Chicago Tribune article on John Margolies - Beyond Tiki

T thejab Grand Member (1 year) Tradewinds Apartments, Alameda, CA Joined: Mar 25, 2002 Posts: 2992	T thejab Posted posted on Tue, Jul 8, 2003 3:56 PM John Margolies has been writing about and photographing roadside America for over 20 years. I highly recommend any of his books. The Chicago Tribune had an article on him today. Too bad they focused on his quirks and obesessive behavior. The guy should get a medal for caring about roadside architecture before most of us noticed it was being destroyed. Oh, also check out his web site for info on books, etc. http://www.johnmargolies.com Road worrier Behind the wheel, photographer-writer John Margolies compulsively chronicles the architectural aspects of a dying America and obsesses about it from dawn to darkroom By Ellen Warren Tribune senior correspondent July 8, 2003 KENOSHA -- The fella standing in the middle of the road is jazzed. He's psyched. He is, at last, happy. John Margolies, chronicler of The Road, is back on it. In it, actually, as he takes a photo of the Keno Family Drive-In, a movie theater just over the Illinois line on the outskirts of this Wisconsin town. When we set out on this day, in search of "what defines our culture," photographer-author Margolies (Mar-go-leeze) has only a vague idea of our itinerary. "We're going east to the lake and turning left," he says. And we're off, waggling northbound in the direction of Milwaukee by way of . . . who knows? After a fruitful stop in Zion (more on that later), Margolies is on the side of the road, an old no-frills Canon camera in hand, waiting for the traffic to pass. Then, standing in the middle of Illinois 32, at 91st Street, quickly, efficiently, click, click, click. Back in the car and onward. "I published a picture of the Keno in The New York Times in 1978," he says. "What a surprise that it would still be here!" Since the mid-1970s, Margolies has been photographing a dying America. Roadside attractions, drive-ins (movies and restaurants), old gas stations, movie palaces, Main Streets, beauty shops. But please don't call it kitsch, schlock or even nostalgia. Rather, he is an expert on roadside architecture. A commercial archeologist. A cultural populist. A chronicler of the amazing all-American culture of the automobile and what it wrought on the national landscape. As we move along the highway, going exactly the speed limit -- "Anyone who passes me is speeding" -- Margolies describes his career, his passion. "If you look back at your life and think of the great, important moments, those are fine. Maybe they're 2 percent of your life or 1 percent. And I'm interested in the other 97 or 98." So much for the meaning of life, the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a glance at Redwoods or the first sight of a rainbow. We're not talking life-altering events here. "I think what we do in our everyday experience and with our everyday lives is the most important thing of all, and it's what defines our culture," he says. "What I take pictures of are the commercial aspects of that culture. The stores we go to. The movie theaters we go to." It is not cheap, either moneywise or on the psyche, to set out in a car for weeks at a time looking for these cultural signposts. In fact, Margolies has been stuck at home since 1996 because he didn't have the $200 or so a day it takes to pursue his passion on the road. A fellowship from the Washington-based Alicia Patterson Foundation has enabled him to get back behind the wheel. And the recent trip to the Midwest that started with that left turn at Lake Michigan has him almost giddy. "This has reaffirmed my faith in America," he rhapsodizes at the end of his trip, just before returning home to New York City. "Seeing those beautiful small towns in Illinois and Iowa. They're so dignified. They're not glamorous. They're stately and graceful and solid with their big courthouses surrounded by turn-of-the-century buildings." A man of many words Margolies is prolific. He has written 10 books. He also lectures, exhibits, teaches and is a major presence in the History Channel's "Hit the Road Week" series that begins July 14. He also is eccentric. "I'm addicted to Chap Stick," he says, which he always keeps in the same pocket of his tan Safari-style shirt of many pockets. Similarly, he is addicted to breath spray, which he also keeps in a specific pocket. His manner is direct -- OK, he's blunt -- and he admits that he does not travel well with others. He once -- once! -- set out with a companion. "She lasted five days. And took a bus back from Centerville, Ind. Because, when I travel it's me, me and ME!" This might explain why a single day traveling with Margolies is at once stimulating, overwhelming and, to put it nicely, enough of a good thing. "I'm so over-organized, it's amazing." You can say that again. "I have a whole windshield cleaning formula," he points out, including a preferred brand of extra absorbent paper towels (Viva). The route he covers is scrupulously marked on a map each evening, with his overnight stays noted in black Magic Marker. He always remakes the motel bed. "I like tightly tucked-in beds." And he asks for extra pillows so he can pick the one that most closely meets his exacting snooze standard. He always uses identical, pocket-size lined notebooks, one page per photo he takes. "I'm a compulsive fool," he says more than once, barely pausing to change the subject, which he does, frequently. For instance, "I really wonder if photography is an art." Or, "Wendy's have the best plastic silverware. It's important to know this stuff. Well, somebody has to know." Or, on his rental car, preferably a Cadillac, "The distance between my head and the top of the car is in direct proportion to my sanity. Don't ask me why." OK. Won't Margolies, 63, does not own a car. Paper chase He does, however, own an enormous collection of old post cards, travel brochures and the like. They appear throughout the pages of his books that cover topics that include Catskill resorts, miniature golf, tourist attractions, the travel brochure, motels, movie theaters and the American