Capa and Fieldwork

There are reasons why the New York Times is the "newspaper of record" in the United States of America, and why only a couple of newspapers (The New Yorker, maybe on its better days the Christian Science Monitor and The Economist (of London) are even close to being equals. The best newspapers (and the term can apply to weeklies) get beyond the fan-pandering that usually fills the inside of too much of the American daily press and deal with issues that are infinitely more real and interesting than what someone was (or wasn't) wearing at any given point in their evening party cycle. Give me a break; there's real stuff to be discussed, and enjoyed. So try the NYT article on Robert Capa, and what's happening in terms of some of his photographic legacy. It's an intriguing, and more, a meaningful article, if you can follow the link.


The lesson about the newspaper's primacy is driven home again today, with a quite wonderful article on Robert Capa, whose name is almost never mentioned without adding "the famed war photographer." It's about the discovery of three boxes of Capa negatives (some 3,500 all told), stashed in Mexico City for decades. (Just how they got there is a story in itself; a journey begun in 1939.) The negatives chronicle a crucial era of his work (and that of his sometime-partner and colleague, Gerda Tero), from the Spanish Civil War era when Capa's photograph of "The Falling Soldier" was taken (itself a subject of no small controversy).


Capa was more than an "important figure" in photography, he would go on with a handful of colleagues to form Magnum Photo (which sounds like something out of Zoolander, but was, in fact, arguably the most important ensemble of photographic talent in the twentieth century). His work from the 1930s was legendary, and with reason; even a glance at the archive of photographs that's includes with the Times article makes it obvious why he was larger than life. He was a handsome and an amazing guy, but he was the essence of a certain kind of photography.


This is important for any number of good reasons, not least because it's a reminder that Capa was a field guy, and what Randy Kennedy, who wrote the article, calls Capa's "mantra" wasn't a bad one for geographers: "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." Does that speak to you?

O'er the top

Given, it's not a "nice" film, but it qualifies as a great one.

I just got back from seeing There Will Be Blood, and while there's an ongoing battle that I've realized exists as to whether this Paul Anderson-directed effort is great filmmaking or not, I'm voting for "yes." The two and a half hours in the theater weren't pleasant, but need we be reminded that "pleasant" is not a requirement in the film-viewing world? Mind-expanding, yes; disturbing, ditto; and what I loved about this effort are the connections it brought to mind: Citizen Kane, an obvious one; Moby Dick, for its treatment of obsession, and the friend I attended the film with remarked that not only does Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis) have a voice with the honeyed tones of the ageing John Huston, in Chinatown, he actually has a character shaped on the same last. I came to the conclusion that this is one of the truly great films about the prototypical American as "confidence man," and there's a certain resonance in that, since I've been thinking about the con man as archetype for maybe a dozen years (actually, I can safely say that that's been true since 1978, when I took a course from Roy Harvey Pearce, in which I was looking into Pearce's past writing, and realized that he'd written about Melville's The Confidence Man, so it's more like thirty years now!). Add in O'Henry's The Gentle Grafter, and George C. Scott as The Flim-Flam Man, and think of all the other appearances in film, fiction, short story, and song. That's what Plainview is, in truth — though some of you might argue that he's really just "a businessman," but he's deceiving people (and profiting from that) right and left — and so is Eli Sunday, the snake-oil evangelical preacher, who is more literally about "touching" his flock, purporting to heal the afflicted.

When a filmmaker deals with the theme of "obsession," it can come out in many ways. First of all, for some (maybe a lot ... ) of directors (who are usually the auteurs in such cases), the film itself becomes an obsession: Think of the remarkable pairing (which Gary Hausladen and I actually teach, in Geography & Film) of Coppola's Apocalypse Now (wonderfully treated in Hearts of Darkness, by his wife, Eleanor), and maybe even better, Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, treated anew in Les Blank's Burden of Dreams, and those two pairings reveal the inside and the outside of film, and the compulsions that drive their makers. There are five dozen other examples, but since those provide film-on-film, the mix is especially nice.

