Bodie: Good Times & Bad - Softcover

Clapp, Nicholas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1941384269 ISBN 13: 9781941384268

Publisher: Sunbelt Pubns, 2017

Synopsis

Experience the history of Bodie State Historic Park, just east of Yosemite National Park. Author Nicholas Clapp and photographer Will Furman portray Bodie in both vivid words and stunning photography a town that had two sides, aptly described in an 1870s account... On the eve of her family's departure for booming Bodie, a little girl was said to have gathered her dolls, that they might join her as she knelt by her bed, her prayer concluding with a somber... 'Goodbye, God; we are going to Bodie!' Word was that the camp was hard-bitten, desperado-ridden. Getting wind of the girl's farewell to the Almighty, The Weekly Bodie Standard reported that, oh no, that wasn't what the she had mind. Not at all. Someone had gotten the punctuation wrong. What she surely said was... Good, by God, we are going to Bodie! There were, in fact, two Bodies. On one hand, it was a fearfully and wonderfully bad place stalked by shootist in black swallow-tailed coats. On the other hand, it was a town of hard-working pioneers who dressed their little girls in starched white frocks and met adversity with charity and good cheer. As he passed through, Mark Twain mused that in Bodie virtue versus vice made for exciting times, and he'd have it no other way. He was to add, 'It was a plain wonder how man carried on under such circumstances.'

About this title

About the Author

NICHOLAS CLAPP has explored and written about the deserts of the world. In Arabia, he led an expedition that discovered the lost city of Ubar, celebrated in the Bible and the Arabian Nights. Closer to home, he has roamed the deserts of the American West - in the footsteps of the likes of his grandfather Daniel, a miner, and his great uncle George, proprietor of a minstrel show touring Western mining camps. It was only natural then, that Nick was drawn to recount the life and times - be they good, be they bad - of iconic Bodie. WILL FURMAN is a photographer with a distinct eye for the serenity and magic of nature - and for echoes of the Old West. He has pioneered what he describes as Inside-Out, a single image technique that utilizes both the reflectivity and translucency of windows to create a single image with multiple planes. The result conjures a Bodie that was, haunting and evocative. 'When we visit historic places,' Will asks with his work, 'what it was like to live back then? If we could return to yesteryear, if only for a while, what would it feel like?'

Edition details

• Publisher: Sunbelt Pubns
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1941384269
• ISBN 13: 9781941384268
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 112