road map. He also maintains a comprehensive Web site, JohnMargolies.com In many ways, despite the compulsions, Margolies is an ideal traveling companion for those accustomed to traveling with surly males who are in a hurry to get where they're going. Two examples: A prodigious coffee drinker himself, Margolies is always delighted to pull into McDonald's for a bathroom pit stop. (He knows that he will have to wipe his wet hands on his blue jeans; they only have those annoying hot air dryers that take forever.) And he enthusiastically brakes for antique shops. One of the things that Margolies is particularly fanatic about is the weather -- as it relates to the light. "I'm totally weather dependent. I look at the satellite [on the weather channel] early in the morning." That determines his itinerary for the day. On a good day, he insists on getting on the road exactly a half-hour after sunrise because he cherishes the early morning light and lack of traffic for his photos. "I went way out of my way in 1980 to get back to Tifton, Georgia, to take a picture of the Tift (theater). . . . I knew it was there," but he had passed it by on his previous trip there "because it was facing in the wrong direction." Margolies is adamant on this point. He won't stop at a great building or attraction if the light is bad. And, he will not photograph a building if the facade is obscured by parked cars. "Cars are temporal elements. I want my pictures to be iconic," he says. He cherishes Sundays and holidays, not like the rest of us to goof off. They are essential to his oeuvre because they're sparse traffic days with fewer cars to have to work around. "I'm a picture-taking machine," he says in one breath. But the machine does not work in poor light. "I'd shoot that if the sun was out," he says, driving by the Nu Glo Drive-In Cleaners sign in Zion. "Of the 100,000 slides I have of 15,000 things, they all have visual consistency. They all jump out at you. It's a consistent visual record. Of what they are -- with no cars, no people." On the Springfield, Ill., leg of his recent 3,500-mile, 17-day swing through Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, Margolies traveled for part of a day with Mike Jackson, chief architect with the preservation services division of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. Jackson describes Margolies as a "hybrid" -- not strictly an architectural historian or a photographer. He credits him with a "keen eye" and a "strong aesthetic sense of how his photographic images are to be presented. He's meticulous about it." "I watched him picking up cigarette butts. . . . Slightly manipulating the real world to get a more precise image. He didn't want the white specks in the grayness of the asphalt," says Jackson. But that's nothing. Margolies says that in Sigourney, Iowa, he stopped in front of the newspaper building, where "the gutters were filled with cigarette butts and leaves and crud. I don't want them in my pictures. I asked the editor in chief, or the owner of the newspaper, if he had a broom and a trash can, and I started cleaning up." In the earlier days he wouldn't ask people to move their cars and would just drive on to the next serendipitous discovery. But, now he does ask, with an explanation that "I have down to 25 words or less. `I'm here on a grant from a journalistic foundation in Washington, D. C. . . . '" Only a few motorists won't budge. Jackson finds it intriguing that Margolies is chronicling "an automobile landscape without automobiles in them." As we journeyed north toward Milwaukee -- we never actually got there -- Margolies found himself getting more and more enthusiastic. The Keno drive-in theater was a thrill. He comes to a quick halt at what appears to be an old bandstand in Zion and is beside himself with joy to discover it is actually the preserved dome of the old Zion Hotel (1902-1979). Click, click, click. Back in the car, "I like that they saved the dome and put it in the middle of the town. I've got to find a postcard of it." Then, reflecting for only a moment, "I love that. I'd prefer that it was on the hotel and the hotel was still standing." By the end of the day, he's covered exactly 186 miles -- you will not find it shocking that he keeps scrupulously detailed records. Since he started his project some 30 years ago, he's driven some 100,000 miles. "It's fun. But it's work." "I do have a goal in life: to go everywhere, to see everything," he says. "Nearly nothing I shot 25 years ago still exists," he says. "I'm the architectural undertaker. The bulldozer comes through just after I'm here." "The concept of diminishing returns defines what I'm doing," he says. In part, this is why Margolies also is photographing the modern landscape. He jubilates after taking a photo of "quite a handsome Circuit City" on Touhy Avenue that he's found just down the street from the Days Inn where he's staying in Niles. That's also just down the street from the half-size version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, built in 1934 to hide a water tower inside. He photographs that too. One of Margolies most ongoing concerns -- he calls himself "a basket case" after every trip -- is that his photos won't turn out. This has never happened. Not once. But he still worries, obsessively. On this trip, he took 60 rolls, and he had his cab driver take him from the New York City airport to the film lab to drop them off. Twenty-four hours later, Margolies is on the phone, leaving a message on the voice mail. "This is Johnny. I have all my pictures back. And they came out. Hooray." Click. A world according to Margolies "Wendy's has the best plastic silverware. It's important to know this stuff. Well, somebody has to know." "The distance between my head and the top (roof) of the car is in direct proportion to my sanity. Don't ask me why." "I have a whole windshield cleaning formula," which includes Viva towels. "I'm addicted to Chap Stick," he says, which, when on the road, he always keeps in the same pocket of his tan Safari-style shirt of many pockets. He says he is also addicted to breath spray. Copyright (c) 2003, Chicago Tribune

