Roadside America

I think I was nine when my family traveled across the Great Plains on a Greyhound bus. "Look at that," said my mom at one point, and outside the window I saw I majestic statue of a gigantic cow. We were in New Salem, North Dakota, and the sign said "World's Largest Holstein Cow." It was. I didn't stop giggling 'til Bismarck.

Ever since then I've enjoyed spotting such things - what are they called? Really big three-dimensional attractions? Roadside novelties?

Whatever you call them, I like them. I've seen a steakhouse in Florida with a giant bull pawing outside the front door. And not far from where I went to college in Sarasota stood a Tastee-Freez in the shape of a soft-serve ice-cream-cone. (Florida is a hotspot for roadside novelty spotting.) When I moved to Oregon, I was thrilled to see the dinosaurs of The Prehistoric Gardens, peeking out of the forest south of Port Orford.

No one seems to build anything that monumentally tasteless anymore, so such things are getting hard to find.

That's why I love Roadside America, a big glossy book filled with pictures of big fiberglass things: huge fish sculptures advertising bait shops; cafes whose signs are enormous coffee pots; at least three Italian restaurants, all shaped like leaning campanile, all called the Tower of Pizza.

Roadside America is a treasury of playful American kitsch, and I really enjoyed it. I spent a lot of time leafing through its pages, admiring the hubcap shops and fireworks stands, and remembering all the weird things I've seen.

Archipelago

Tucked away in the nonfiction section of the Newport Library is Archipelago: Portraits of Life in the World's Most Remote Island Sanctuary, by David Liittschwager and Susan Middleton. It is one of the library's loveliest books.

The Hawaiian Archipelago comprises several islands that extend northwest of what we generally think of as Hawaii. In 2000 President Clinton created the NWHI Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, an enormous (over 130,000 square miles) area that is now almost entirely off-limits to people. The reserve encompasses islands, reefs, shoals, and open ocean, and is populated by corals, albatrosses, seals, turtles, and thousands of species of fish. Photographers Liittschwager and Middleton joined a team of biologists studying the ecology of the reserve, and produced this amazing book.

In many of the pictures, the photographers collected live specimens, placed them in specially-constructed lightboxes (often equipped with aquarium tanks), and snapped portraits against the light. The results are magnificent.


The authors also catalog the damage done to the islands, which, in spite of their remote nature and protected status, are polluted with tons of plastic garbage, brought in on ocean currents to litter the beaches.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. If you are interested in wildlife, environmentalism, or photography, reserve Archipelago today.