four pages of stephen shore fotos here; martin doesnt like him---and i think my love for it is so fucking visceral, that i have trouble explaing why--i mean part of it is v. formal, the one on the first page with the two paddles on a ping pong table, and that sheer concentration of colour--or the font of the payway that pops from the beige of winnipeg, almost pink--or the odd sticky slickness of resturant meals.

there is the isolation of sky, and buildings--the old cliche of presence and absence--centered around people (there is a foto journal that had a call for submissions that centered arond portraits w/o people--and that was what i felt there.)

there is the last picture show/john ford momunetalism of the pictures of regina/palmdale/gull lake (the gull lake shot really connects w, me and chris and i were trying to figure out the word, its not isolation of course, and its not opression, but its this everpresent landscape, that never changes and is constant--like the mag fields line--"i treated you like radio/i treated you like god--i could and maybe will write a 1000 words on this one foto) /charelston.

there is redeeming of the post card tourist shot (esp in the amazing shot of miami, the palm trees, etc) and snapshots of people we kind of now(ginger siepel) by the brick wall in miami, and the meals in hotels, and the fish in kenora ontario (the fish in kenora, is the most ideally touristy, and how it centeres the fish, how it makes the flowers obv,the trees banal, the background water(?) blankness (what does that word mean, why do i use that word so much, why is that word so omnipresent in my crit--what does it mean in the case of shore) and the shaker simple courthouse of piano--even yankee fields.

speaking of yankee fields, there is also a new site to shore--a new kind of eye--a gut level reaction to the shades of america, things that are over looked, things that are ignored, things that are there but not there are not redeemed but made plain--it isnt the redpemtive beauty, the supersatuted colour of eaggleston or the picturesque poverty of walker or adams. its dunn and dull and crass and cheap and wonderful...

shore sold his first foto to moma at 14.