True West

From New West

If you thought you had no reason to go to New Haven, I've got one for you. And it's not the new Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge over the Quinnipiac--a dull echo of the Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge in Boston. It's the Robert Adams photography show at the Yale University Art Gallery. An absolutely stunning retrospective of Adams' work over four decades. The' black and white photographs, mostly small format, many without people, evoke a West where the subdevelopment and shopping plaza encroach unapologetically on the plains, rivers, and mountains.

From Summer Nights

Even if you lived far from Colorado, Missouri, or Los Angeles, but were a sentient being in the late sixties or seventies, the houses, businesses, and cars--my God, the cars--will bring back that boxy, washed out time. You can see many of the images on the Gallery's website. But for the photo of the supermarket interior with freezer case after freezer case stocked with cans of frozen concentrate, you'll have to page through one of the books on display: What We Bought: The New World, Scenes from the Denver Metropolitan Area, 1970-1974.  I could almost feel the ice crystals on the cardboard.