I put this on in the car and Susan right away said, “This doesn’t sound like your style.” Which unsettled me a bit because I didn’t know I had “a style”. I must investigate this. (When pressed she couldn’t really explain what she thought “my style” was.)

Anyway, I really like this album.

I’m sad to have to return this book to the library tomorrow because I can’t stop going back to it even after two full reads. Having known nothing previously of the early 20th century French photographer Eugene Atget I now find myself slightly obsessed with this collection of 100 plates, all superbly informed by John Szarkowski.

It’s not that the photographs are beautiful, or perfectly exposed, or technically marvelous. In fact, I think it’s Szarkowski’s writing about Atget’s photos that is the real treasure of this book. Without his context, I wouldn’t really be able to see the photos.

For instance, near the end of the book there is a photo of a department store window. At this late point in Atget’s career as a commercial photographer he seemed more interested in creating artful representations of his world rather than straight-forward photos he could later sell. It’s really one of the most beautiful photos in the book. There are four female mannequins posed in a variety of coats and frocks. On the window there is the dark refection of the Gobelins factories across the street. Szarkowski explains that Atget was likely offended in a Old World way by the department store display and then postulates that “it is wrong and self-defeating to photograph badly the subjects of which one disapproves. In fact, for a photographer as serious as Atget, it might be necessary to photograph a subject as well as he can before he knows what he thinks of it.” That is simply brilliant. More books by John Szarkowski will added post haste to my reading list.

This movie seemed like an extended cops ‘n lawyers TV show, and it brought nothing new to the drama of race relations in L.A. How could this have been the best picture of 2005?

My three-year-old loves this one. I think it’s pretty fun, too.

I’m a fan of Bowie’s music, but I tuned out when he flirted with industrial in the 90’s. It wasn’t until Heathen appeared in 2002 that I started to pay attention again. I totally missed Outside when it came out in 1995, and after listening to it today for the first time I feel OK about that. This concept album, ostensibly about the murder of a teenage girl, is pretty boring. It’s “industrial light” meets “Jack the Ripper” with a dash of Kurt Weill thrown in.

However, the spoken word track “Segue-Algeria Touchshriek” does refer to the “World Wide Internet” which is pretty cool considering it was recorded in mid-1995. Points for Bowie for being a cutting-edge geek.

The photos contained in this book are simply amazing. Unbeatable natural light, an 8×10 camera, and Shore’s masterful sense of composition, timing, and subject come together to make the ordinary extraordinary. This book of photos makes me want to take off on a photography road trip.

The Struth pictures I like most are the empty urban street scenes. Maybe they’re cliche now but I still like them. There’s just something mysterious about an empty street. It makes you ask questions. Where are the people? What time is it? What are those cars parked there for?

Apparently, Struth’s museum pictures are what he’s most famous for. These photos are huge, something like 6×9 feet or so. There’s a clever “meta” quality to them, but they aren’t terribly interesting when presented in a book. It’s rather like looking at thumbnail images. I’d like to see the full size prints.

Speaking of full size prints, one of Struth’s contemporaries, Candida Höfer, has an exhibition at the Frye Art Museum here in Seattle. I think I must go.

While the solutions offered were less fascinating than the causes, this book offers an interesting brew of ideas regarding why we worry about what others think of us. I think what Alain de Botton is getting at here is that, while status anxiety is a natural product of several centuries of social, political, philosophical, and psychological evolution in the western world, by exposing oneself to novel ideas, great works of art, some history of political thought, a dose of religious teaching, and perhaps a walk on the wild side, one stands a better chance of rising above such pettiness and living a more healthy and satisfying life. To which I whole-heartedly agree.

I finally started this book last night and had a hard time putting it down. I love how he draws the connection between the modern world’s obsession with status and the history of western civilization. He’s very succinct when it comes to the causes of status anxiety: the increasingly popular notion of equality among men in the 18th century followed by the overthrow of the aristocracy, the expectations of self one gets from living in a meritocracy, the moral weight that comes with having either high or low status, and the dependence on intangibles such as talent and luck.

There’s a lot in this book that I had a vague notion of but could never articulate. It’s almost like a self-help book for people who dislike self-help books (like me). I’m ready to read his “solutions” now.

It’s like Philip Glass meets Michael Nyman in a French disco. I can dig it.