whaler

Over the years, I've read eight of Richard Powers's novels but had yet to tackle his first, Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, which revolves around this captivating August Sander portrait. It's probably appropriate that I've waited this long to read it now because it seems so much more relevant than anything else I've come across in the last two years. It deals with, among other things, what I want to explore academically: the intersections of photographic portraiture, memory, identity (national and individual). I was drinking some decaf coffee tonight in my favorite whale mug to go along with it. This is boring.