Two street chefs preparing tacos.
 

Anthropologist Johan Pottier once wrote that food is “the most powerful instrument for expressing and shaping interactions between humans.” We like food documentation of different kinds because it helps us contemplate these human interactions. And as a bonus, the documentation itself can be a straight-out pleasure – stimulating, exciting, inspiring. Most recently we came across the work of Penny De Los Santos, who says she explores and celebrates culture, history and community through the lens of food. We have created a gallery of De Los Santos’ work, lifted from Bright Sky Press’ beautiful cookbook Hugo Ortega’s Street Food of Mexico. ¡Buen provecho!

Robert Frank’s The Americans

We got our hands on a copy of the Steidl 2008 re-issue of Robert Frank’s classic photo portrait of post-war USA, and we give you This, Upon Reading The Americans.

Consciousness produced by intoxicants and anaesthetics

“I realized that in that half hour under ether I had served God more distinctly and purely than I had ever done in my life before, or than I am capable of desiring to do.”

More …

Abstract Leanings

With a distinct bouquet of gasoline fumes and burnt rubber, these Robt. Williams’ automobile related oil paintings will chase you down like ethnographic hallucinations, vibrantly artistic, generously fantastic.

Wrestling Cholitas of Bolivia

We have put together a gallery with some of photographer Patricio Crooker’s images from the Bolivian Lucha Libre scene. Yes, you read that correctly … Bolivian Lucha Libre!

 

Gallery: Satan’s Angel

We’ve put together a gallery of titillating visuals from the life of burlesque star Satan’s Angel.

(Also, don’t miss our 2008 interview with Miss Angel.)

What else?

Have you got some good stuff you think American Eth­no­gra­phy Quasi­monthly should cover? Please send us an email and tell us about it!

Proposal to perfume within your region

“It is my wish to book with you for a group of 10 students coming from Germany, as they are preparing for their contracted proposal to perfume within your region.”

More on our feedback page.

 

Photo:Juliana Beasley

“It is the anonymous nature of the lapdance that allows for such closeness between strangers. The lapdance becomes a metaphor for this human contradiction: the deep desire for intimacy, yet the simultaneous fear of it.”

Photographer Juliana Beasley worked eight years as a professional nude dancer, using her camera to document the clubs she worked in, her co-workers, and the customers.

Here are some of her photos.

What’s all this, then?
Black and white pen drawing of car interior with chain steering wheel.

American Ethnography is a stranger in a 1972 Riviera, sunburst yellow banged up and dirty, raving coffee madness cruising Main Street of the quiet desert town at 15 miles an hour …”

 
Record sleeve art: Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker Bird and Diz

Today we’re digging Bird and Diz by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.

amazon | iTunes


 
  • American Ethnography Quasimonthly is published by the Intercontinental Institute for Awesome Anthropology and Ethnographic Excellence
  • © 2010, 2011, 2012