An answer to prayers.

We finally get new video cards! No more fried X1900′s! No more using your default NVIDIA 7300GT because you don’t want to spend $350 on a faulty replacement graphics card! Just good ol’ fashion muscle and power.

I’ve already ordered mine:

and I’ll be sure to let you know if there are any issues when it arrives, but so far I’m feeling pretty hopeful.

A few weeks ago my good pals, Maudlin, played a show for the non-profit “Rock The Cause” in the Twin Cities (specifically, the Suburban World Theather. The show was awesome, the NPO is awesome, and all the bands and people involved were terrificly fun. The after party was great as well, meeting many interesting people.

Photos.

I am not normally a fan of celebrity portraits, and perhaps less so in Richard Avedon‘s case. I find his celebrity work to be somewhat gimmicky, and not typically interesting to me, however, I recently was at Barnes and Noble and took a look at “Avedon At Work: In The American West” and was very impressed by the photography (although not really by the book itself, which was really about the process, not the photos, besides the book being too expensive for what it was). This made me somewhat upset that all the normal Avedon work they had there was (primarily) his celebrity work, which, while bound and presented in a very interesting way, was not impressive to me visually.

Thus, when Avedon’s book “In The American West“ popped up on Amazon for me, I was quite happy, and since I needed the extra purchase for free shipping anyway, I snatched it up. When it arrived, I was thrilled. The book is large (as large as Schoeller’s “Close Up”, which is also an excellent book of portraits, not to mention a $1,000 collectible) but is also covered in a plastic sleeve to protect it even further, which is a welcome addition to such a gorgeous book. The cover has a great feel to it, and the pages are all a good weight and clarity. The photos are large, but not so large that you can’t take it all while holding the book at arms length. They are detailed, highly personal, and extremely complex and subtle. They are what good portraits are. In the beginning and end of the book, it has a few pages of text talking about the overall project, and some specific people, however it keeps it separate from the images, which I find to be better, since you can then simply go through the images and view them as they are, without any other context or distraction. The only accompanying text for each photo is a brief caption including name, date taken, and occupation or title (Drifter, Oil Field Worker, etc.). While often they are predictable, there are a few captions that truly add a new depth to the image they are attached to.

My only complaint in the book is minor, and takes only a few pages away from the book. There is, included in the rest, a small section of photos of butchered animal heads. They are grotesque, shocking, and not at all cohesive with the other material. And for those with stomaches that upset easily, they will come about very rudely and unexpectedly. One of the most compelling aspects of the book is the way in which it takes common people from America’s west, and gives them a sort of uncanny dignity. They are photographed by a man who made his career shooting the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. He does not glorify the people he shoots, but he presents them with a sort of rugged strength that goes beyond the security of wealth or fame. Best yet, the photos are subtle. The intention, story, and character of the subjects are not spelled out, but rather kept on the border of abstraction, with plenty of room for the viewer to read their own story into them. But then, mixed in, there are these 4-5 photos of animal carcasses. They are gory, impersonal, and seem to be shocking for the sake of shock. They are the few images that posses none of the dignity or strength that is so pervasive throughout all the remaining 100-some images. Personally, they are the few that I think should have been left out to keep the subject matter focused.

That one reservation aside, overall this is a great book. It is unusual to find such high quality, large printed books for a great price like this, and so if you’re considering, you should not pass this up.