Book Talk: Three for the Lawn

Kim Adams: Bruegel-Bosch Bus | Kim Adams: One for the Road | Kim Adams

I've written a lot about Kim Adams' work over the years, but I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that I've never gotten around to buying those three books shown above. Since I'm back to studying artists' use of miniatures, I figured this was a good time to have a look.

These three titles span many years, and as the years go on, the books get bigger in size. 

The rightmost is simply titled Kim Adams. It's an exhibition catalogue published by two galleries to accompany two shows of Kim Adams' work. One was at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto from 23 June to 3 September 2001, and the other was at Oakville Galleries at Centennial Square from 5 May to 12 August 2001.

The middle one is also an exhibition catalogue for another show of Kim Adams' work called Kim Adams: One for the Road. Although the book was published by Museum London, the show was held at three galleries: Museum London, October 20, 2013 to January 6, 2014; Art Gallery of Hamilton, February 8, 2014 to May 4, 2014; and Varley Art Gallery, September 13, 2014 to January 11, 2015.

The leftmost book, Kim Adams: Bruegel-Bosch Bus, was published by the Art Gallery of Hamilton in 2021 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Adams' Bruegel-Bosch Bus that is on permanent display at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.

All three contain extensive photos of Adams' work, essays by art critics, and interviews with Adams.

I’ve never felt comfortable commenting on critical essays as I’m not well versed in the arts to say much of anything as to the essays’ insights and assertions. I read them though, and give them consideration as they’re usually interesting if they aren’t mired in insider jargon. However, it’s the photos and interviews that intrigue me the most. 

I have seen some of Adams’ work up-close-and-personal as they say, and have written a little about those encounters, but mostly what I’ve seen are photos of his work.There are lots of photos online, and you can get a good sense of many aspects of his work from them. I should note that the 2021 Bus book is the best collection of photos of the Bruegel-Bosch Bus I’ve come across. I’ve seen that work in person, and I’d say it defies photographic representation. Photos just don’t capture the experience of interacting with it; however, those in Bus come pretty darn close. The other two books have good collections of photos as pertain to the shows they are representing. In Kim Adams I particularly like the chapter of photos and texts rather cheekily called Kim Adams’ Vocabulary: Catalogue of Products and Instructions for Use by Tomas Pospiszyl. 

All three books cover all aspects of his art, although general coverage is a little thin in Bus, which focuses on the BBB. As far as I can tell his artistic creations fall into roughly 5 categories: Large 1:1 scale assemblages / ‘kitbashes’ (often referred to as ‘Street Remakes’), items that look like kitbashed plastic scale models, dioramas incorporating kitbashed pieces and model railroading items, large layout-like pieces, and drawings. Adams’ themes and interests flow and weave throughout all the categories, and they really can’t be considered in isolation from each other, but in this post I’m only going to focus on some aspects of his kitbashed plastic kit based work and his layout-like pieces.

As I mentioned, it’s the interviews that really grabbed my attention in these books. There are three, one in each: 

with Marc Mayer (held on 22 March 2001) in Kim Adams

with Robert Enright (held 23 October 2012) in Kim Adams: One for the Road

with Melissa Bennett (various times around 2020) in Kim Adams: Bruegel-Bosch Bus

One thing though that seems to be missing from these interviews, or is somewhat skirted over, are questions and discussion regarding early influences from model building and model railroading. Naturally, the conversations stay mainly in the art groove, but look, I’m a model maker, a kitbasher, and a model railroader, and chances are you are too if you’re reading this, so I find it quite interesting that my interests are being used in interesting ways in the art world :-) Adams is using unusual media for the art world, plastic model kits and model railway gear for his small scale pieces and giant layout-like things, but the, let's say the model building world influences, aren't discussed in interviews with the depth that the art world influences are. This isn't unusual given the backgrounds of the interviewers, but I think adding a little investigation into how the hobby and art worlds come together in Adams' work would help give us a little more insight into it.

There’s often a pattern in the lives of model builders and model railroaders. It goes something like this: as a child there’s a fascination with model making or model railroading, it lasts maybe until high school, sometimes through high school, but then life takes over with education, careers, and family, but then in middle-age the model building or model railroading bug strikes again and the activity is resumed with renewed vigour. This is a stereotype of course, but it’s more-or-less the trajectory of a lot of people, and I wonder if it applies here and might help unearth those early hobby influences in more detail.

