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Author: Nathan Marsak
Publisher: Schiffer Pub Limited
Published: 2002
Total Pages: 175
ISBN-13: 9780764315428
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Take a neon-lit journey through the boulevards and back streets of this sprawling California metropolis, past and present. Over 350 dynamic color photographs, vintage postcards, and rare images create an eye-popping panorama of blazing neon lights and vivid signage that evolved along with the city.
Author: J. Eric Lynxwiler
Publisher:
Published: 2016-12-22
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 9780997825114
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Neon isn't native to Los Angeles, but it's difficult to picture the city without it. Every aspect of our lives has been spelled out in neon tubes across the United States, but Los Angeles is the king of that advertising glow. No other landscape could match its sheer quantity of signs in this city that grew up with the automobile. This latest exhibit from Photo Friends and the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection celebrates the city's long and bright history with this unique type of illumination. Here is Los Angeles, City of Neon.
Author:
Publisher:
Published: 2016
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781626400269
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Spectacular Illumination: Neon Los Angeles, 1925-1965 is a spectacular collection of vintage photography that showcases the glowing neon heritage of the City of Angels. More than 200 images fill its pages. L.A. has long been recognized as the most vibrant city in America, and part of its radiance comes from streets lined with neon signs during the Golden Age of neon from 1925 to 1965. Photographer and historian Tom Zimmerman shows images that depict, in both color and in black-and-white, what Raymond Chandler, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and countless other writers have tried to put into words. Spectacular Illumination tells a story of a city that has glowed, now glows, and, thanks to institutions such as the Museum of Neon Art, will glow forever. Author Tom Zimmerman is a native of Los Angeles and shares a birthday with the city. His prose has been published in Southern California Quarterly, California History, and Los Angeles Times Magazine. His photography has appeared in many magazines and newspapers, as well as in several books on Los Angeles history and architecture. Tom Zimmerman is often called upon to photograph significant buildings for permanent historic recordation. A catalog of his dramatic photographic series Neon Noir was published by the Museum of Neon Art, where it was first exhibited. His photos have been exhibited across the country and are in several permanent collections including the Library of Congress, California State Library, and the Los Angeles Public Library. Three books of his photographs have been published: A Day in the Season of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Wednesday at the Pier, and Downtown in Detail. He has also written three historical books. Light and Illusion: The Hollywood Portraits of Ray Jones; Paradise Promoted: The Selling of Los Angeles 1870-1930; and El Camino Real: Highway 101 and the Route of the Daylight.
Author: Dydia DeLyser
Publisher:
Published: 2021-02-19
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 9781736477601
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A brief history of luminous tubing, neon signs, neon art, and neon preservation.
Author: Hermione Hoby
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2018-01-09
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 1936787768
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice "A radiant first novel. . . . [Neon in Daylight] has antecedents in the great novels of the 1970s: Renata Adler’s Speedboat, Elizabeth Hardwick’s Sleepless Nights, Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays. . . . Precision—of observation, of language—is Hoby’s gift. Her sentences are sleek and tailored. Language molds snugly to thought." —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "What do you get when a writer of extreme intelligence, insight, style and beauty chronicles the lives of self–absorbed hedonists—The Great Gatsby, Bright Lights, Big City, and now Neon in Daylight. Hermione Hoby paints a garish world that drew me in and held me spellbound. She is a marvel."" —Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth New York City in 2012, the sweltering summer before Hurricane Sandy hits. Kate, a young woman newly arrived from England, is staying in a Manhattan apartment while she tries to figure out her future. She has two unfortunate responsibilities during her time in America: to make regular Skype calls to her miserable boyfriend back home, and to cat–sit an indifferent feline named Joni Mitchell. The city has other plans for her. In New York's parks and bodegas, its galleries and performance spaces, its bars and clubs crowded with bodies, Kate encounters two strangers who will transform her stay: Bill, a charismatic but embittered writer made famous by the movie version of his only novel; and Inez, his daughter, a recent high school graduate who supplements her Bushwick cafe salary by enacting the fantasies of men she meets on Craigslist. Unmoored from her old life, Kate falls into an infatuation with both of them. Set in a heatwave that feels like it will never break, Neon In Daylight marries deep intelligence with captivating characters to offer us a joyful, unflinching exploration of desire, solitude, and the thin line between life and art.
Author: Jason Horton
Publisher: America Through Time
Published: 2020-09-28
Total Pages: 96
ISBN-13: 9781634992558
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Christoph Ribbat
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Published: 2013-07-15
Total Pages: 226
ISBN-13: 178023127X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Without neon, Las Vegas might still be a sleepy desert town in Nevada and Times Square merely another busy intersection in New York City. Transformed by the installation of these brightly colored signs, these destinations are now world-famous, representing the vibrant heart of popular culture. But for some, neon lighting represents the worst of commercialism. Energized by the conflicting love and hatred people have for neon, Flickering Light explores its technological and intellectual history, from the discovery of the noble gas in late nineteenth-century London to its fading popularity today. Christoph Ribbat follows writers, artists, and musicians—from cultural critic Theodor Adorno, British rock band the Verve, and artist Tracey Emin to Vladimir Nabokov, Langston Hughes, and American country singers—through the neon cities in Europe, America, and Asia, demonstrating how they turned these blinking lights and letters into metaphors of the modern era. He examines how gifted craftsmen carefully sculpted neon advertisements, introducing elegance to modern metropolises during neon’s heyday between the wars followed by its subsequent popularity in Las Vegas during the 1950s and '60s. Ribbat ends with a melancholy discussion of neon’s decline, describing how these glowing signs and installations came to be seen as dated and characteristic of run-down neighborhoods. From elaborate neon lighting displays to neglected diner signs with unlit letters, Flickering Light tells the engrossing story of how a glowing tube of gas took over the world—and faded almost as quickly as it arrived.
