Did anyone attend the Bob Dylan show at the Morgan Library last year? They had a lot of notebooks that belonged to him and his influences. Though the works of art that appear in Jubilee City are far more pleasing, the sketches in Joe Andoe's notebook look a lot like the cartoon filled lyric book of Woody Guthrie. A book of Woody's art was published in 2005 under the title, Woody Guthrie Artworks. I suppose the two have a bit in common, both leading the desultory life and soaking in America from the subterranean perspective.
There is a great divergence in their two stories though. Woody created folk classics full of American optimism like, "This Land is Your Land" and "Grand Coulee Dam". Joe's art has a bleak minimal feel to it. His graphics of cars, dogs, even landscapes seem distanced from any other existence than their own. What does this say about Joe Andoe's generation? Or how America has changed since the days of freight-train hopping guitar-wielding hoboes.... I'm not sure. But Joe succeeds in showing us his America, one we have never seen before, and likely will never see again. His sharp and fluid prose illuminates a life of frenzy, self-loathing, self-indulgence, and love... a snapshot of the cocktail behind a life of creativity.
1 comment:
You write very well.
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