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SPECK: A Curious Collection of Uncommon Things
SPECK A Curious Collection of Uncommon Things Author:Peter Buchanan-Smith In Speck, Peter Buchanan-Smith, Art Director of the New York Times Op-Ed page, asks artists, designers, lawyers, writers, collectors, and photographers to explore our obsessions with the small objects that loom large in our everyday lives. To wit: Maira Kalman empties people's pocketbooks; Nicholas Blechman and Jesse Gordon trace the history of ... more »the oldest piece of dust; David Horrowitz catalogs manhole covers; and Peter Buchanan-Smith unearths a 1966 high school yearbook and transcribes the inscriptions ("To a real sweet and cute guy with a great personality. Remember English III"). Speck also shows how "ordinary" people can fascinate as much as "ordinary" objects: an interview with shoe shiner Harry Kitt, Manhattan's last practitioner of the dry-shine, photographs taken by a blind man on a sight-seeing tour, and a barber's extensive collection of earth, water, and air from around the world ask us to re-think our assumptions about the commonplace.« less
A fun and very quirky book! Anyone who sees art in the simple everyday things will enjoy this book. Full of great pictures and a delight to read and look at!