Author: John Barnes
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Published: 2020-03-03
Total Pages: 439
ISBN-13: 1423654080
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Take to the road to discover the history and artistry of North America’s disappearing neon signs. Neon Road Trip chronicles the history of the commercial neon sign with a curated collection of photographs capturing the most colorful and iconic neon still surviving today. The vivid photographs are arranged according to the signs' imagery, with sections such as Spirit of the West, On the Road, Now That’s Entertainment, and Ladies, Diving Girls & Mermaids. Sixteen of the most iconic landmark signs include brief histories on how that unique sign came to be. A resource section includes a photography index by location and a Neon Museums Visitor’s Guide. John Barnes studied art, graphic design, sculpture and photography, earning a BFA degree in documentary photography from the University of Delaware 1984. He worked as a commercial advertising photographer for over fifteen years both on the east coast and in San Francisco, and has been a fine art photographer for the last 30 years. He recently spent the last two years traveling around the United States and Canada photographing iconic neon signs. John resides in Seattle but spends most of his time traveling taking photographs.
Author: Sheila Swan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2024-05-07
Total Pages: 146
ISBN-13: 151078117X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Nevada’s iconic art form comes to life. Sheila Swan and Peter Laufer take readers on a journey, not only along the Las Vegas Strip, but down quiet, two-lane rural roads punctuated by neon signs—those glistening beacons that represent commerce in the vast Great Basin. The photographers’ stunning work captures the argon violets, krypton purples, helium golds, and xenon blues that glow amid the nighttime desert sky. Readers will discover that neon is not just a medium for casino advertising. The colorful images of cowboys and cowgirls, animals, desert landscapes, and a myriad of other creative designs all illuminate Americana. The neon sign helps define Nevada and its businesses, from bars and casinos to the stores, restaurants, motels, and theaters that line the streets of the Silver State’s cities and towns, and those rural areas that are barely a blip on the map. With a compelling blend of striking full-color photographs and fascinating historical commentary, this book celebrates an art form that wholly embraces the state’s unique personality. First published in 1994, this newly updated and expanded edition of Neon Nevada explores the resurgence of this art form during the last decade, which has resulted in an appreciation of Nevada neon that will never fade. This survey of neon casts the new edition as a defining source for neon scholars and attracts neon aficionados to what can only be defined as a medium as distinctive and interesting as Nevada itself.
Author: William Brevda
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Published: 2011-05-16
Total Pages: 435
ISBN-13: 1611480434
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book is a study of signs in American literature and culture. It is mainly about electric signs, but also deals with non-electric signs and related phenomena, such as movie sets. The 'sign' is considered in both the architectural and semiotic senses of the word. It is argued that the drama and spectacle of the electric sign called attention to the semiotic implications of the 'sign.' In fiction, poetry, and commentary, the electric SIGN became a 'sign' of manifold meanings that this book explores: a sign of the city, a sign of America, a sign of the twentieth century, a sign of modernism, a sign of postmodernism, a sign of noir, a sign of naturalism, a sign of the beats, a sign of signs systems (the Bible to Broadway), a sign of tropes (the Great White way to the neon jungle), a sign of the writers themselves, a sign of the sign itself. If Moby Dick is the great American novel, then it is also the great American novel about signs, as the prologue maintains. The chapters that follow demonstrate that the sign is indeed a 'sign' of American literature. After the electric sign was invented, it influenced Stephen Crane to become a nightlight impressionist and Theodore Dreiser to make the 'fire sign' his metaphor for the city. An actual Broadway sign might have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. In Manhattan Transfer and U.S.A., John Dos Passos portrayed America as just a spectacular sign. William Faulkner's electric signs are full of sound and fury signifying modernity. The Last Tycoon was a sign of Fitzgerald's decline. The signs of noir can be traced to Poe's 'The Man of the Crowd.' Absence flickers in the neons of Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. The death of God haunts the neon wilderness of Nelson Algren. Hitler's 'empire' was an non-intentional parody of Nathanael West's California. The beats reinvented Times Square in their own image. Jack Kerouac's search for the center of Saturday night was a quest for transcendence. This book will interest readers who want to learn more about the city, the history of advertising, electric lighting, nightlife, architecture, and semiotics. In contrast to other cultural studies, however, Signs of the Signs is primarily a work of literary criticism. Lovers of literary light will appreciate this book the most.
