Michael Rababy makes wonderful books. His first one, American Bachelor was a loving look at the messy, complicated, hedonistic, thoughtless/thoughtful lives of young singles at the turn of the 21st century. His latest book, California Love – A Visual Mixtape features him as curator rather than photographer and it’s filled with the work of 110 photographers all looking at the phenomenon that is modern day California. Filled with fresh images and salient quotes from across the literary landscape this is a book to savor slowly.
In his introduction Rababy writes “growing up in lebanon, my father would dream of america. Once he got here, the dream became california. I was born in Ohio and remember hearing about weird and crazy californians. They were mysterious, plastic people far away at the end of the country who ate avacados”. His choices for the book embrace that vision, but a larger one too. The California of emigrant culture, of a hundred subcultures, of California as an exemplar of an aging ideal, a great melting pot, a stew of cultures and people, landscapes and streetscapes, the America of possibility.
The book is subtitled A Visual Mixtape. It is a collection of his personal favorites, the work of friends and colleagues, the images selected with emotion leading concept and they work well together. The quotes interwoven between the pictures illuminate the images by juxtaposition rather than by original intention and that is by design. Rababy has a fine sense for this, pictures reflecting into words and vice versa bringing a bigger picture into focus. Let me leave you with a selection from a poem by Shonda Buchanan that does it nicely:
every beyond baroque board meeting
every beverly hills wilshire attitude or
south central “I got you cuz” embrace.
every leimert park sunday jazz-laced traffic crunch
Every morning clamor of south pasadena
parrots left behind
every dtla gentrification
layered on top of my gritty haunted streets.
every secret bridge, killer workout stairs.
venice beach botox muscle monster
every parking lot chump who takes my space.
every exhaust-filled freeway I wish away.
every 405, 10,110 accident I pray on as I inch past.
every strip mall, every child star, every digital nomad.
every unsheltered human.
every millionare in trader joe’s.
every red carpet neck-craning “I love you denzel” moment.
I will take it.
Andy Romanoff
Photo website www.andyromanoff.com
Writing website https://medium.com/stories-ive-been-meaning-to-tell-you
YouTube Channel YouTube
California Love – A Visual Mixtape
Curated by Michael Rababy
Published by Cali Editions california-love-a-visual-mixtape
Hardcover 10”X10” – 320 pages
608 images by 110 photographers
All proceeds benefit LAACP
for international orders, please visit hennessey and ingalls:
http://www.hennesseyingalls.com/book/9780578763859
and arcana books on the arts:
https://www.arcanabooks.com/catalog/book/I00201201/
