Pursuits : Elizabeth Thomsen

Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

Diners : People and Places
Photographs by Gerd Kittel; Introduction by Richard F. Snow

This is a slim volume of color photographs of classic diners, mostly in New York and New England, taken by German photographer Gerd Kittel. It’s a lovely book, in its way, and there are some interesting photographs here, including many interior shots, some including customers, waitstaff and cooks. Each photograph is only identified by name and place, and the book would have been much more useful to the diner-lover if it also included three other pieces of information: the diner’s manufacturer and and year of manufacture, and the year the photograph was taken. The book was originally published in 1990, and I bought the updated second edition from 1998, so all the photographs were taken at least nine years ago, but it would be helpful to know when.
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America by the Yard: Cirkut Camera: Images from the Early Twentieth Century by Robert B. MacKay

This is a hefty book that’s over fifteen inches wide, and that weighs nearly six pounds, an inconvenient size for putting on a bookshelf, carrying around or reading in bed. But it’s a beauty, and the size is necessary to properly display the fascinating panoramic photographs taken by the Cirkut camera.
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Dog Years is poet Mark Doty’s story of his two dogs, Arden and Beau, and their shared joys and sorrows.

Mark and Arden are living alone with Mark’s lover Wally, who is dying of AIDS, when Mark decides to get another dog. It’s really the last thing they needed, at that point.

In Doty’s words:

My friends think I’ve lost my mind. You’re taking care of a man who can’t get out of bed, and you’re adopting a golden retriever? They do have a point, but there’s a certain dimension of experience at which the addition of any other potential stress simply doesn’t matter anymore. Oh, say the already crazed, why not?

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Born on a Blue Day is the story of Daniel Tammett, a young man with an extraordinary mind. He has a rare combination of Asperger’s Syndrome and synesthesia, a condition which blurs the usual distinctions between the senses. In his own words:

I see numbers as shapes, colors, textures and motions. The number 1, for example, is a brilliant and bright white, like someone shining a flashlight into my eyes. Five is a clap of thunder or the sound of waves crashing against rocks. Thirty-seven is lumpy like porridge, while 89 reminds me of falling snow.

Daniel is the firstborn child in what will become a very large family. His parents had limited education and resources, and his father suffers from a debilitating mental illness, but as parents, they were patient and supportive of the unusual son. Daniel was different from the start, and suffered from frightening seizures as a child. As with any child on the autistic spectrum, his social skills were limited and he craves solitude and a predictable routine, things not easy to find for a boy growing up with a large family in small, crowded homes in London.
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