What's it about? For me, it's about people, competition, the early rise of capitalist entrepreneurs, and gaining the upper hand. But it's also about isolation, loneliness, and how that's remedied. Nothing simple, in other words; Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) plays a hideously ambiguous figure (like Plainview), except that where Plainview is searching for money, Eli Sunday is searching for adulation (but, at least by the end of the film, he's searching for money, too). They need human contact also, literally so in the preacher's case, but Plainview makes do with a few hugs of his son (until he throws him away, and then is slapped when the boy returns — a sharp and emotionally biting scene that marks the beginning of the end for Plainview). And I might add (just for the record) that I consider the ending to be letter perfect; seems to me that, after a film filled to the brim with physical ideals (not physical attractiveness, but the perfect study of motion and movement), the final words and the body language (and even the cinematic inflection) of the last scene are square-on. Hardly pleasant, but then ...

Incidentally, the score was unnerving and completely up to the task. Bringing Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead in on the soundtrack was a risk, but one that's operatic, which is (truth be told) what this film is all the way through: If they made operas from films about great but tragic figures, the librettists would be all over this. It's not an unobtrusive soundtrack, but then, for a long time I've been a fan of the sorts of soundtracks that Tarantino and Cusack put together.

Retooling Rural Nevada

Just what counts as "rural" in Nevada in 2008 is always an interesting question. After all, by one simple statistical standard (and the one most often quoted), 92 percent of the state's population is "urban." (It's a fiction, but read why, farther down.)

And given the problems that most Americans have with any form of higher math (beyond counting on our fingers), that's not, strictly speaking, correct; the 92% figure doesn't include Carson City (which also happens to be the State Capital) as "urban," because it failed to reach the threshold to be considered an "urban" place in the last census. That, naturally enough (for Nevada), is a data point that's been long since eclipsed: The city and county are way beyond the 50,000 figure, now. Add that in, and the dimensions of the state's urbanity starts to look a whole lot different.

How "urban" is Nevada, in fact? Well, a look at the geographical distribution of the population (which requires both a bit of consideration of the numbers, and also a look at the extraordinary form of counties in the Silver State — which are oddly formed in no small measure because when Nevada was brought into the Union, the federal government was desperate to have a northern-allied state in the Far West) would show something remarkable.

Truth to tell, somewhere on the order of 96 or 97 percent of Nevada's population is "urban." That's a convenience for national politicians who are coming into the state (whines in the national and local press to the contrary notwithstanding), but it also means that the "rurals" (as they are genially referred to in-state) are really left on the margin of the state, in terms of access. But the joy of all this is that Nevada politics remain remarkably "rural" oriented: much lip service is given to the state's rural folks, and their influence in the State Legislature is vastly greater than would be suggested by absolute number. Part of the reason for this is simply relict. Newcomers take a while to get into the habit of voting, caring, and involving themselves in local politics — so the bigger decisions are left up to those who actually know how to make things happen, and have been around for a while. It's a tradition, and we all know about that.

But that's not the main theme I'd intended for this post — it's the charming story of "discovery," which is clearly alive and well just outside of Carson City. In the delectable burg of Stagecoach (which used to be a large collection of hortatory billboards just to the east of Carson City), one of the long-standing residents is about to see ... a makeover! Seems one of our reality TV (I keep typing "TB," which probably is a reflection of mossback sentiment) shows is coming to Stagecoach to do an "extreme makeover" (read: demolition and rebuilding) of a local family's 720 square foot mobile home. To which I can only say, "praise the Lord." 

There are dozens of such burgs in Nevada, and the people who live there lead great and engaging lives, I'm sure, and it takes an accomplished snob like James Howard Kunstler to get on a very high horse (see his Geography of Nowhere) and denounce the inexpensive real estate that the local folks have at hand. And the renunciation and aesthetic high-handedness will be there, in quantity, but just 'cause opinions are there don't make them right. About which, 'nuf said.

Friends in High Places

Just a few reflections on the demise of Sir Edmund Hillary, and on the changing sense of geography that he and a few other luminaries in the world of exploration and discovery have brought to us. There's the standard obituary, in the New York Times, which as usual is competent and efficient. But I like the one by Verlyn Klinkenborg, who usually writes about farming and nature, a good bit more. He picks up on the quiet and modest qualities of Hillary, who was the son of a New Zealand beekeeper, and, in fact, was a beekeeper himself. The theme of humble roots isn't one I'd want to obsess about, but I think there's something to the whole process of coming from behind ... 

