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Published in April by Princeton Architectural Press, LaPorte, Indiana has already brought a number of people together. The book is the brainchild of Jason Bitner, one of the creators of Found magazine and its naughty spin-off, Dirty Found. (Found celebrates the release of Found II: More of the Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items From Around the World Friday, June 2, at Intuit.) Both magazines are collections of lost or discarded notes, letters, Polaroids, to-do lists, homework, birthday cards, doodles on napkins, you name it. Bitner is a professional finder, and in July 2003 he happened upon what may be the find of his life. He was on his way from Chicago to the La Porte County fair when he and a friend stopped for a bite at B & J’s American Cafe, a diner on the main drag of the county seat. In its back room, jammed onto two tall stacks of industrial shelving, were box upon box of old photographs, proofs, and negatives.
The La Porte volume is warmer in tone and more conceptually consistent than the Found books, whose sense of slice-of-life discovery is served with a sometimes unsettling dose of voyeuristic glee. Essentially text free, save for Bitner’s introduction and a foreword by Alex Kotlowitz, LaPorte, Indiana is a rich anthology of midcentury hairdos and eyewear, page after page of citizens young and old, dressed for posterity and doing their darnedest to relax. Pease had operated Muralcraft with his wife, Gladys, who hand-colored prints, ran the office, greeted clients, and helped them with their hair and makeup. Pat Orzech remembers being really nervous before her graduation photo, but “Gladys and Frank put you at ease,” she says. And though the photos themselves are undistinguished–all have the same neutral background, the same unsurprising poses–collectively they convey a lost moment in time.
Tom Rogers, who grew up in La Porte and had returned for his father’s birthday, popped in. As the news director at WILL AM radio in Champaign, he’d seen the book lying around after Bitner came in to plug it. Rogers made a beeline for the back room, and not 15 minutes later was back at the register, shaking his head, holding a photo of a sweet-faced, dark-haired teenager. “I figured I’d look through a box or two and see if I knew anyone,” he says. “And literally the first photo I saw was of my aunt Janet.” He gave John Pappas 50 cents, then disappeared into the back room again.
After a bit more discussion, Bitner and his friend were waved on their way on two conditions. One, that the pilfered signage be returned. And two, that Bitner promise to include the officer in his next book.
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