Book Review: Gregory Gibson, "Hubert's Freaks"

Cher Marvin,

Thanks again for that Gregory Gibson book. I'm enjoying it very much. Mr Gibson's a good writer, and his subject's fascinating. The story balances on photography's fulcrum, the tipping point between real and ideal, phenomenon and noumenon, existence and essence, medium and message, form and content, expression and intention, hardware and software, it and bit. The Arbus photos, the MacGuffins, are one kind of thing to Bob and another to Doon, and something entirely different to Diane, and another thing to you, me, Bill Barfield and the Davis boys. Are they physical objects that can be authenticated and stamped and sold? Yes. Are they icons that form part of a cultural gestalt? Sure. Are they geometry printed on the viewer's mind like the ink stamped on your hand when you go into a comic-book convention? Certainly. All of the above and more.

Hot stuff.