jankp's Full Review: Gregory Gibson - Hubert's Freaks: The Rare-Book De...
Please consider this passage from Gregory Gibson’s Hubert’s Freaks: The Rare Book Dealer, The Times Square Dealer, And The Lost Photos Of Diane (dee-AN) Arbus:
Somewhere in Graham and Beard’s wonderful Eyelids of Morning, Alistair Gordon talks about how civilized man is disposed to conquer what is wild and dangerous in nature, but that once he has conquered it, he develops a kind of nostalgia for the very things he has just destroyed--”seeking in them qualities to cherish.” Of course Graham was talking about crocodiles on Lake Rudolph in Africa, but the mechanism is quite the same when we consider the Disneyfication of Times Square and the displacement, by proud city fathers, of freaks, f*ggots, drug addicts, and other threatening species.
From this 2008 nonfiction book, I have learned a good deal about the old, weird America as once exemplified by Hubert’s Museum in Times Square, New York City, which closed its doors in 1965. Celebrities like Bob Dylan and Lenny Bruce visited it and, as it turns out, legendary photographer Diane Arbus regularly worked on honing her craft there in the early Sixties, I believe. Perhaps you’ve heard of Arbus. The Nicole Kidman-Robert Downey Jr. movie Fur, which I reviewed some months ago, was inspired quite beautifully by Arbus’ life around the time, I’m guessing, that she frequented Hubert’s. The movie couldn’t replicate the museum unsurprisingly, but from what a rare book dealer, Bob Langmuir, discovered, got authenticated by Arbus’ careful daughter Doon, and shared with Gibson, the photographer really did haunt the dime (then quarter) museum.
The place opened in the 1920s, but hardly in the style or content of a modern, scientific museum and eventually was relegated to the basement of a souvenir shop, then amusement arcade and shooting gallery. There were various, exploitative acts of real and fake freaks (such as a man without an arm, a midget, a Jewish giant, a real split-faced man, a tattooed man), cannibals who really were African-Americans, a black snake dancer, a flea circus, Puerto Rican girl dancers, magicians and more. Gibson describes it all very well. Hubert’s was the only freak show open day and night, the only one in the city, and it became an institution during the Roaring Twenties.
Is This Book Important?
Most of Hubert’s Freaks revolves around Langmuir, a white guy with ADD and paranoia, who became interested in African-American history and bought a trunk of fascinating things from a guy who claimed to be Nigerian royalty. The trunk held the archive of Hubert’s long-forgotten memorabilia, some of which were Arbus photos never seen before. Langmuir is one crazy guy who infers much meaning from several coincidences, such as having the same initials and birthday of Hubert’s black inside talker/pitchman, and realizes that with his dogged effort to sell the photos well (as well as the African-American stuff) that he could write a new chapter about a lost subculture in America. It’s not that he grieved its passing, but that, for one thing, the lost photos by Arbus revealed more of her process and gave her more artistic integrity.
For another thing Langmuir recognized his discovery as similarly exposing the old, weird America as did Harry Smith’s Grammy-winning Anthology of American Folk Music. It also helped that he could potentially sell the twenty-nine (I think) photos for mega-bucks and become known as the Indiana Jones of the old, weird America. Too much of Hubert’s Freaks, unfortunately, follows his coincidental, paranoid-driven adventures in selling his loot to the best buyers and trying to find and buy more. Unless you’re thrilled by the intricacies of assessing goods and selling them, it slows down and drags out the story.
Side stories include Langmuir’s troubled love life, taking care of business at Book Mark with his business partner, and his brief stint in a psycho ward that leads to an interest in Zen as well as Zanaflex. Gibson’s discussion of Arbus’ marriage, career and suicide in 1971 captivated me maybe most, especially learning that she suffered from hepatitis while busily working, but the details and black-n-white photos of Hubert‘s also kept me engaged. The rest of it seemed endless and overwhelming after a while and then it ends abruptly with a reference to an auction in August 2008 of what Gibson describes as the fruits of the collaboration between Diane Arbus and Charlie Lucas (the inside talker/manager of Hubert’s). It’s an unfinished, frustrating ending after impatiently waiting to find out how much they’ll sell for or to who.
People who are savvy art dealers, have ADD and paranoia, or know the horrors of ending a marriage will be more bemused or understanding of the second half of this 263-page book with titled chapters of unknown number and a good bibliography, although the abrupt ending will not be appreciated.
To end I’ll quote Arbus speaking of her process, taken from the book: These are our symptoms and our monuments. I want simply to save them, for what is ceremonious and curious and commonplace will be legendary.
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