I have asked myself over and over why I love the photos of Zoe Strauss (who I first learned about from this show at Open Satellite when it was under the leadership of the hyper-intelligent and capable Abigail Guay, who now works at the Henry).
Most of her photos seem haphazard at first, but their mesmerizing quality may have something to do with Strauss’s sad, weary, wry honesty. She is a Weegee—not of 20th-century American news, but of the 21st-century American soul. Or maybe she is a Weegee in the Ezra Pound sense of art being “news that stays news.” (Weegee got that nickname, by the way, after “ouija,” for his seeming prescience for being at the scene of an accident, crime, or disaster almost immediately after it happened.)
The photo shares a spiritual harmonic with this song (and its video) from Neko Case: “Thrice All American (Tacoma).”
And with the mood behind this story, also about Tacoma, and building luxury condos on a toxic-waste site.
For more Strauss, see here.
COMMODIFY POOR WHITE PEEPS, I LIKES IT, I DON’T MIND.
JUS LIK WATCHIN CMT!!!!!!! LUV CMT!!!! DID U MEAN LEVI-STRAUSS? HE DED. HIS CONCEPTS DIED LIKE 30 YRS AGO THO. STUPID STRUCTURE, WHITE KITTY HAD TO KICK IT DOWN. BUMMMR TAKOMA HAD SIMILR LIFE, NUT MY FAULT. BUT YA, THAT COMMODITY, IZ NICE. CAN BUY LIVING ONE? MEAT IZ FRESHER!
Wow. That comment is about as confusing as your post.
What, exactly, does that photo have to do with Tacoma? Or, is this just an attempt to get more hits to an old article you wrote?
Oh, Lord. I’m from Tacoma. And I never tell people that, for good reason.