So, ok, with this in mind, I tried to piece together some of Adams’ early life story from the disconnected pieces available in some interviews and online bios I could find. Before we dive in let me say I’m no expert, so if you see errors in what follows, please let me know.

Kim Adams was born on 17 December 1951in Edmonton, Alberta. His father was Alvin Clarence Adams and his mother was Harriett Maude Eliott. In World War II his father was an engineer, and his mother was an anti-aircraft gunner. There’s an interesting black-and-white photo in Bus dated 1953 with the caption: “Kim as a child with his brothers, and their father’s model train layout.” The photo shows very a small child, which I assume is Adams given the date, and three other considerably older boys, who I assume are his brothers. You can see the layout’s benchwork, which looks a little plywood-pacificiky at this stage, in what appears to be a room walled by cinder blocks, maybe it's a basement or garage. This is the first time I've heard of there being model railroading in his family life.

When I saw that photo so many questions popped into my mind. Was Adams’ father a long time model railroader, or was it just a dalliance? Were there model railroading magazines lying around the house? Did any of it have any influence on Adams’ interests later in life? I don’t know. 

Ok, so let’s continue the timeline. Adams mentions in the Bus interview that the family relocated to Australia when he was seven for his father’s job. So, let’s say that was sometime in 1959.

So, ok, we’re in 1959 and Adams is 7. In the Enright interview he asks Adams this:

“Enright: Were you a model builder or a model railroader as a kid?

Adams: I was always making models. I think the very first one was in Australia. I was seven and the PT 109 model was out. Everybody in the company my dad worked for got one and because he worked night shifts, he said he would help me in the morning when he got back from work. But I had already built it by the time he got home. That was it; he never volunteered again. But we did other things, like take motors out of cars and build houses.

Enright: So you very quickly moved beyond the PT 109 kit to make things on your own?

Adams: I think so. There was somebody in the area who was carving boats out of balsa wood and motorizing them, and I picked that up from him. Balsa wood was the first thing you could use to build from scratch. You can play with it quite a bit, too. Then later it was finding things, dragging them in, and banging them together. I don’t try to invent a train engine or something.”

Top: Lindberg's PT boat kit from 1959 | Bottom: Revell's 1963 release

I did some internet searching and found that Lindberg released an all plastic 1:64 scale model kit of a PT boat in 1959. It was a variation of a kit they first released in 1955. This kit didn’t have PT-109 emblazoned on the box top, but simply said Patrol Sea Raider, and earlier versions said P.T. Boat. Lindberg released the kit again in 1963 with a new box that said P.T.109. I suspect this was to coincide with the movie PT 109 that was released in June 1963. Also in 1963 Revell released a PT 109 kit, and I suspect it too was to get in on the movie release action. Is Adams misremembering dates? I don’t know, but, look, I can’t really remember things from when I was seven. Maybe the important thing is he clearly remembers the first kit he built, and that he was quite young when the model building bug hit, even though the kit’s brand and date might be elusive. In 1963 Adams would have been 11. 

I had a feeling of déjà vu when I read those passages from the Enright interview. I had a couple of old magazines that featured Adams interviews, so I dug them out to have a look. I turns out there’s also an Enright-Adams interview in the January 1999 issue of Border Crossings magazine. The interview was held in December 1998, 14 years prior to the one in One for the Road. Consider this segment from the 1998 interview:

“Enright (1998): Did you make models as a kid, or were you a junior railroader?

Adams (1998): Not a railroader but I definitely built models. I started in Australia. I got a little PT boat, I think it was Kennedy’s PT 109. My father was going to help me build it but he didn’t come home so I built it myself. My parents just kept throwing models at me after that. I took to the military ones for awhile and then borrowed my brother’s lighter fluid and burned them in the carrot patch and got in trouble. I didn’t have good guys or villains in mind. It was just basic killing.

Enright (1998): How did you end up in Australia?

Adams (1998): I was born in Edmonton but we went to Australia when I was a kid. My father was a policeman for awhile and then he was a streetcar driver. He had a buddy who moved to Australia and he just followed him out at some point. We lived in a tin shack for awhile. It was outside of Melbourne. Nunawading was probably the closest town, and then we were in an area called the Dandenong. Eventually dad built a house. I think I was about seven when we moved and we were there for five years. For a kid it was just adventure.”

