A lively essay in cultural geography that delves into the question of how tourist attractions are invented and sold. There’s something about the phenomenon of “rubbernecking,” scorned by literary travel writers, that appeals to art critic Lippard (The Lure of the Local, 1997); rubbernecking, the evil opposite of sophisticated travel, “implies a willingness or desire on the part of the tourist to stretch, literally, past her own experience, to lean forward in anticipation, engagement, amazement, or horror.” Amazement and horror are key words, for, Lippard continues, domestic tourists like nothing quite so much as to visit the sites of massacres or bloody battles, to say nothing of strip mines, Wild West cemeteries, alligator farms, and other monuments to violence and mayhem. They come to the west, Lippard writes with inspired overstatement, “looking for places destroyed by shifting economies: Indian ruins, ghost towns, abandoned farms, deserted mines, and nineteenth-century spaces frozen in the governmentally managed wildernesses”; they go (or went, before the cleanup) to New York to gawk at the city’s bad seed in Times Square; they go to popular museums across the land to take in weird dioramas and improbable interpretations of history. Lippard gets a little scattershot at times, spending much of her narrative on performance and plastic art that few domestic tourists would ever care to see; but she has a fine, irreverent style and an eye for the bizarre, complemented by dozens of well-chosen photographs to back her points. Above all, she has fun with her subject, as when she writes of an Armageddon theme park now under construction outside Tel Aviv and slated to be finished in 2000. The park, she says, “is aimed at fundamentalist Christians who believe Christ will arrive for his second coming in the year 2007—a lot of work for a park that will last only seven years.” Lippard’s leisurely stroll through some of the wackier venues of our day makes for enjoyable reading.
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-56584-454-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Like Sly and the Family Stone “taking ‘them’ higher” here, the authors likewise reach for the sky.
A homemade brew of whimsical rhymes and personal photos from the historic hippie event that Levine attended as the still photographer for the Academy Award-winning documentary Woodstock.
This is an incredible all-access pass to the music and art fair that came to be known solely as Woodstock. With “you are there” photos, from aerial views of endless bodies sardine-packed like a Spencer Tunick happening, to close-ups of Hendrix, to an exquisite shot of Arlo Guthrie’s shoes reflected in a puddle of water above the caption, “Rain and a wet stage were a constant factor but didn’t stop Arlo from performing,” the authors have created an intimate time capsule with this book. The details and tidbits are highly specific (“The Woodstock security were called ‘Polites,’ not Police,” while another page features a then-pregnant Joan Baez and Ravi Shankar chatting backstage accompanied by a caption that explains that her husband was in jail for draft resistance), allowing for the festival to be framed inside its all-important, Vietnam-era context. Because Woodstock is told through a collage of photos, song lyrics and rhyming text, it also has a homespun scrapbook vibe, which feels right for recounting a personal communal experience. For example, one page reads, “Richie Havens launched the great show / ‘fore other performers were ready to go / Holding the crowd for nearly three hours / ‘til ‘Motherless Child’ rang out from the towers” in bold type next to a shot of Havens on guitar. Smaller print explains, “Because the other acts hadn’t arrived, Richie Havens was asked to open the show. His performance set the tone for all that followed.” Even if readers are not familiar with Havens or his music, the vivid picture of this artist drawn through word and image is nonetheless mesmerizing. From The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia smiling behind a “For Rent” sign, to towheaded toddlers playing naked around a drum set during a break, the peace and love essence of Woodstock rings out loud and clear.
Like Sly and the Family Stone “taking ‘them’ higher” here, the authors likewise reach for the sky.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4392-2261-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Selections from Kramer's superb ``Letter from Europe'' series in the New Yorker—challenging, informative models of intellectual journalism for the general reader—have been collected in several books (Europeans, 1988, etc.). This single-article reprint launches Public Planet Books, a series edited by Kramer, Dilip Gaonkar (Rhetoric/Univ. of Illinois), and Michael Warner (English/Rutgers) that aims to ``combine reportage and critical reflection on unfolding issues and events.'' This short volume is Kramer's account of the furor provoked by white artist John Ahearn's sculptures of residents of the South Bronx—one of New York City's urban ruins. Kramer's article (originally published in the New Yorker), which prompted charges of racism and stereotyping, touches on the hyper-charged subjects of multiculturalism and political correctness. The author addresses these questions with her customary sensitivity to nuance and the human dimensions of social issues. Rutgers University dean Catharine R. Stimpson (Where the Meanings Are: Feminism and Cultural Spaces, not reviewed) provides an introduction that, while not as elegantly written as Kramer's text, usefully puts the debate into historical context.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8223-1535-1
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Duke Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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