream of being an author. Few of these books merit the attention of larger presses, but many of them prove to be solid if not brilliant reading. They are the literary equivalent of the stories told beside campfires, over cups of coffee with the boys, or with a few beers at the end of a long day. They are as common -- and as American -- as roadside diners. Dan Rehwalt has been publishing a number of these style of books in the last few years, telling the story of working for the Southern Pacific Railroad's Oregon Division in the '50s, '60s, and '70s.
Westisder, published in 2004, is my favorite among them. This fairly slim volume contains a series of short stories of Rehwalt's past on the railroad, this time focusing on the vast "Westside" branch network that SP ran in the Willamette Valley. Rehwalt writes a clean, straightforward prose in first person; his choice to confine this volume solely to his own stories and none from anyone else helps give the work a more intimate air. For railfans and Portland history buffs, the rarest gem is a chapter devoted to operating on the Jefferson Street line, presently the Willamette Shore Trolly line and one of the least documented of SP's feeders in the state.
The books has a format familiar to fans of this type of volume; lots of text supported by a few maps and photos reproduced to the best quality a photocopier can provide. But this is not a book you buy for photos, and while basic or even crude at times, the photos provide enough context for those unfamiliar with the territory being discussed. For the price, there can be no complaining; the real value is in the text.
As a book of railroad related stories, Westsider does have a limited audience. It should, however, find a welcome place on the shelf of any fan of Oregon railroad history as well as Portland historians. Additionally, most of the routes in the book are now operated by regional Portland & Western, and this book has become a must have for both students of operations these lines, as well as employees of the company.
Westsider is currently available from Karen's Books.
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Saturday, January 8, 2005
Review: A Passion for Trains
Labels: Art, Book Reviews, Books, New Books, Photography, Railroads
A Passion for Trains: The Railroad Photography of Richard Steinheimer
By Richard Steinheimer and Jeff Brouws. W. W. Norton, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110; http://www.wwnorton.com/; 12.1 x 10.9 in; hardcover; 192 pages, 160 duotone b/w photos; $65.00
"Stein" has long known to be the greatest American railroad photographer, and now Jeff Brouws has finally produced an artistic monograph which is worthy of Richard Steinheimer's long career. Filled with many never before published images, the book not only gives you a glimpse at Stein's amazing vision, but also at some of his early works and his failures, showing you the progress of the man's talent. Additionally, Brouws' erudite introduction provides an in-depth study of the man and his skills, and the long search for and development of them by Stein.
The text alone is an eye opener for anyone who would dare to follow in Dick's footsteps, and as such, the book is highly recommended to all railroad photographers who wish to elevate their work to an artistic achievement that is something more than inbred provincial documentarianism.
A Passion for Trains is available from Amazon.com.
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