Although not exactly the same, there are parts that are quite similar. In this one though Adams mentions his parents were providing lots of model kits, and he enjoyed building them.

Left: Border Crossings, January 1998 | Right: C, Summer 2001

I also dug up the Adams interview with Rafael Gomez-Motiana in the summer 2001 issue of C magazine. Here’s what Adams had to say about his early beginnings with plastic model kits:

"Gomez-Motiana: So all of your works are models, whether full-scale models, or miniature scale models. How did you actually get into miniature scale? Was it through constructing studies for your larger models?

Adams: My first memory of sniffing glue at a young age was when I built a model kit of President Kennedy’s boat [JDL: PT 109]. After that I was constantly building models. Especially cars. Model building was big. Then it disappeared. At the University of Victoria [JDL: Adams attended between 1975 and 1977] I got back into making model cars because it seemed to make more sense than learning abstract painting or something like that [JDL: !].

The first car piece I ever saw was by Joseph Beuys at the Guggenheim in the 1978-79 retrospective. He had a VW bus on the ramp, together with the survival sleds. And it just made so much sense right there in the gallery, which is basically a car park. Just think: Winnipeg, Regina, these prairie towns, they all have mini Guggenheims. I think that made quite an impact on me, just seeing a car in that high-art situation. I didn’t understand the survival part, I was just thinking, “Ooh, cars look alright in galleries, especially old, rust ones.””

Did Gomez-Motiana fall out of his chair laughing at the suggestion that the Guggenheim wasn’t much different from the parking lots of Winnipeg and Regina? We’ll never know :-) But what we do know, or at least is pretty clear from all the interviews, is that Adams believed himself to be a seriously devoted model builder as a kid, and he makes the statement that model building, especially car models, was a big thing in the 1960s, which it was, and yes, it did more-or-less collapse in the early 1970s. 

"But Barris, even as at ten, was wild about cars,
carving streamlined cars out of balsa wood."

The model car building and slot car craze of the 1960s and early 1970s was an offshoot of the larger custom car craze in the popular culture of the time. If you haven’t done so I’d recommend reading Tom Wolfe’s 1963 essay The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby to get a sense of the craze as only Tom Wolfe could capture. Although the essay was first published in the November 1963 issue of Esquire magazine under the title There Goes [Varoom! Varoom!] That Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby it was reprinted in the first collection of Wolfe’s essays in 1965 with the shorter title, which was also the title of the book.

A few issues of Car Model from the 1960s and 1970s.

There was lots of information about model car building circulating at the time in both books and magazines. Two of the biggest enthusiast magazines were Car Model (published out of New York), and Model Car Science (published out of Los Angeles).  Car Model magazine started up with a July/August 1962 issue and ran bi-monthly until September 1963 when it became a monthly, and published as a monthly until its last issue in July 1974. Model Car Science ran as a monthly right from the beginning in April 1963 until its last issue in July 1972. 

Some winners at the MPC/WKNR car model contest held 23-25 Jan 1970 in Detroit.
Stack of 4 photos on the far right feature George Barris examining some entries.
Car Model, August 1970.

Model car building magazines weren’t confined to the US. Other publications that either were devoted to model cars or covered them also started up in that late 1950s and early 1960s era and include titles such as Model Cars, Model Roads and Racing, and Airfix Magazine. Buying these magazines wasn’t limited to specialist hobby shops as many were readily obtainable in places like smoke shops, grocery stores, jug milk stores, and pharmacies. I won’t go into the vast range of books available at the time, but again, they were easily obtainable at public libraries. The point is you didn’t really have to go out of your way in that era to find out what was going on in the wider world of the hobby. Much like our electronic internet is everywhere, that old paper-based internet was just about accessible everywhere too. 

Left: Some entries in the Monogram Tom Daniel Design Contest; Car Model June 1971.
Right: Kim Adams' Surfer Rick, 2001; from Kim Adams.
Surfer Rick has strong stylistic similarities to wild custom model builds of the 60s & 70s.

I wonder if Adams was influenced by any of that literature? I know I was. Once I stumbled across Car Model at a local smoke shop in the summer of ’72, model building for me took a whole other direction. Kitbashing wasn’t something I knew about until I read about it. Well, not by reading articles about ‘kitbashing’, I don’t know when I learned that term, but seeing the results of using parts from several kits, and maybe modifying them a little. Kitbashing without knowing I was ‘kitbashing’. I usually thought of that work as ‘customization’. I think I learned the official term sometime later. The Gomez-Motiana interview touches on kitbashing a little:

"Gomez-Motiana: Both your full-scale work, if we can call it that, as well as your miniature work, is assembled from off-the-shelf components, things you can buy, whether actual car parts or model-car-kits. Where does the “craft” come into it? Is craft even important here?

Adams: It’s making these model-building kits look like the period, that’s what the craft is. Painting it to look aged and square; they have to look how the kit’s supposed to be made. But then it’s also when you start “bashing” them. All my work is what I would call “kit-bashing.” This is a common term in the industry: you cross breed a Volkswagen with a Cadillac, and you’ve got a kit bash. They must do it in architecture too, although I don’t know if they talk about it in those terms."

When he mentions ‘square’ I have to wonder what that means. Square as in all the paint and pieces are aligned properly, or the old hippie meaning of conforming to the norms of the generation prior to the hippies. Given the bits of sly humour in the responses in this interview I have to wonder.

It turns out car customizer George Barris, one of the guys Wolfe talks about in his essay, cross bred a Volkswagen with a Rolls-Royce. It was called the Raspberries Rolls since it was a promotional vehicle built for the rock group the Raspberries sometime in the early 1970s, likely 1972. I can’t quite place a firm date on it, but I should note that Revell came out with a kit of it called the Barris Kustom Rolls / VW in 1973, and the first incarnation of the Raspberries dates from 1970 to 1975. Weirdly, Liberace had a Barris-like Volks-Rolls built for him in the late 1970s to carry his furs and capes around (!).

Well, I don’t know about real architecture, but in model railroading architecture (a new field perhaps? :-) ) kitbashing is certainly a thing. We’ve talked about the king of kitbashing in the 1970s and 1980s, Art Curren, here, and also that Ur-kitbasher of the 60s, Gil Mellé. Did Adams know about these two guys or any of the others doing HO building kitbashes back then? I don’t know. I don’t know what sort of miniature kitbashes he was doing, if any, back in the 1960s or 1970s. Building kitbashes that I’ve seen date from much later. Did he dabble in architectural kitbashes during his UVic days when he got back into model car building? I don’t know.

One thing’s certain though, his HO scale building kitbashes weren’t anything like what was or is going on in the HO scale model railway world. Most model railroad kitbashes are pretty prosaic - square maybe :-) -  and don’t pass the Bug-Caddy Conjecture test. My assertion here is Adams’ HO building kitbashes are heavily influenced by the world of cars and not buildings, but, well, that’s just an assertion at this point.

Long term model builders often have origin stories that stretch back to childhood.

So far we know model building from plastic kits, especially car model building, was a passion of the young Adams. We also know from these interviews that Adams also dabbled in building model boats from balsa, but he denies any activity in model railroading even though it appears his father had at least a passing interest in it, and was even a streetcar driver for awhile. Still though, the interview segments about this early period of Adams’ artistic development, and interest in model buildings, seem cursory when compared to the questioning about influences from the art world. Maybe there isn’t anything more to tell, but model builders who return to building as adults often have rich model building backgrounds to talk about as the years go on. 

From the Enright (1998) interview it’s not clear if Adams moved back to Canada after 5 years, or moved out of the tin shack after 5 years, because in the Bus interview we’re told the family returned to Edmonton when Adams was 15, which was during 1967. So, from the interviews it’s a little unclear when he returned, but I’ll assume the most recent interview, the 2020 Bus interview, is the more accurate as it’s the most direct on this point: “…when I was fifteen, we moved back to Canada…”.

At 15 Adams would likely have been in high school. His online biographies and interviews note a few things about his school years. Over at the Canadian Encyclopedia Adams mentions “My research began in high school while I was skipping classes.” And he once mentioned he attended 12 different schools in 12 years before settling in Victoria. 

