Look Away Look Away

I was really unreasonable about the Whitney's Eggleston retrospective (ultimately, a fine show). I was critical of each subset of images, felt each gesture on the part of curators signalled a kind of misinformed Dixie Orientalism. The photographs themselves, the artist (if not the man) are so important to me, the subjects are so much of my own home and experience, that I am intolerant of any meddling "outsiders." I call Memphis an Orient all of the live long day, but, for some reason, I get suspicious when non-Memphian others jump on the bandwagon.

Originally, I became prickly when I read the catalogue. The first essay, written by some German or other, refers to Egg's Delta seat of Sumner, Mississippi as a town of "the Bayou." There are bayous in Mississippi, but Sumner is part of what we call the Delta. The Bayou (note the capital letters) describes a region at the base of the river, primarily Louisiana. As I type this, I find that it sounds sort of petty, but it's a blaring mistake, a bit like treating contemporary Austria and Hungary interchangeably. I took it as a sign that the builders of this show knew little of where they spoke. The author, with the simple misuse of a moniker, errantly summons so much foolish Hollywood camp--Spanish moss, swamp things, voodoo, bad accents.

Of course, there are many so-called "outsiders" who have a gift for the Southern in text, in song, in film, in conversation and kindness. And there are "outsiders" who get it wrong, but with only the best intentions and brilliant results. Such a one is Kurt Weill. "The Alabama Song" from Bertold Brecht's 1927 songspiel, Mahagonny, revels in the exoticism of the placename, four syllables of Amercan Indians and jazz and whatever else these Weimar socialists imagined. Enjoy this ode on the great "Asia" of these United States (and Lotte too)--