I might add that I never met the man, though I'd sure have liked to do so, but he was of that astounding 1950s-1960s generation that were, in truth, the last of the really great explorers: He and Jacques Cousteau, and the original astronauts (so affectionately, if somewhat satirically, treated in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff), all people who bit off big chunks of the world (and space itself) and left a permanent mark. 

Many of them weren't all that nice or approachable, necessarily, in person (not a job requirement, either), but they took the chance, went into the field, pushed the boundaries of the "reasonable" and the "safe" to someplace altogether new and different, and in the process altered our understanding of the world. And Hillary (led and assisted by Tenzing Norgay, in one of the great humanistic partnerships) was among the kinder ones; he spent a great deal of his later life (of course, he'd collected a brace of awards and recognition and some fame, if perhaps a bit less fortune, for his accomplishments) trying to help folks in Nepal, who had made his ascent possible in the first place.

And a word about the wonderful document that survives him — the deservedly classic document by (then) James Morris, who had been assigned by The Times (London) to report on the expedition, and who had to go to extraordinary measures (rather wonderfully described in his book about the event, Coronation Everest) to keep from being scooped on the story.  And the Morris account is an early offering from one of the two or three best geographical writers in the world today; thank goodness she's still around, even if (self-allegedly) no long writing. It's the legacy that survives — a reminder about writers and books.

since original posting: Just thought I'd note that there's been a wealth of material added since I wrote this, unsurprisingly, including a nice appraisal by Edward Rothstein (with a great photograph of the two principals). No doubt The Economist will have a suitable obituary note, and I'll include a link to that, since they usually leave those accessible. But my favorite comment so far comes from John Noble Wilford, long-time Science write for the New York Times. In his memorial piece, published Sunday the 13th, there is this:

At least once the two who epitomized exploration before and after Sputnik held a summit meeting of sorts. In 1985, Sir Edmund and Neil A. Armstrong, the man of the "giant leap for mankind," flew a twin-engine plan over the Arctic and touched down at the North Pole. Oh, to have listened in to the man on the Moon and the man atop Everest, together in a cockpit, again looking out on a stunning but forbidding landscape.

In my book, that's truth itself.

... than fiction

Oh, yeah ... truth? Are you talking to me? 

I've been navigating the blogger universe, trying to assess the lay of the land, and have concluded that the REALLY successful bloggers, on any and all sides of the political / reality / imaginary / and all other borders, must absolutely NOT work for a living. That's no big hit or insult; it just means that it's pretty evident that, for all they're posting and trolling, they aren't holding down the standard 9-to-5. And that's just fine, too. We're all allowed to have hobbies, and if for some it involves a massive and ongoing commitment to the news and information system in this (and many another (!) country, all the better. 

The Daily Kos, for instance, is secure in his status as Web legend — the guy is knocking out something on the order of 15-20 posts per day, though a bunch of them are (admittedly) reposts or gleaned from other sources. And the whole things about ads and the Internet remains a different world. 

Eliminating the commute time that is so typical of most Americans (moi included) would certainly open up a few added moments in daily life, but c'mon. Of course, with the major news sources for students and the thinking public (Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, and Stephen Colbert of The Report ... ) down for the count with the Writers Guild strike still ongoing (it may never end), we're all having to go to the blog world.

And it never hurts to put the time into writing — finished off several writing responsibilities today, including a book review and a chunk of crops for the California Agriculture (CalAg, hence) project. ... with other assorted errands done, too. A major "party on."

Shouts and Hollers

Opening salvo ...

There's nothing quite like an impending election, in the immediate wake of New Hampshire's primary, to get the blood stirring. That's especially true in the aftermath of a brutal mid-winter storm that's battered the area, dropped trees like chaff, and bathed western Nevada in an inversion — perhaps the perfect runup to the Nevada caucus that is ten days hence. That's what we need: a steady stream of Dems and 'publicans wandering lost through the Nevada grass roots of Austin or Manhattan or Berlin or for that matter, Gabbs or Winnemucca, pressing the flesh for votes while surrounded by pogonip (aka "freezing fog"). Long live our surroundings, and may this confound our foes!

As a start on blogging, this is just a placeholder. No doubt in time we're all going to be maintaining these things, and as an on-line expression of concern and thoughts, I reckon this is as good a way to begin as any.

My best to you all ... and find some entertaining books and magazines to read, too!