When it comes to post-secondary education all the online Adams bios state the first college he attended was the “Northwest Institute of the Arts (1974)”. So, I go online and look for the institute and can’t find any place with that name, but I do find a place called the Northwest Coast Institute of Arts, which was founded in 1974, and in 1976 was renamed Victoria College of Art. I don’t have concrete proof for this, but from what I’ve read about Adams my money is on a typo in his various online biographies. Also, the 1974 in the bio entry would mean he attended the institute the year it was founded. Adams was 22 in 1974. 

His online bios then all go on to note that he attended the Kootenay School of Art between 1974 and 1975, and the University of Victoria from 1975 to 1977, where he got an MFA in 1979. Recall that in the Gomez-Motiana interview Adams stated that while at UVic he got back into model car building. What sort? Kitbashing? I don't know.

Kim Adams' Earth Wagons (1989 - 1991) 
Image Source: Winnipeg Art Gallery

The origins of his model railway-like sculptures are a bit murky to me, but the first one, Earth Wagons, Adams seems to have started construction on it around 10 years after his graduation, and with its incorporation of full-size rolling things, wagons in this case, you can see the influence from his full-size 'Street Remakes' works, some of which are shown in One for the Road and Kim Adams. As I noted at the beginning of this post one can't neatly separate all his works into distinct categories, as they all feed on each other.

Earth Wagons was a long project, and was under development from from 1989 to 1991. However, to me, that seems rather quick for a model railway - ok, model railway like sculpture in this case - of this scope. 

Photos of Earth Wagons shown in Bus from the time it was being built show a large railway trestle with a train running along it as part of the 'layout', and you can see it in the above photo if you look closely, give it a strong model railway feel. Bus notes, along with the Winnipeg Free Press, that Earth Wagons was the precursor to the Bruegel-Bosch Bus. When I look at Earth Wagons I wonder if Adams was coming back to some earlier model railway experience he had, even though he wasn't a "junior railroader", and integrating it into his artistic mind. 

Today Earth Wagons is part of the Winnipeg Art Gallery's permanent collection. I haven't seen it yet, but hopefully one day.

Kim Adams' Artists' Colony (1987)
Image Source: Canada Council for the Arts, Art Bank

Was the spiritual forefather of Earth Wagons the Artists' Colony diorama, a large piece that looks like a section from a model railway in its use of HO scale items and organization? I don't know.

And that's where I am right now, circling in the I-don't-know cul-de-sac. Well, as you've read, there are a lot of I-don't-knows in the story that I need to resolve, and a lot of bits-and-pieces of story lines I need to stitch together into the big story of influences and development. Some sort of chronological catalogue of Adams' sculptures, maybe similar to the one in the E. L. Moore book, might be needed to help anchor the story in time. The evolution of ideas might then be more apparent with that sort of reference.

I'll wrap up this post right here, obviously incomplete and with lots of hanging threads, because the I-don't-knows are becoming too prevalent and the factual pieces too scarce. However, I'd recommend all three books, but especially Bus because you can see the piece at the Art Gallery of Hamilton and the book is a good souvenir of the experience. The other two are good if you want a little fuller understanding of Adams' work in general.

Book Review: Landscape Modelling

A little earlier in the week the copy of Landscape Modelling by Barry Norman I ordered arrived in the mail. Like a lot of books I've bought recently it has been on my list for a long time, and finally one came up for sale online at a decent price.

It's a clean copy, and there isn't any indication inside of who the previous owner was or where this book may have resided before coming to Canada. All I can say is it was published by Wild Swan Publications of England in 1986. If you're doing any comparative reading you might want to dig up your copies of John Olson's 1983 book, Building an HO Model Railroad with Personality, and Malcom Furlow's 1984 book. HO Narrow Gauge Railroad You Can Build. Both were published by Kalmbach in the US. Even though Olson's and Furlow's book cover all aspects of model railway construction, it's interesting to compare their scenery modelling techniques to Norman's given that all three books were all published in the same era. 

The entire book is an enchanting mixture of prototype photos, model photos,
and expertly drawn line illustrations.