John Margolies has been writing about and photographing roadside America for over 20 years. I highly recommend any of his books.

The Chicago Tribune had an article on him today. Too bad they focused on his quirks and obesessive behavior. The guy should get a medal for caring about roadside architecture before most of us noticed it was being destroyed.

Oh, also check out his web site for info on books, etc.
http://www.johnmargolies.com

Road worrier

Behind the wheel, photographer-writer John Margolies compulsively chronicles the architectural aspects of a dying America and obsesses about it from dawn to darkroom

By Ellen Warren
Tribune senior correspondent

July 8, 2003

KENOSHA -- The fella standing in the middle of the road is jazzed. He's psyched. He is, at last, happy.

John Margolies, chronicler of The Road, is back on it. In it, actually, as he takes a photo of the Keno Family Drive-In, a movie theater just over the Illinois line on the outskirts of this Wisconsin town.

When we set out on this day, in search of "what defines our culture," photographer-author Margolies (Mar-go-leeze) has only a vague idea of our itinerary.

"We're going east to the lake and turning left," he says. And we're off, waggling northbound in the direction of Milwaukee by way of . . . who knows?

After a fruitful stop in Zion (more on that later), Margolies is on the side of the road, an old no-frills Canon camera in hand, waiting for the traffic to pass.

Then, standing in the middle of Illinois 32, at 91st Street, quickly, efficiently, click, click, click. Back in the car and onward.

"I published a picture of the Keno in The New York Times in 1978," he says. "What a surprise that it would still be here!"

Since the mid-1970s, Margolies has been photographing a dying America. Roadside attractions, drive-ins (movies and restaurants), old gas stations, movie palaces, Main Streets, beauty shops.

But please don't call it kitsch, schlock or even nostalgia. Rather, he is an expert on roadside architecture. A commercial archeologist. A cultural populist. A chronicler of the amazing all-American culture of the automobile and what it wrought on the national landscape.

As we move along the highway, going exactly the speed limit -- "Anyone who passes me is speeding" -- Margolies describes his career, his passion.

