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Open All Night
Pub the October 1995 96 in Publisher penguin In the Open All Night. Ken Miller's images and William T. Vollmann's unflinching reportage combine to present an unsettling and to potently authentic document of our time. Imbued with a hyperreal poignancy. Miller's photographs reveal an America peopled by outsiders - skinheads. electroshock patients. addicts. prostitutes - the same people real and imagined. who inhabit the novels of William T. Vollmann. In tandem they present a stark yet human landscape in images and words of a world they both know intimately.
- GenresPhotographyArt
96 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1995
100 people want to read
About the author
William T. Vollmann
100 books1,481 followersWilliam Tanner Vollmann is an American author, journalist, and essayist known for his ambitious and often unconventional literary works. Born on July 28, 1959, in Los Angeles, California, Vollmann has earned a reputation as one of the most prolific and daring writers of his generation.
Vollmann's early life was marked by tragedy; his sister drowned when he was a child, an event that profoundly impacted him and influenced his writing. He attended Deep Springs College, a small, isolated liberal arts college in California, before transferring to Cornell University, where he studied comparative literature. After college, Vollmann spent some time in Afghanistan as a freelance journalist, an experience that would later inform some of his works.
His first novel, You Bright and Risen Angels (1987), is a sprawling, experimental work that blends fantasy, history, and social commentary. This novel set the tone for much of his later work, characterized by its complexity, depth, and a willingness to tackle difficult and controversial subjects.
Vollmann's most acclaimed work is The Rainbow Stories (1989), a collection of interlinked short stories that explore the darker sides of human nature. His nonfiction is equally notable, particularly Rising Up and Rising Down (2003), a seven-volume treatise on violence, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Over the years, Vollmann has continued to write prolifically, producing novels, short stories, essays, and journalistic pieces. His work often delves into themes of violence, poverty, and the struggles of marginalized people. He has received several awards, including the National Book Award for Fiction in 2005 for Europe Central, a novel about the moral dilemmas faced by individuals during World War II.
Vollmann is known for his immersive research methods, often placing himself in dangerous situations to better understand his subjects. Despite his literary success, he remains somewhat of an outsider in the literary world, frequently shunning public appearances and maintaining a low profile.
In addition to his writing, Vollmann is also an accomplished photographer, and his photographs often accompany his written work. Painting is also an art where's working on, celebrating expositions in the United States, showing his paintings. His diverse interests and unflinching approach to his subjects have made him a unique voice in contemporary American literature.
Vollmann's early life was marked by tragedy; his sister drowned when he was a child, an event that profoundly impacted him and influenced his writing. He attended Deep Springs College, a small, isolated liberal arts college in California, before transferring to Cornell University, where he studied comparative literature. After college, Vollmann spent some time in Afghanistan as a freelance journalist, an experience that would later inform some of his works.
His first novel, You Bright and Risen Angels (1987), is a sprawling, experimental work that blends fantasy, history, and social commentary. This novel set the tone for much of his later work, characterized by its complexity, depth, and a willingness to tackle difficult and controversial subjects.
Vollmann's most acclaimed work is The Rainbow Stories (1989), a collection of interlinked short stories that explore the darker sides of human nature. His nonfiction is equally notable, particularly Rising Up and Rising Down (2003), a seven-volume treatise on violence, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Over the years, Vollmann has continued to write prolifically, producing novels, short stories, essays, and journalistic pieces. His work often delves into themes of violence, poverty, and the struggles of marginalized people. He has received several awards, including the National Book Award for Fiction in 2005 for Europe Central, a novel about the moral dilemmas faced by individuals during World War II.
Vollmann is known for his immersive research methods, often placing himself in dangerous situations to better understand his subjects. Despite his literary success, he remains somewhat of an outsider in the literary world, frequently shunning public appearances and maintaining a low profile.
In addition to his writing, Vollmann is also an accomplished photographer, and his photographs often accompany his written work. Painting is also an art where's working on, celebrating expositions in the United States, showing his paintings. His diverse interests and unflinching approach to his subjects have made him a unique voice in contemporary American literature.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 5, 2013
Miller is supposed to be really, really good. I’m just not sure at what. Obviously he’s gone round the bazaars in San Fransisco’s underbelly, and cherry picked some pretty respectable down and outs, as far as that goes. What I would do, I would capture the moment in real time: unaffected and natural. What Miller does, he starts staging. This ‘strike a pose’ alleged defiance perhaps confers a sliverette of legitimacy on some of these pot-crack-whore –skin heads, dues ex machina. This I get. But see. If someone has the capacity to faff about around a few hundred takes, then they’re not wasted in extremis, and, not to put too fine a point on it, but if you’re going for ‘unflinching reportage’, then maybe you want them spread and sprawled. A little. You know, for the je ne se quoi of it.
