Two new pieces posted today.
Both pretty Minneapolis-y.
At Quodlibetica, a short essay on photographer Paula McCartney’s new book, On Thin Ice, In a Blizzard, and the way we talk about weather in the Upper Midwest. The images in the book are McCartney’s beautiful photograms of ice, created in the dark room:
It seems at first like this exercise may be McCartney’s way of exerting control over powerful natural forces; of bringing these phenomena inside the comfort of the studio, where they can be controlled and mediated. This is a common response to the obliterating harshness of a Midwestern winter -– a sort of denial. A cultivation of the idea that overcoming the cold is nothing more than a simple act of willpower, and that by simply willing away the elements, one can just get through it.
And on MinnPost, a stroll around the wilds of my own neighborhood, Powderhorn, and finding modernist dry cleaners, semiprecious gems, burger lords, and Emma Goldman:
I’ve taken more than one East Coast friend for a walk through these neighborhoods, only to have them look around with confusion and say, “This doesn’t look like a city. This looks like a really old suburb. This looks like New Jersey.”
