By Jesse Reklaw
48pp., 5.5x4.2, perfect bound
From the publisher:
"One night while rooting through the recycling bin for magazines, I
found all the confidential Ph.D. applicant files for the biology
department at an Ivy League university from the years 1965-1975.
Stapled to many of the yellowed documents were photographs of the
prospective students. They were treasures! I tore through the folders
and rescued every portrait I could find. I had to have them. Only later
did I realize I had to publish them."
So begins the preface to Jesse Reklaw's Applicant. A priceless
time-bomb of pop culture, Reklaw serves a compelling and secret look
into an impossibly lost era. The book collects photos from the 1970s
paired with accompanying comments from employers and professors. The
results are absurdist, confusing, often hilarious and disturbing.
Applicant provides unique insight into outdated 1970s social
attitudes and ephemera (under one girl's photo: "Weakness: she is a
female, and an attractive, modest one, so is bound to marry"). Much of
the book's appeal however is found in what the book fails to say: the
blank and despondent stares of it's subjects, the outdated fashions and
hairstyles and it's understated text. Equal parts Ann Taintor and Found
Magazine, Applicant is one of those books you read once and then want
to show everyone. In fulfilling Jesse's dream, we've republished this
as a tiny paperback book!
$4.00
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