Puff Puff Puff

It's that time of year again. Christmas lights are out. A chill is in the air. And the annual photobook list parade has begun. Time Lightbox kicked things off last week with their Best Photobooks of 2015. Others have since joined the fray. As with last year's lists, Photolia is Tumblring a running compilation. I suggest bookmarking and a general gnashing of teeth.

The contents of the lists are generally entertaining, but not as interesting to me as the lists themselves. One noteworthy trend is that they begin a bit earlier with each iteration. Lightbox's first ever year-end list —way back in 2011— was released near, well, the end of the year: December 29th. In 2012 the date crept up slightly to December 24th, leapfrogging Christmas. By 2014, it had jumped all the way to Thanksgiving weekend, November 28th. This year the list came out before the turkey: November 25th.

Photo-Eye's timing follows suit. Their year-end lists have traditionally been released at the end of December. For example, 2013's list was published December 30th. But the shift is on. Last year the lists came out December 11th. I expect this year's to be released on or before that date. That's one small reason I won't be contributing to the Photo-Eye lists this year. That, and of course the accident at the plant.

At this rate the lists will soon compete with Halloween. It's a race up the calender, book lists vs. Christmas lights. Which will come earlier? Of course, as Joachim Schmid points out, choosing the year's best books with several weeks remaining in the year is problematic. "The year is not yet over," he writes, "and I very much hope more wonderful books may come out in the upcoming weeks. I may be wrong of course but I simply cannot compile a best-of list before the end of the year." I'm with him. My list will be coming out on December 31st. Which gives me another month to speculate about all these other lists. Who are they for? What do they accomplish? 

One possible motive for early lists is the commercial tie in. Early lists give folks a chance to plan Holiday purchases. Simple enough. 

Another possible cause is an imbalance in the calendar limits. While book lists must come out before January 1st, on the front end there is no such boundary. So any pressure to expand will push the dates forward. It's like the U.S. Presidential Primary schedule. With election day fixed, the only possible movement is forward, up the calendar. South Carolina leapfrogs Super Tuesday. Nevada leapfrogs South Carolina. And so on. Why would a state want to move their election earlier? For the same reason a booklist might come out earlier. To exert more influence and power. Those of us who vote in Oregon primaries and publish lists on December 31st have no power at all. But that's ok. Because we have the nation's best beer and pot. 

Decembers go down easy here. So do elections.

The trouble comes when the timing of the lists influence their contents. It's the tail wagging the dog. Anyone following Presidential primaries knows this phenomenon. The race isn't necessarily about which candidate is most suitable in a general election. It's about which candidate can win the GOP nod in Iowa and New Hampshire. Most would agree that to remain Republican in either state at this point means you're fucking Whacko. Whacko wags the dog. 

I'm not equating the photobook world to that lunacy. But I think to a certain extent the tail does wag the dog. The lists aren't so much about the books as the books are about the lists. To appear on the right set of year-end lists can make or break a book. It can be the difference between sold-out and remaindered. So you get publishers back-loading their publication schedules to get books in front of critics in November. You get Paris Photo timed to spark the flood of discussion. You get the flood of year-end booklists coming out shortly afterward. I can't really blame any of the actors involved. If you publish a book, you should do it when people are making lists. Same reason you release your Academy Award vehicle just before Oscar season. Duh. But there's a certain theatricality to it all which feels less about actual photobooks than it does about their impact. 

Let's go back a moment to the power impulse. One noticeable trend in these lists year after year is their increasing diversity. There was a point not long ago when I recognized a sizable handful of the listed books. But that era is fading. More and more it's a sea of obscure small-press offerings I've never heard of. And the next list has 10 obscure offerings of its own, with none in common, as does the next one. And so on. 

That's partly due to the explosion in photobooks over the past decade. There are more titles than ever to choose from. But I think what's also at work is the staking out of territory. Not only is it important to publish your list early, but if you can identify a great book before anyone else, you claim bragging rights. You get to be the cool kid who discovered Destroy All Monsters or Legendary Stardust Cowboy before anyone else. If those acts catch on (and they likely won't), your name is attached. On the contrary, there's little reward for identifying the same books which are already on other lists. That's not how you distinguish yourself as a critic. So the overall effect is toward fracturing, not consensus. It's the tail wagging the dog again, as the act of list creation influences its contents.

I may be wrong about all of this. I know I'm risking that possibility by publishing these thoughts in early December, before much of the photobook listmaking has had a chance to shake out. But I fear if I wait much longer someone else might beat me to the analysis. If it seems early, fractured, or whacko, you'll understand.