When Miller sees an Asian woman prostitute, Tunnel Vision sets in. The man has obviously seen ‘ Funeral Parade of the Roses’ and this now shall be forever more his Manichean klieg light Pharos. But. Is he hoping no one else has seen it? Banking on it? Slap bang on goes the pancake foundation, the inquisitorial lamp snaps on, whirr up the contrast, and look: its Pita and Osamu again. Over and over and over again. I think there ought to be a plagiarism suit in the making.
For a truly visual experience of the mercurial temperament of ghetto politics and the human form in atrophy, Harmony Korine ( ‘Gummo’) makes for a better Praxiteles.
When Miller sees an Asian woman prostitute, Tunnel Vision sets in. The man has obviously seen ‘ Funeral Parade of the Roses’ and this now shall be forever more his Manichean klieg light Pharos. But. Is he hoping no one else has seen it? Banking on it? Slap bang on goes the pancake foundation, the inquisitorial lamp snaps on, whirr up the contrast, and look: its Pita and Osamu again. Over and over and over again. I think there ought to be a plagiarism suit in the making.
For a truly visual experience of the mercurial temperament of ghetto politics and the human form in atrophy, Harmony Korine ( ‘Gummo’) makes for a better Praxiteles.
Read
May 20, 2017Ken Miller is responsible for introducing William T. Vollmann to the Tenderloin and various assorted portions of the unseen sectors of the world, writing about which would make a small name for Vollmann. Readers of Bill’s fiction will recognize Ken as The Photographer from Butterfly Stories, the sheetrock guy from Thirteen Stories Thirteen Epitaphs, and various and sundry miscellaneous appearances. No Ken, no Bill.
These 45 photographs are each accompanied by a short text drawn from Bill’s earlier works. For a Vollmann reader the photographs become necessary for the slight reminder they provide that much of Bill’s Book, his conceptual continuity, comes straight in off the street, that sometimes the stench is lost in the printing process, sometimes the fantasy which repulses life overtakes the grip on the real (thank the good angels), and sometimes the printed word might be ergänzt not foreshortened, by the photographic word. Such is the case here.
The Preface of Open All Night, the only original piece by Bill published here, is also published in the Vollmann reader, Expelled from Eden, which is, incidentally, dedicated to Ronald Sukenick.
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A recent interview with Ken Miller by Bruno Bayley at vice.com ::
http://www.vice.com/read/an-interview...
VICE: Open All Night is the book that made us want to get in touch with you, but when I found your website I was pretty unsure it was the same Ken Miller. You do a lot of wedding photography now.
Ken: Yeah man. I have to bury that old stuff. Those brides get scared when they see that.
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A number of photos can be discovered by typing “open all night ken miller” into your favorite search engine, and specifying an image search.
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This review brought to you by Geoff’s review of the Vollmann Reader; please read :: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
July 19, 2014
I think it's an excellent book, since I am in there
April 12, 2012
This book is awesome. It is very Diane Arbus-esque examining the underbelly of the Haight Ashbury District of the 1980s. I personally love this book for its documentation of Skinheads in the early 80s (SF Skinz) which was rarely done pre-Geraldo/Oprah.. If you are a collector of subculture you should definitely check out this book and William T. Vollmann's book Rainbow Stories based upon the same groups of people.
August 20, 2009
Miller's pictures speak for themselves. Though Vollmann is a writer I'm coming to like more and more, his text was unnecessary.
December 26, 2021
Ken Miller used his camera as a way to lure me into his apartment in the Haight Ashbury when I was in 9th grade. He asked me my age as we walked to his home. It was plain to anyone with eyes that I was not 18. He was well into his late 20's at the time. I was naive and thought we were just going to see his photos. I had seen him in the neighborhood before and didn't think I was in danger. When we got into his apt, all his roommates were gone. he opened a closet door and in there I saw a nude photograph of a homeless girl I recognized. She was underage. He proceeded to try and kiss me, touch me, and asked me questions about oral sex. I ran out of his house. He is filth who took advantage of children while pretending to be an artist.
November 17, 2024
Libro de fotografías que se lee de un tirón. A la derecha una foto (skins, drogadictos, personas sin hogar, prostitutas, travestis, etc.) y a la izquierda un extracto de la obra de Vollmann que la acompaña muy bien.
Un acercamiento desde lo real y visual a la obra del propio V.
Un acercamiento desde lo real y visual a la obra del propio V.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews