Customer Reviews

Boring Postcards USA

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2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book breaks the maxim, "You can't judge a book by it's cover." With a honest title and a no frills cover, you open the book and you find postcards that live up to everything you didn't expect: No humor. No fancy photography. No witty postcard statements. No nothing. These are simple photographs of the most boring subjects a person can chance upon: Interstate highways, hotel rooms and Cafetteria Food.

But then you stop for a moment and wonder why something so boring could possibly hold your attention for so long. I think the mesmerizing element of these boring postcards is that they are actually doing what they were intendid to do during their creation: They are bookmarks of a persons travel. They show you where a person was as they crossed the state line into Ohio. Sure the toll booth in the photograph is not much to look at...but you almost feel as if you are in the car with the traveller.

Also, because these photos are from the 50's and 60's...you feel as if this is not only a travel across the country. But a travel back into time. A young fella like myself can actually appreciate the look of days that are before my time. The best part is that they aren't tampered with. No photography tricks or advertising acrobats. These were point and click photos that aren't trying to be sexy. So yes, these postcards are definitly boring. But that's what is so exciting about them.

This book is very funny. Whoever came up with the concept has a delightfully twisted sense of humor. And, I like the fact that the editor lets the cards speak for themselves (rather than indulging in an ultrahip forward). Bravo!

The title is something of a misnomer - there's nothing boring about the cards collected in this edition. Banal, perhaps, but not boring. The irony encapsulated in a desloate stretch of highway titled "Picturesque Indiana" cannot be underestimated in its appeal or entertainment value.

The pride displayed in entrance ways to multimillion dollar turnpikes or the cafes of motels on well-traveled tourist highways speak to a time when the connectivity of automobile travel was still miraculous. Similarly for the cards documenting the rise of shopping centers (malls were still to come), factories, trailer courts, and all manner of 50s and 60s innovation. It all feels quite quaint now, magnified by the editor's terrific selection of poorly composed and wackily titled cards.

The editor has a terrific eye for oddball cards, and the inclusion of cards that show edge wear or postmarks helps bring them to life as mail-art. Perhaps the only negative is that the card backs were not included; a shame, given that the descriptions given there are often as good as the picture image. I also note the peculiar insertion of blank pages here and there.

A must-have volume for postcard collectors, collectors of kitschy 50s/60s art, or just about anyone with an interest in the intersection of industrial and consumer arts.

First a word of clarification. These are not postcards to be mailed. I didn't read the description clearly. This was only my fault, but someone else out there might make the same mistake.

Second, the publisher's description and viewers' comments are correct: These are boring, charmless, insipid images, that might tell us a lot about who we think we are -- perhaps of how proud small-town America was of its new airports, bus terminals and banks after the war. But I thought that not including any reflections by a student of our culture (Lord knows there are enough candidates), was just plain cheap, and makes this little book, well, boring.

Boring Postcards is a conundrum. Then name perfectly describes the contents of the book yet they become fascinating, baffling, and sometimes hilarious. What goes through one's mind is why would anyone take a photo of this then try to sell it or use it to attract tourists. Why would anyone make a postcard of an interstate, a bend in the road, a truck stop, an aerial view of a hotel, a hospital room? Individually, no one would pay attention to them. But put together they become mesmerizing. It has the same effect as looking through a bunch of photos that have no meaning to you. You know no one, the photography is bad, you don't know why the photographer chose to take a picture of what they did yet they remain interesting. And Boring Postcards, perhaps because they were ostensibly done by professional photographers, remains intriguing.

Looking at the postcards in this book is like travelling back to the 1960's. A time when the highways were not packed with traffic, and stopping for lunch meant pulling into the local, non-franchised restaurant. Yes, the motel interiors really did look like that, and my brothers and I were thrilled to sleep in a room with air conditioning and color TV. We find this book fascinating, and so have the friends who have looked through it with us.

"Oh my Gosh, Mommy, here's a postcard of that toll booth we just went through on the Interstate. Let's send it to Aunt Milli to show her we've come this far!" I can imagine myself saying more or less that, sometime in the mid-1960's, as we're cruising in our Rambler station wagon on the way to summer camp. This collection is great. I ran across it in a bookstore, giggled as I paged through it, and immediately bought one as a housewarming gift for the couple who has everything. But when I got home, I found myself opening the package up to giggle some more. I felt kind of sad actually giving it away - the same feeling as sending off a postcard. It goes into the mailbox and it's gone, but not forgotten (at least for a moment). The collection is not only funny, it says a lot about America. I guess I need to get my own copy of the book...

Boring Postcards, collected and edited by Magnum photographer Martin Parr, composed 160 of the dullest British postcards from the fifties, sixties and seventies, touched a national nerve at the same time as it confirmed many foreigners' preconceptions of the British. As the Sunday Times critic discussed at the time: individually they were a kitsch hoot, but collectively they referred to the spirit and soul of a Britain vanished for ever.

For this collection Martin Parr has turned his eye to the USA. The format remains exactly the same: the only text included being the names of the various different postcard publishers whose products are included. The images, again 160 of them, are left to speak for themselves and strict criteria have been applied to the definition of "boring". Either its composition, content, or the characters featured must be arguably boring or it must be devoid of any subject matter which might conventionally be described as interesting.

