All Meat Looks Like South America The World of Bruce McCall

Part I Child of the Zeitgeist Bicker one can about his inability to draw a convincing dog, his overdependence on "funny" names, his effrontery in presuming to place another dump-truck-load of hackwork between covers; that the creator of the following body of work could get anything done at all during the period represented herein is perhaps the real triumph to be celebrated in this book. The events of the tumultuous period between 1935 and 2002 "could fill 67 fat almanacs and an encyclopedia," observed Will Durant, or William Crapo Durant, at any rate one of the Durants, maybe Ariel for all we now know. But consider: the Glassboro Summit, Princess Margaret's wedding, Newfoundland's entry into Confederation, Corfam, Judy Garland's comeback, the Studebaker-Packard merger, Expo 67, the 1968 San Antonio World's Fair, ad infinitum-each of us has his or her own such list, albeit probably not as lengthy nor as comprehensive as his, for he was further distracted by events-the Belgian waffle riots of the immediate postwar period, the launch of the first naphtha-powered submarine-that never actually happened. As if these were not distraction enough for any artist or school of artists, there was all the while the shoe-store job. There were the family feuds, the bouts of catatonia, the long walks. He even did his own washing and ironing, save of course for the Utrecht years. And yet, and yet, the work kept coming and keeps coming still. Rushed, fragmented, as often wobbly of aim as it is woozy of execution, to be sure, as if he were painting with the one hand while pasting another clipping into his Dionne Quintuplets scrapbook with the other. And withal, seemingly not a trace of profundity from first page to last, only the relentless har-har-har of the born vulgarian. We would submit that less could hardly be said of any other book of its time. Mel's Miracle Mile Bowl-O-Rama Nazareth, Pennsylvania, 1972 Statues of the Four Unknown Bowlers, each on the verge of ecstatic release; a vast domed interior; a single towering entrance; a steep bank of steps serving to expose and separate out the weak and infirm: this citadel of pure athleticism is Speer at his most visionary-and least practical. "All's we wanted was a roofing job and a new sign," huffed vexed Bowl-O-Rama proprietor Mel, "and this nut in a trench coat comes up with a Taj Mahal!" Speer later tried selling the same plans-Unknown Bowlers converted to Unknown Carpet Layers-to the House of Shag down the way, but again without success. The Lost Sketchbooks of Albert Speer After Hitler's official architect, Albert Speer, left Spandau prison in 1966, he had big plans to rebuild his career on the other side of the Atlantic. Sprung from Spandau prison in 1966 after 20 years with little more to his name than a 50-deutsche-mark bill and a new ankle-length leather raincoat, Albert Speer wasted no time calling in his chits among old rocketeer chums now working for nasa. If they'd help him find architectural work in the United States, he'd burn certain sensitive wartime documents. That the official architect of the Third Reich should be scrabbling to bid on this fast-food outlet or that souvenir stand in the American hinterlands may seem a colossal comedown; Speer saw it as the start of his comeback. Forbidden to practice in a Europe that refused to let bygones be bygones, he meant to glorify even the humblest of projects with his bold and monumental vision. Soon enough, he believed, as evidence of his genius spread, America too would fall for the unique architectural style that had dominated pre-war Germany. This was not to be. Speer's compulsive reliance on the brutish mass, the soaring column, and the mile-wide avenue may have thrilled his megalomaniacal patron Adolf Hitler; applied to a Tulsa shoe store or a Bakersfield Moose lodge, these motifs clashed with the democratic vernacular and were, inMcCall, Bruce is the author of 'All Meat Looks Like South America The World of Bruce McCall', published 2003 under ISBN 9780609608029 and ISBN 0609608029.