Caruso and Keller

i think these two need a major critical revival, it is a rather amazing photo.

they both had to learn to speak, they both depended on "corruptions" of english to get them by, they both were heros, examples of american enterprise and so they fell into kitsch quicker then most.

they both are deeply talented (what ever that means)...i think that we do not view them as writers or artists but symbols, and a symbol has no room to breathe...going back to kellers work, she was innovative in the redevolpment of memoir, and caruso, he conflated hi/lo and pop/art in a way that was raw/shiny/new old...

this attempt, to communicate is an attempt to move behind fame and to make them just humans...but that cant happen, cause there will always be another intercessor (translator in the way of anne sullivan, of course, but also camera mam, audience, etc)

maybe the power is the absence of translator/intercessor ?

I think something that's important maybe is that Hellen Keller isn't (as) aware of the camera as anybody else would be: she hears the shutter, know there's a photographer present, of course, but doesn't have the camera in her range of vision: when we look at her touching Caruso's face, we're seeing something more unaffected than the camera can usually give us outside of a spycam or something which is a whole different issue with way more authorial difficulty.

I wonder if Caruso has his hat off out of general decorum (there's a lady present) or to afford Helen Keller greater tactile access - I think the latter possibility is so raw and wonderful.

(anthony when I saw that somebody besides me had finally responded to this picture it did my heart such good, and then when I saw that it was you, well, that was even better: I love you to bits, a., you're a good egg)

the other thing that is doing it for is the pure formalism of the photo, the radical foregroundnig, how nothing is extranous, the subtle gradations of colour...

Who is the photographer?

At the deaf social services agency I used to work for, they had a letter that had been sent to them from Keller; i used to enjoy looking at her signature. As I recall, her handwriting was not unlike Emily Dickinson's.

i dont know what ed's handwriting looks like.

This is not the best example, or rather, it's not an example of the blocky style that I saw on display once, which is what Keller's handwriting was like. But here ya go:

http://www.sfu.ca/~okeefe/manuscript.gif

i wish my handwriting looked like that.