Interview with Populuxe author Thomas Hine

Here's an interview with Thomas Hine about one of my favorite books, Populuxe, and a forthcoming book about the 1970s he wrote called The Great Funk.

In the final paragraphs of Populuxe I talked about how the world had changed and about how I, for one, could not imagine going back to the world I had described in the book. The time when the assumptions of the Populuxe years were truly undone, once and for all, was the decade of the 1970s. And I realized that even though this was a period that was antithetical to the fifties in so many ways—a time of scarcity rather than abundance, fragmentation rather than national unity, personal exploration rather than social progress, corruption rather than trust, defeat rather than victory—it visually interesting and even positive in all sorts of unexpected ways.

I had the idea of a sequel to Populuxe in mind quite soon afterward, but I went on to write five other books instead. Now, after two decades of gestation, I have gone and done it. The Great Funk: Falling Apart and Coming Together (on a Shag Rug) in the Seventies is a real companion to Populuxe, and it has a real family resemblance, in large part because it was designed by Iris Weinstein, who also designed the earlier book. But it reflects its time in that it is less about technology and more about consciousness. It deals a lot with clothes and the body, and thus is PG or even R rated, rather than G.

The title is a play, of course, on the Great Depression, which is one meaning of funk. But funk is also about texture, and rhythm, and a sensuality, which is also an important part of the picture. And it contains some incredible pictures of interiors. I think that those who like Populuxe will be intrigued.

Hine also wrote a wonderful book called The Total Package: The Secret History and Hidden Meanings of Boxes, Bottles, Cans, and Other Persuasive Containers.

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[#1 posted by Scraps , September 11, 2007 4:05 PM]

Hine's facile set of opposites in comparing the 1970s to the 1950s doesn't say much about his powers of historical observation beyond his specialized subject matter. In particular, "personal exploration rather than social progress" is a bizarre comparison, inasmuch as the seventies were a decade of great steps forward for women and for gay rights and were still seeing advancements for racial minorities (before the 1980s began undoing that progress) and didn't feature (say) widescale public political persecution as did the 1950s. Whatever one thinks of the 1970s in comparison to the 1960s, I think very few people would care to argue that the 1950s in America were a time of social progress.

As for "defeat rather than victory", the 1950s was the time of the Korean War and the acceleration of the Cold War. "Corruption rather than trust" would be better rendered as "exposed corruption rather than naive trust". "Fragmentation rather than national unity"? Considering the real message of "national unity" in the 1950s was conformity, I'll take the fragmentation, thanks. "National unity", alas, has been in vogue again for some time.

The legacy of he 1970s, thanks to the birth trough, is forever doomed to be defined in the media by the larger generations that came before and after, and condescended to by both. I suppose I should be grateful that Hine is willing to allow that some aspects of his subject turned out to be "even positive".