Existentialist Frames

Turkey Shoot

With Thanksgiving looming in a few days, I thought it would be fun to share some turkey pictures. The unpublished photographs below were made by Tony O'Shea in Dublin in the early 1990s. Entitled Slouching Toward Bethlehem, they're presented here with Tony's comments. 

For more information or to see the entire set of 50+ photographs, please email Tony. Thanks to Brian Sparks for the tip. Happy T-Day everyone.

•

I did a lot of work for a newspaper called the Sunday Business Post in the 90s and noughties. One Friday evening just before Christmas some scribe got the brilliant notion that a Christmas picture was needed for page 4 (at about 4 pm, just as dusk was about to fall). Needless to say I wasn't very delighted about the timing as I thought I had already finished my shift. But off I went anyway and that was my first encounter with the Turkey Market.

They used the picture of the woman with glasses walking down the street holding 2 turkeys she had just purchased. I had no knowledge of the event before this but was immediately drawn into it. It felt like a rural invasion of this part of the city. On this street (Mary's, Lane) there used to be a morning fish market held inside a warehouse and there is also a fruit and vegetable market. 

What I found most interesting about it was the improvised and anarchic nature of the display of goods and services, no neat tables or benches, no cellophane wrapping but instead there was an earthiness and an almost ritualistic feeling to things. The traders  were dignified and resourceful people trying to make hay while the sun shone. I went back a few times the following year. I made 4 or 5 visits in total and would have spent a total of 10 hours maximum. Generally speaking people were tolerant and good humoured and it was easy to work there.

I think it closed down the following year. I went up the next year and it was gone. In the 80s Ireland went through a bleak enough  time, serious unemployment and a severe hemorrhage of youth from the country but by the early to mid 90s things had started to pick up a little driven by globalisation and the decision by major international tech companies to set up shop here and use Ireland as a base for European operations. Also there was a whole raft of new regulations from Europe to do with food production etc., so I don't think the market could have survived in its then-state for very long.

The area has been cleaned up a bit and one of the largest fruit importers Fyffe's have their business on Mary's Lane. The car park is tidier and more professional looking but the large blocks of flats still look more or less the same but of course the absence of the Turkey sellers for a few days before Christmas means that the special feeling has evaporated and very few people remember the dynamic chaos of those years when the whole ambiance of those streets changed for a few days.

One project I have been working on for 20 years on and off is a form of dog racing down in the SW of Ireland called Drag Hunting. It happens between May and September each year and the dogs follow a scent made from a mixture of oils and aniseed which is laid down by pulling some rags soaked in this mixture along the ground. It has certain similarities with the market, e.g. the Dramatis Personae are limited, a maximum of 20 families and it is again in a certain way deeply ritualistic and of course redolent with a particular relationship with the land, the weather and some kind of need to venture out with their dogs......a type of Beagle. Very few people ever come to look at them and there is a vaguely primordial feeling so it is quite a lonely feeling.

Awake

In the wake of the tragic events in Paris... I've been reading that sentence a lot this week, as I'm sure we all have. I welcome constructive discussions about the attacks. But when the sentence gets attached to mundane personal announcements, it seems silly. 

In the wake of the tragic events in Paris, I need to reschedule the plumber's visit this morning an hour earlier. In the wake of the tragic events in Paris, Joan's class had their first field trip to the natural history museum. In the wake of the tragic events in Paris, has anyone seen any good movies lately that they'd recommend? Photographers are the worst. In the wake of the tragic events in Paris, I'd appreciate feedback on this photo I took of the Louvre 10 years ago. I mean, seriously? Fuck me.

I don't mean to belittle the tragic events in Paris. In the wake of those tragic events in Paris, the events in Paris were tragic. I get it. I sympathize. But, in the wake of the tragic events in Paris, consider the possibility that not every international crisis is about you. 

But enough geopolitics. This blog is about me. So, in the wake of the tragic events in Paris, I'd like to warn folks about the UFOs. I'm not saying an interstellar invasion is imminent. But, in the wake of the tragic event in Paris, ruling it out at this point would be foolish. Until we locate their base and strike the threat is real. In the wake of the tragic events in Paris, maybe it's time to register the aliens? Or are they presumed to have inalienable rights? 

In the wake of the tragic events in Paris, the first person to claim this print* gets it. (*Sorry, it's been claimed)

GOP In Focus