Rather than comparing Boring Postcards USA to its only slightly older English cousin however, it is perhaps more appropriate to regard it within the established photographic genre which attempts to define and deal with notions of Americanness. To name but a few this long established genre includes the work of: Alexander Gardner, Lewis Hine, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Robert Frank and, perhaps more relevant to Parr's oeuvre, Bill Owens. Looked at in this light, as Martin Parr is certainly aware, Boring Postcards USA has some way to climb; but for all that there is an appropriateness in using images made for mass consumption as a window on the ultimate consumer society. Certainly the humour shines through: taconite for anyone curious turns out to be a type of hard rock used as iron ore and the book, perhaps in spite of itself, seems bigger than itself. "Moving on", "My Four Wheels" and the notion of "Mom and Apple Pie" all feature. On a personal note I lament the exclusion of the famous Airstream caravan but echoes of previous work do indeed sneak through. Could for example the large veneered television on which Ronald Regan appears in Bill Owens' Suburbia have in fact been a Spartan Way Imperial? Did Matthew Brady make pictures near to what would later become the Gettysburg Interchange? And most crucial of all is the American sense of humour, sometimes self conscious and reportedly devoid of irony, ready for the attentions of Martin Parr? Let's hope so, for like last year's this is a really rather special little book. I await with bated breath the advent of Boring Postcards Belgium.

What qualifies a postcard as boring? A quick flick through this book, and its predecessor, "Boring Postcards," suggests that a boring postcard exhibits a lack of visual appeal - drab colors, tedious subjects, uninspired composition, a cliche taken to extremes. But if this is all such postcards offer, why publish a collection of them? Because these misfits of good design have a much more interesting story to tell. Each example prompts one to ask why such a card was produced, who hired such bad photographers, who ok'd the final product, and most importantly, who in their right mind would actually send one? The reward for readers of this book is both serious - in the accidental cultural history one finds in the decrepid architecture of public buildings, say - and humorous - the postcard's subject entirely eclipsed by a parking lot, for example. Although this is a must for any serious postcard collector, it also makes a great book to share with friends for a laugh. My only reservation is that this American version reveals a more limited array of boring postcards than the British edition, including instead a number of product display cards of gears, etc., produced primarily for salespeople to show potential customers and as such, are not as funny or interesting as postcards produced for tourists. Still, this book is a classic - it will keep you smiling long after the plain brown cover fades.

BORING POSTCARDS USA by Martin Parr has 85 pages. Most of the pages contain the image of a postcard, but a few of the pages are blank. When the book is open, the blank page is on the left, and on the right page is a postcard. The pages are non-glossy paper. Most of the picture postcards are from businesses and corporations, such as motels, factories, and shopping centers.

A perverted aspect of some of these pictures is that the most prominent aspect in the scene is the PARKING LOT. The fact that a parking lot is the most prominent part of these pictures provides us with a message about the incompetence of the photographer (and really tells us not much about the actual business). That is the source of the perversion. On the other hand, it could be argued that the prominent PARKING LOT provides the message that the business is big, successful, and powerful, and is able to afford a large PARKING LOT.

A few of the picture postcards show highways, e.g., in boring places such as Nebraska, Indiana, and Oklahoma.

Most of the images are truly boring. But from a perverted sort of perspective, the pictures are fascinating. WALNUT ROOM BUCKS RESTAURANT shows some wrinkled old people. The restaurant contains all the accoutrements of the up-to-date 1960s restaurant, that is, Formica and Naugahyde. The old people are especially boring, in view of the fact that they have white napkins spread over their laps.

PIKE VIEW MOTEL shows a dreary motel. One quarter of the page is a parking lot. Two 1950s vintage automobiles are parked in the distance. Half of the image is a bland sky. Other motel postcards include, LINOAKS MOTEL, NELVA COURTS, FRIENDLY MOTEL, THUNDERBIRD MOTEL, COSMIC AGE LODGE, and these depict motel bedrooms. A bed dominates the room. Near the bed are small tables supporting large lamps. The rooms are all unnaturally neat. The overwhelming neatness is perverted, in that it might remind one of a corpse in a mortuary, waiting for a line of mourners.

Other postcards are perverted for other reasons. JOHN F. KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT has a reasonable image of the airport terminal, but the sky contains something shocking. The graphic artist who designed this postcard put a jet plane in the sky. The jet plane is in the process of landing. However, the angle of descent is an extreme angle. If the image was a real one, there is no question that the jet plane would crash within a half second.

More examples of perverted scenes arise from signs. What is perverted, is that the photographer and the restaurant owner really and truly believed that the postcard put the restaurant in a favorable light. But, in fact, the content of the postcard could do the exact opposite, that is, put the restaurent in a bad light. BLUE GRILL shows a shabby diner. The parking lot has two large potholes, each containing a huge puddle of water. On top of the Blue Grill restaurant is a huge sign reading, "FINE FOOD." Perhaps the sign is truthful, in that the food is merely "fine food" and is not something better, such as "great food" or "excellent food."

Also perverted is the postcard, THE VIRGINIAN RESTAURANT. This postcard shows the restaurant in the background, while the foreground features a large sign reading, "SPAGHETTI PIZZA." The way the sign is painted implies that one of the meals is called, "spaghetti pizza," and consists of a pizza pie covered with spaghetti noodles.

Please also note that Mr.Parr has a portfolio of photographs called, BORING, OREGON. Mr.Parr has not published this particular portfolio. However, any tourist could easily create their own photographic portfolio when visiting this town. All of the pictures are from a town in Oregon called, "Boring." The pictures include business with signs reading, "Boring Florist," "Boring High School," and "Boring Sewage Plant." The town of Boring, Oregon was not named because of any quality of boredom. The town was named after a German man.