John Margolies' photographs of roadside America
publicdomainreview.org69 points by duck 4 days ago
69 points by duck 4 days ago
Haha I knew Bob's Java Jive was going to be on there. Wasn't expecting the buffalo from Jamestown, ND.
Here's a good one from my hometown https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tommy-the-turtle
And then drive about 20 miles east and you hit this guy https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/w-eel-turtle
And then drive 30 miles north and you hit the original https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tommy-the-turtle-boissev...
I'm pretty sure the Java Jive is still around. Or at least it was, 10 years ago.
I love this. We need more whimsy. Unfortunately, refinement culture is taking over. Even the new McDonald's design is "private equity" refined.
He's probably photographed it, but one of the biggest and the pinnacle of this idea, I think, is the Longaberger building in Ohio. If he did photograph it, I think it should have been among the ones listed in the article. Of course it's not as "folksy" as the others but it's in the same vein though greater in scale.
The Longaberger Building, the giant picnic basket, is for sale, and currently abandoned.[1]
Blame the suburbs and communism - those are the two driving factors there.
Suburbs: everything has to be standardized and made efficient for global supply chains. Private equity is just the mechanism to achieve that. Want better food and produce? Stop going to McDonald’s, Costco, and Starbucks in your Jeep Gladiator. Also need to stop wasting so much taxpayer dollars on these useless, endless highways that destroy local economies and entrepreneurship and spread us out so we are reliant on cars.
Communism: everything must be “modern”, bland, and sterile. Andy Warhol. Banksy. Tape a banana to the wall and stare at it in your all black jumpsuit. All bright, white fluorescent. Nothing out of the ordinary or quirky, no individuality, all chains, all the same style.
You can still have consumerism with a divergence of style. You just can't have large concentration of wealth in select businesses and high cost of entry.
This kind of style comes out when there is high compeition and an economy that can support experimentation.
You're so wrong that you're right again. The US funded and promoted modern art as a counterpoint to communism. There was even a submission about it a few weeks ago on here. [0]
> Nothing out of the ordinary or quirky, no individuality, all chains, all the same style.
One could say the same about capitalism/consumerism. In fact, many creatives have done so over the years. Bland and bleak life in the suburbs is a common theme. "Broad lawns and narrow minds" as Hemingway might have called it. So is the forlornness of a nondescript white-collar cubicle job. Even recently, the Backrooms taps into this.
Banksy is part of "communism"? Consider me skeptical.
It’s ideologically related and, unfortunately with our McDonald’s level standards of art and culture it passes for something akin to artwork.
You’ll find Flower Thrower at your local IKEA or hung in the bathroom of Chipotle. They wouldn’t be caught dead hanging actual art from, say, Renoir though. The focus is to destroy originality, destroy individuality, destroy religion, and promote sterilization (not of people, though of course in some cases authoritarian ideologies like this do promote such insanity) and mass production.
It’s all the same communist ethos. Not everyone agrees, and you’re certainly free to disagree of course, it’s just my opinion.
The LOC has a nice presentation of the complete collection two clicks away from the submitted link:
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e31fca375f7a471a9a2e2cd...
via https://guides.loc.gov/roadside-america-photographs?loclr=fl...
via submitted link.
I was certain the collection had to have Lucy the Elephant and indeed it does:
To anyone who loves these, add this to your playlist:
Otis Gibbs - Great American Roadside
One of the ideas put forward in Neil Gaiman's American Gods is that roadside attractions, "Biggest X", collections of whimsy happened where they happened because they were ancient places of power, and people felt inexplicably drawn to them and to set up somewhere people would explore and worship, if not literally, with their attention and energy. Gods could recharge there.
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