"If you look back at your life and think of the great, important moments, those are fine. Maybe they're 2 percent of your life or 1 percent. And I'm interested in the other 97 or 98."

So much for the meaning of life, the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a glance at Redwoods or the first sight of a rainbow. We're not talking life-altering events here.

"I think what we do in our everyday experience and with our everyday lives is the most important thing of all, and it's what defines our culture," he says.

"What I take pictures of are the commercial aspects of that culture. The stores we go to. The movie theaters we go to."

It is not cheap, either moneywise or on the psyche, to set out in a car for weeks at a time looking for these cultural signposts.

In fact, Margolies has been stuck at home since 1996 because he didn't have the $200 or so a day it takes to pursue his passion on the road.

A fellowship from the Washington-based Alicia Patterson Foundation has enabled him to get back behind the wheel. And the recent trip to the Midwest that started with that left turn at Lake Michigan has him almost giddy.

"This has reaffirmed my faith in America," he rhapsodizes at the end of his trip, just before returning home to New York City.

"Seeing those beautiful small towns in Illinois and Iowa. They're so dignified. They're not glamorous. They're stately and graceful and solid with their big courthouses surrounded by turn-of-the-century buildings."

A man of many words

Margolies is prolific. He has written 10 books. He also lectures, exhibits, teaches and is a major presence in the History Channel's "Hit the Road Week" series that begins July 14.

He also is eccentric.

"I'm addicted to Chap Stick," he says, which he always keeps in the same pocket of his tan Safari-style shirt of many pockets. Similarly, he is addicted to breath spray, which he also keeps in a specific pocket.

His manner is direct -- OK, he's blunt -- and he admits that he does not travel well with others.

He once -- once! -- set out with a companion. "She lasted five days. And took a bus back from Centerville, Ind. Because, when I travel it's me, me and ME!" This might explain why a single day traveling with Margolies is at once stimulating, overwhelming and, to put it nicely, enough of a good thing.

"I'm so over-organized, it's amazing." You can say that again.

"I have a whole windshield cleaning formula," he points out, including a preferred brand of extra absorbent paper towels (Viva).

The route he covers is scrupulously marked on a map each evening, with his overnight stays noted in black Magic Marker.

He always remakes the motel bed. "I like tightly tucked-in beds." And he asks for extra pillows so he can pick the one that most closely meets his exacting snooze standard. He always uses identical, pocket-size lined notebooks, one page per photo he takes.

"I'm a compulsive fool," he says more than once, barely pausing to change the subject, which he does, frequently.

For instance, "I really wonder if photography is an art."

Or, "Wendy's have the best plastic silverware. It's important to know this stuff. Well, somebody has to know."

Or, on his rental car, preferably a Cadillac, "The distance between my head and the top of the car is in direct proportion to my sanity. Don't ask me why."

OK. Won't

Margolies, 63, does not own a car.

Paper chase

He does, however, own an enormous collection of old post cards, travel brochures and the like. They appear throughout the pages of his books that cover topics that include Catskill resorts, miniature golf, tourist attractions, the travel brochure, motels, movie theaters and the American road map. He also maintains a comprehensive Web site, JohnMargolies.com

In many ways, despite the compulsions, Margolies is an ideal traveling companion for those accustomed to traveling with surly males who are in a hurry to get where they're going.

Two examples: A prodigious coffee drinker himself, Margolies is always delighted to pull into McDonald's for a bathroom pit stop. (He knows that he will have to wipe his wet hands on his blue jeans; they only have those annoying hot air dryers that take forever.) And he enthusiastically brakes for antique shops.

One of the things that Margolies is particularly fanatic about is the weather -- as it relates to the light. "I'm totally weather dependent. I look at the satellite [on the weather channel] early in the morning." That determines his itinerary for the day.

On a good day, he insists on getting on the road exactly a half-hour after sunrise because he cherishes the early morning light and lack of traffic for his photos.

"I went way out of my way in 1980 to get back to Tifton, Georgia, to take a picture of the Tift (theater). . . . I knew it was there," but he had passed it by on his previous trip there "because it was facing in the wrong direction."

Margolies is adamant on this point. He won't stop at a great building or attraction if the light is bad. And, he will not photograph a building if the facade is obscured by parked cars.

