[ back ]
New photo book sheds light on plight of abandoned chairs
(by Kara Krekeler - May 28, 2008)
It happens all the time: I’ll be driving down the street or walking around the neighborhood when I spot a lumpy, faded and generally worn-out couch sitting on the curb, just waiting for the garbage truck to take it away on bulk pick-up day.
Until recently, I hardly gave the discarded furniture a second thought. But earlier this month, I received a copy of 50 Sad Chairs, a new photo book from St. Louisan Bill Keaggy, and suddenly I find myself paying special attention to the moth-eaten recliners on the side of the road.
A former St. Louis Post-Dispatch photo editor, Keaggy has made a name for himself in the book world by producing quirky books that focus on those mundane little things in life that most of us just ignore — if we notice them at all in the first place.
Last year, he published Milk, Eggs, Vodka, a book entirely made up of shopping lists that he had found in parking lots, on street corners, in shopping carts. It’s a fun collection that really makes you wonder about the people who wrote the lists (a list that includes the threat “If you buy more rice, I’ll punch you” really made me curious about that backstory).
It’s also made me reconsider what I put on my own grocery lists. For example, I’m now careful to make sure everything is spelled correctly, lest Keaggy or someone like him finds it lying around somewhere. Because I’m an editor, I hate to think that someone out there thinks I’m a poor speller or sub-par grammarian.
(It should be noted that since the publication of Milk, Eggs, Vodka, my husband has reacted somewhat differently than I did and now picks up misplaced shopping lists every time he spots one.)
So when I received 50 Sad Chairs, my interest was piqued. How could chairs — or any inanimate object for that matter — be sad?
But as I thumbed through Keaggy’s new book, I realized that his photos, and the titles accompanying them, instilled each discarded piece of furniture with its own distinct personality, a feat I never would have thought possible. I even found myself sympathizing with these poor abandoned chairs and couches.
As the title suggests, many of the photos are quite sad, particularly those that show chairs and couches in the most advanced stages of destruction or decomposition; one image of a blue recliner covered by fallen branches is particularly depressing to me, especially as I imagine what it must be like to be not only put out on the curb, but then covered in yard waste. Talk about adding insult to injury!
That said, the book isn’t an entirely depressing photo collection. Through his use of clever titles, Keaggy provides a generous dose of wry humor that saves the book from being too mopey. A photo of a poolside lounge chair sitting alone on a sidewalk, for example, is accompanied by the legend “Worst Vacation Ever.” And somehow it’s hard not to chuckle at “Grandma?,” a photo of a wooden chair with green patterned upholstery that’s been torn to shreds.
My favorite image in the book, however, is of a perfectly good olive green padded chair (probably used in a waiting room at some point) sitting next to a pay phone in the Bevo Mill neighborhood. The title on the facing page reads, “She Never Calls Anymore.” It’s an intriguing image in that this chair doesn’t seem like the rest in the book. This one may have been placed by the pay phone so someone could sit down while waiting for a call; I imagine it was only abandoned after the person either received the call or gave up waiting.
The image is also the most like the grocery lists in Milk, Eggs, Vodka, in that it simply makes me curious about the backstory. And perhaps that’s what Keaggy is trying to do with his books. In any case, I certainly pay a heck of a lot more attention to grocery lists and abandoned furniture now than I did in the past.
For more information about Keaggy and his books, visit www.keaggy.com, which features a link to a website consisting entirely of found shopping lists.
[ back ]
