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Title: God Bless Americana: A Retro Vacation Slide Show Tour of the USA by Charles Phoenix ISBN: 1-55868-644-4 Publisher: Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co. Pub. Date: May, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Funny and fascinating
Comment: This is the real deal. People's actual vacation photos of the America I wish was still out there to see on a road trip. The pix capture the genuine feel of the times without sentimentality or false nostalgia and Phoenix's commentary is a laugh-out-loud counterpart to the images. This is the best kind of affectionate satire. Hilarious, amazing stuff.
Rating: 5
Summary: Hey that's not fair
Comment: Obviously at other reviewer never took a car-trip vacation with his or her parents. I am a fan of Phoenix's work (So California in the '50s is his best), but I think I'm objective when I say this book captures a slice of Americana that many people would like to forget and the rest of us want to enjoy. It's funny and it's poignant at the same time. Don't be dissuaded by that other review. This is a book with charm.
Rating: 2
Summary: Not very snap happy?
Comment: Author Charles Phoenix, while in a thrift shop, came across a box of 35mm slides and he became hooked on collecting other peoples discarded transparencies. Unfortunately most of the 117 chosen for his book should have remained discarded. Loosely based on a trip around America, (mostly taken in the fifties) they can be divided into two types, the straightforward record of a tourist site with aunt Bessie (or whoever) posing and the personal photos of an individual or group. This second selection produces the weakest photos because you don't have a clue about why the scene was captured on film.
Amateur photos are precious and personal to those who took them but of marginal interest to anyone else and also these photos, for whatever reason, had been junked by someone. Making them large, one to a page, with the date and a few pithy words, surrounded by too much white space does not make a very interesting book. This really would have been an fascinating, I think, if there had been lots more, made smaller and perhaps laid out in a collage format with some road maps, tourist trinkets and other printed ephemera on the page plus a much more funnier commentary. Columnist James Lileks did it with 'The Gallery of Regrettable Food', a collection of ordinary food photos from fifties consumer ads and recipe books plus his own wry way with words produced a very funny book.
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Title: Southern California in the '50s: Sun, Fun and Fantasy by Charles Phoenix ISBN: 1883318491 Publisher: Angel City Pr Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Lost America: The Abandoned Roadside West by Troy Paiva, Stan Ridgway ISBN: 076031490X Publisher: Motorbooks International Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Going Home to the Fifties by Bill Yenne ISBN: 0867195657 Publisher: Last Gasp of San Francisco Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Readymades: American Roadside Artifacts by Jeff Brouws ISBN: 0811836770 Publisher: Chronicle Books Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Fabulous Las Vegas in the 50s: Glitz, Glamour & Games by Fred E. Basten, Charles Phoenix ISBN: 188331805X Publisher: Angel City Pr Pub. Date: October, 1999 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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