I liked this book right from the get-go. Bob Barlow, the editor of Model Railway Journal, has this to say in the Foreword which sets the tone for the pages to come:

"However, there's far more to this slim volume [JDL: it's only 66 pages] than useful modeller's hints and wrinkles; there is a deeper dimension which speaks of success out of failure, of observation blending with a determination to get things right, and, above all, of love for the subject - in this case, our own British landscape. Looking around and loving what you see is a taller order than taking it for granted as most of us do, especially when those surroundings are conventionally 'ugly' like so many urban landscapes today. But somewhere, even in the grimmest of city wastes, beauty exists. And if you're out there studying the landscape closely enough - in order to build an accurate model, for example - you will assuredly find it. Not just once, but dozens of times: images that will linger and give inner pleasure for many, many years. I find it comforting that this hobby of ours - which most will concede is a fairly insignificant part of whatever great scheme exists - can lead us to great insights into our relationship with our own small planet."

Inside is a thoughtful account of how to go about creating a landscape for a model railway. It discusses both design and implementation aspects, and the author's layout, 'Petherick', provides examples. It's well written, clear, and the modelling techniques are effective and easy to understand. All the photos are black-and-white, but that hardly seems to matter given the excellence of the text.

This book is also great for just dipping into and browsing. Well, all Wild Swan publications are, but this one especially so for me because I'm a sucker for well done line drawings, and there are a lot in this book. The layout of the book is excellent too. Inspired page layout is a rarity these days, so it's even more impressive to me when I just stumble across it.

Out on the back porch with my 'tree box' getting a start on the community garden trees,
and looking through my just arrived copy of Landscape Modelling.

The book showed up at an interesting time. I had started work on making trees for the community garden layout, and I had just heard of David Hockney's passing, so I was a bit preoccupied with thinking about landscapes.

Hockney was a favourite artist. I never pay much attention to the passing of media figures, but this one hit home. As silly as it sounds, he seemed like an indomitable presence who would live forever. His work was varied, but I especially appreciated his thoughts that direct observation and wrestling with the problems of depiction were key things to deal with in art, as it should be for railway modellers. Here is Sam Hamper's tribute to Hockney where he goes into that and many other things about his life:

At around the 7:23 mark Hockney makes an interesting observation about trees in a discussion about perspective, well, maybe it's an obvious observation, but I thought it was good he said it out loud:

"Any cameraman will tell you it's not so easy to film the tallness of trees for instance because you have to look up to see the tallness. It's the tallness that would give you the majesty of the tree isn't it? The majestic nature."

Which is why I think it's important to model trees to their correct scale height and volume, otherwise it's conventional toy train lollipop trees all the way down that are completely without majesty. 

There are a lot of Hockney videos at YouTube, but I'll simply point out this short one of Hockney painting a tree dominated scene in Yorkshire:

The ways of the YouTube recommendation algorithm are a mystery to me. As I was looking for Hockney videos it recommended some from a channel called Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't ! The videos at that channel are serious, hilarious, and scathing, but in line with Barlow's comment that "... somewhere, even in the grimmest of city wastes, beauty exists" have a look at this poignant one of a tour of an abandoned Southern Pacific station in West Oakland, California (Warning: This is serious stuff):

 

Book Review: Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43

A few years back I was undertaking an informal study of books about the works of artists who used scale models of one sort or another as their medium. Other interests took over and I parked the project. The last few months though I've felt a need to revisit that project, especially now that the Havelock micro-layout has reentered my thoughts. There're things I want to communicate with that little chunk of foam and track that I think the techniques employed by these artists might help with, so I thought now was a good time to get back to my studies.

One book in this genre that I've been meaning to get for quite awhile is Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43 by David Levinthal and Garry Trudeau (of Doonesbury fame). I found a copy online that was a good price, and the shipping cost wasn't crazy, so I ordered it.

In the past I didn't pay much attention to any internal markings indicating something about a book's provenance, but these days I do, what with today's book shredding frenzy and a mass turning away from the printed word and all.

This book used to belong to a university library. Wikipedia tells me that the Kent Institute of Art & Design was formed in 1987 as a result of a merger of three art and design schools, and the University for the Creative Arts was formed in 2005 under a different name from a merger of the Kent Institute with another school. The merged entity became the University for the Creative Arts in 2008.

The book was first published in 1977 by Sheed, Andrews, and McMeel, and reprinted in 1989 by the Laurence Miller Gallery. My copy is the reprint edition.

There are many text-free, double page spreads like this one that let the photos speak for themselves.