"Cars are temporal elements. I want my pictures to be iconic," he says.

He cherishes Sundays and holidays, not like the rest of us to goof off. They are essential to his oeuvre because they're sparse traffic days with fewer cars to have to work around.

"I'm a picture-taking machine," he says in one breath. But the machine does not work in poor light.

"I'd shoot that if the sun was out," he says, driving by the Nu Glo Drive-In Cleaners sign in Zion.

"Of the 100,000 slides I have of 15,000 things, they all have visual consistency. They all jump out at you. It's a consistent visual record. Of what they are -- with no cars, no people."

On the Springfield, Ill., leg of his recent 3,500-mile, 17-day swing through Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, Margolies traveled for part of a day with Mike Jackson, chief architect with the preservation services division of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

Jackson describes Margolies as a "hybrid" -- not strictly an architectural historian or a photographer. He credits him with a "keen eye" and a "strong aesthetic sense of how his photographic images are to be presented. He's meticulous about it."

"I watched him picking up cigarette butts. . . . Slightly manipulating the real world to get a more precise image. He didn't want the white specks in the grayness of the asphalt," says Jackson. But that's nothing.

Margolies says that in Sigourney, Iowa, he stopped in front of the newspaper building, where "the gutters were filled with cigarette butts and leaves and crud. I don't want them in my pictures. I asked the editor in chief, or the owner of the newspaper, if he had a broom and a trash can, and I started cleaning up."

In the earlier days he wouldn't ask people to move their cars and would just drive on to the next serendipitous discovery. But, now he does ask, with an explanation that "I have down to 25 words or less. `I'm here on a grant from a journalistic foundation in Washington, D. C. . . . '" Only a few motorists won't budge.

Jackson finds it intriguing that Margolies is chronicling "an automobile landscape without automobiles in them."

As we journeyed north toward Milwaukee -- we never actually got there -- Margolies found himself getting more and more enthusiastic.

The Keno drive-in theater was a thrill. He comes to a quick halt at what appears to be an old bandstand in Zion and is beside himself with joy to discover it is actually the preserved dome of the old Zion Hotel (1902-1979). Click, click, click.

Back in the car, "I like that they saved the dome and put it in the middle of the town. I've got to find a postcard of it." Then, reflecting for only a moment, "I love that. I'd prefer that it was on the hotel and the hotel was still standing."

By the end of the day, he's covered exactly 186 miles -- you will not find it shocking that he keeps scrupulously detailed records. Since he started his project some 30 years ago, he's driven some 100,000 miles. "It's fun. But it's work."

"I do have a goal in life: to go everywhere, to see everything," he says.

"Nearly nothing I shot 25 years ago still exists," he says. "I'm the architectural undertaker. The bulldozer comes through just after I'm here."

"The concept of diminishing returns defines what I'm doing," he says.

In part, this is why Margolies also is photographing the modern landscape.

He jubilates after taking a photo of "quite a handsome Circuit City" on Touhy Avenue that he's found just down the street from the Days Inn where he's staying in Niles. That's also just down the street from the half-size version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, built in 1934 to hide a water tower inside. He photographs that too.

One of Margolies most ongoing concerns -- he calls himself "a basket case" after every trip -- is that his photos won't turn out. This has never happened. Not once. But he still worries, obsessively.

On this trip, he took 60 rolls, and he had his cab driver take him from the New York City airport to the film lab to drop them off.

Twenty-four hours later, Margolies is on the phone, leaving a message on the voice mail.

"This is Johnny. I have all my pictures back. And they came out. Hooray." Click.

A world according to Margolies

"Wendy's has the best plastic silverware. It's important to know this stuff. Well, somebody has to know."
"The distance between my head and the top (roof) of the car is in direct proportion to my sanity. Don't ask me why."
"I have a whole windshield cleaning formula," which includes Viva towels.
"I'm addicted to Chap Stick," he says, which, when on the road, he always keeps in the same pocket of his tan Safari-style shirt of many pockets. He says he is also addicted to breath spray.

Post #42142 by thejab on Tue, Jul 8, 2003 3:56 PM

Road worrier