Now it occurs to me that, while we’re able to move more and more data around faster and faster, we learn less and less from it, as if this is beside the point. We talk more and more and more, but we have less and less to say.

Will we slow down long enough to learn anything, anymore, in our rush to go faster? Or just keep on yakking on our cell phones as we go 80 mph down a freeway, while hybrid devices spew streams of data at us through the buffeting digital noise pumped out of our automotive entertainment centers? What are we running from?

James Dean is one person who has stopped his car, gotten out, and is seriously looking around him. At people. Our cities, houses. At spaces and how they’re filled, empty lots for sale, dump trucks, hot dog stands, basketball hoops nailed to garage doors. These are his photographs, made on film and printed full-frame. This is our world right now. You may think it too mundane or prosaic. You may not like it. Or you may soon become bored. Maybe you’ll get back in your car, tap the redial key, punch up the volume on another CD. But Mr. Dean and his camera won’t.

Bruce Severy

Dean 's photo calendar 2002

Years are part real, part fantasy; we've taken the cycles of earth, sun and moon, and stuck names and numbers and stories on them. A date is just a date but we gussy them up to suit our fancies. In all of this, what's true?

Consult James R. Dean, who publishes a personal photo calendar each year. His version, the same, only different from year to year, always strikes me as better than any sent by anxious charities, real and scam, and businesses that want us to drop in and spend money. Theirs are general by calculation. Dean's is personal by indefinable choice. Whim, but a little serious and maybe true. I also like Dean's better than the prettier calendars with Ansel Adams photos and the like—gorgeous, certainly, but we know them too well.

Dean's calendar is spiral-bound and punched to hang from the month's picture; certain dates are singled out, same conventional, some cryptic. You might be stimulated to find out. That would be good. All in clear, plain type and in decent but not fancy halftone reproductions of Dean's own b/w photos, captioned usefully but not excessively. Here's how 2002 goes:

January: Golfers, Phoenix, AZ; date, 1/21, MLK Day. February: Peeled Tree, Avon, MN; 2/18, Pres Day; 2/20 I Albright & D Ackles b.; 2/28 Last Call, 1 AM 1991. March: Cut Out Cows, Hwy 371, MN; 3/1 DPDP Commences 1976; 3/2 d.; Ackles d.; 3/9 C Bukowski d. April; Drive Thru Yogurt, Spicer, MN; (tear-out calendar and/or print-order form); 4/1 R Doisneau d; 4/3 Pony Exp started; 4/7 Daylight Savings Time begins; 4/14 R Doisneau b. May: "Back to Bacis", Princeton MN; 5/12 Mother's Day; 5/24 B Dylan b; 5/27 Mem Day. June: Polo RaIph Lauren Outlet, Albertville, MN; 6/16 Father's Day. July: Kaffee Fest Queens, Willmar, MN; 7/26 E Erwitt b. August: "Kid Sampson" Bronc Riding, Mandan, ND; 8/16 C Bukowski b. September: Powwow, United Tribes, Bismarck, ND; 9/1 Labor Day. October: Kiln, Collegeville, MN; 10/14 Columbus Day; 10/27 Daylight Savings ends. November: Barbi and Ken, Grand Forks, ND; 11/5 Election Day; 11/11 Veterans Day; 11/18 I Albright d; 11/28 Thanksgiving Day. December: Winter Wonderland, S. of Avon, MN; 12/4 F Zappa d; 12/21 F Zappa b; 12/25 Christmas Day.

The photos are not exactly as their titles may lead you to expect. The order form gives prices for calendars from 1990 (@ $20) to 2002 (@ $16), and a poster and a book. "Individual archival Gallery Prints of the photographs in all the calendars and the RIMSHOTS! book are available. ..Each...is an 11"x14" gelatin silver print on double-weight fiber-base paper, titled, dated and signed in pencil on the back." The order form adds that the price per print is $300 plus a $3 postage charge and, for MN residents, a 61/2% sales tax. "For more photos check out: www.cloudnet. com/~image".

The back cover of the 2002 calendar has a note about Dean from Bruce Severy, and a brief biography of Dean. "Mr. Dean specializes in non-fictional, black and white photographs of people, places and things."

From GRUMP 79

published informally and occasionally by David Vestal, PO Box 309, Bethlehem CT 06751-0309 • 79th issue • December 2001 • copyright © 2001 by David Vestal • lSSN 1078-1897 • $30 for six issues

PO Box 309
Bethlehem CT 06751-0309
fifty-third issue, July 1997 $30 for six issues

copyright © 1997 by David Vestal
ISSN 1078-1897

This article was reprinted with permission from the author.

Click here to read a review of the 2003 calendar by David Vestal.

Click here to read a review of the 2005 calendar by David Vestal.

Click here to read a review of the 2007 calendar by David Vestal.