In the Preface Trudeau refers to the work as a "paper movie", and I think that's a good description. It's a collection of staged photographs of HO and 1/35 scale toys and models, integrated with quotes and descriptive text, of the World War II German invasion of the Soviet Union. The book's story starts in June 1941 and takes the reader chronologically through the horror up to February 1943. The work was the thesis project of Levinthal and Trudeau at the Yale School of Art in the early 1970s.

An example of the integration of text into the "paper movie".

The photos aren't like the typical ones shot by hobbyists. They're monochromic, atmospheric, soft focus, and impressionistic. Showing off detail and fidelity to visual reality isn't the aim, but capturing real moods is. The Technical Information section has this to say:

"The sense of reality was augmented in this [JDL: the photo of an explosion throwing soldiers into the air that spans pages 18 and 19.] and many other photographs in Hitler Moves East by the narrow depth of field used in taking the pictures. Having only one small area in sharp focus permitted the models in the background and foreground to assume amorphous shapes that both obscured their identities as toys and contributed atmospherically to the compositions."

I found the imagery stunning. The only other book of Levinthal's work I have is War Games, but I'm looking forward to digging up his others.

R100 in Canada and the CNR Connection

R100 in Canada by Barry Countryman
Published by The Boston Mills Press, 1982

There was a long trail of old mental associations that got me thinking again about this book, R100 in Canada. The short version goes something like this: The Dam Busters -> Barnes Wallis -> R100 airship ->R100 in Canada. Ok, the part I didn't make explicit in the chain was that Barnes Wallis was the engineering mastermind who designed the most advanced British airship, the R100, which, as it turns out, was the only rigid airship to fly in Canada during the classic airship period of the early 20th century.

I've known about this book for a long time, but finally broke down and bought a copy last week after coming across a very good deal at an online seller. 

Layout of St. Hubert airport as of August 1930.
The airship mooring tower is in the upper left.
The CNR track is the dark, dashed diagonal line.
The temporary excursion train station is the wavy line above the 'Spur of Railway' label.

The story of the R100's visit to Canada is actually quite exciting and was a huge event, so I'll leave you to read all about it in the book. However, I'll give you a quick summary of the R100's itinerary: it left Cardington airfield in England early in the morning on 29 July 1930; completed mooring at St. Hubert airport near Montreal 78 hours and 49 minutes later on 1 August 1930; in the early evening of 10 August the R100 cast off for a tour of southern Ontario which included flying over or within sight of Ottawa, Smiths Falls, Gananoque, Kingston, Belleville, Peterborough, Oshawa, Hamilton, Niagara Falls, and Toronto; returned to Montreal on 11 August; departed for England on 13 August.

It turns out the Canadian National Railway had a permanent station at St. Hubert airport, and also built separate, temporary stations at the airport and in downtown Montreal to handle the crowds expected to see the R100 when it was berthed in St. Hubert. It was estimated that around 600,000 people visited the airport while the R100 was there (for comparison, the population of Canada in 1930 was 10.2 million), so they certainly correctly predicted the enthusiasm of the public.

From the book I get the impression that the CNR had a big role to play in the visit. One aspect that surprised me was it provided you-are-there radio coverage of the R100's approach and landing:

"The Canadian National Railways Radio Department in Montreal, believing Canadians would not be satisfied with colourless government bulletins from the mooring mast, decided to report as much of the R100 flight as possible, following the airship up the St. Lawrence until she moored in St. Hubert.

For the 15 station coast-to-coast hook-up it hired Andy W. Ryan of the Department of Agriculture in Ottawa and Charles Findlay, a former Royal Navy wireless operator, to man a broadcasting outpost at Laval University in Quebec City; established an observation post on the roof of its downtown Montreal studios in the King's Hall Building at 1231 St. Catherine Street West; and erected a 60-foot-high wooden tower composed of two telephone poles on St. Hubert Airport property between the main entrance and the CNR excursion train station.

From the tower, W. Victor George, a programmer and announcer at CNRM. Montreal, with other duties at CNR Radio headquarters, and Captain John A. Barron would describe the R100's arrival at the mast."

I was also quite surprised to learn that FROG released a 1/500 scale plastic kit of the R100 in 1965, and Barnes Wallis himself (!) consulted on the kit's development. And as a bonus, a model of the mooring mast at St. Hubert is included. Apparently the kit has been re-popped over the years, so if I ever find one for a reasonable price it might show up here.

The Dam Busters, 1955

An image from the famous take-off scene in The Dam Busters.
Three of the nine Lancaster bombers on their way to Germany's Ruhr Dams on 16 May 1943.

I jokingly referred to the 1955 movie, The Dam Busters, in a post about busting beaver dams near the Havelock yard. I hadn't watched it in decades, so I rented a copy and sat down one blustery afternoon last week and watched again. I wasn't disappointed.

I can't comment on its historical accuracy, but I will say it's a docudrama. I don't know how it would fare with today's audiences as its dialogue is sometimes politically incorrect, the special effects are crude by today's standards, and the pacing is slow compared to modern films.

A Lancaster bomber at the Canadian Aviation & Space Museum circa 2018
Of the 133 airmen on the dam busters raid, 30 were Canadians, half didn't return.

But, that said, the aircraft scenes, the portrayal of the mission, the acting, and the emotional and psychological veracity are compelling. Also, the portrayal of real-life engineering, its ups and downs, its bureaucratic frustrations, and its sometimes exhilarating successes feel real to me as a lapsed aeronautical engineer. I was glad to see the legendary engineer Barnes Wallis portrayed in the movie, and that his role wasn't minimized.

I'd rate it 8.5 to 9 out of 10. 

Paperback version published by Abacus, 2008.

I said I'd write more about books, so here's one with a little Dam Busters spin. 

I read this one by Harry Pearson, Achtung Schweinehund!: A Boy's Own Story of Imaginary Combat, over the winter. It's an account of Pearson's lifelong involvement in the hobby of war gaming, miniature figures, and military models. It's fact filled, fascinating, sympathetic, and endlessly humorous. He has this to say about the movie:

"The Dam Busters starred Richard Todd [JDL: he plays Wing Commander Guy Gibson], a mainstay of British war films. He had also been a mainstay of the British war. The Dublin-born actor had served in the 7th Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, taken part in the Normandy Landings and had been a member of the Allied spearhead that cut through German lines to join the airborne troops, commanded by Major Howard, who had captured the Pegasus Bridge. In the film D-Day the Sixth of June Todd played his own commanding officer, while in Darryl F. Zanuck's epic The Longest Day he played the part of Major Howard, with a younger actor taking the role of Richard Todd. In the 1958 film I Was Monty's Double, meanwhile, M. E. Clifton-James, who had indeed been Monty's double, took the parts of Monty and his double, thus playing himself being himself as well as playing the man he had been playing at being. The war had already gone postmodern. Little wonder that a primary school boy [JDL: the author] could get confused between fact and fiction."

The book is full of these sorts of gems. Get it, and watch the film.

Doodlebug Country and The Case of the Missing RDC-M Prototype

Interurbans Special #77

Back in early April we visited the Prescott model railway show. It was wall-to-wall people, layouts, and vendors. It looked like a good time was being had by all. I bought a few things of course, and one was the book Doodlebug Country: The Rail Motorcar on the Class I Railroads of the United States by Edmund Keilty, published by Interurban Press in 1982. The book is #77 in the Interurbans Special series. It's a thorough compendium of photos and facts about self-propelled rail cars dating from 1900 to 1960.

Lately I've written very little about books I've bought and read as those posts seemed hardly accessed. I've been reconsidering my stance since finding out about how Anthropic shreds books it has bought after scanning them for consumption by their AI products. I'm a Luddite, and am probably the last one to hear of this, but it was still shocking to me. I read further and learned the practice is quite common at libraries and many other places that deal with books. So, I thought, well, when I'm dead my little library will wind up in a dumpster or shredder, so maybe I should write about what I find interesting in my collection so at least in the future there might be a little pointer in the wild to books that others might find interesting, if any books still exist. Sort of a signal from beyond the grave :-)

That lead RDC looks like a very strange hybrid and is maybe something I'd like to build one day.
The caption in the book has this to say,
"Perhaps the acme in the development of the Budd RDC was the ROGER WILLIAMS train, shown here running as the MURRAY HILL from Boston to New York City at Larchmont, NY, on May 30, 1957."
Photo credit: George E. Votava.

I think I also read somewhere that Anthropic shredded the books because they felt that they no longer had any value once AI had captured the content. I have to admit though that when I read books in the Interurbans Specials series, and other railway books that are photo and illustration heavy, it's not for specific extraction of specific content. I don't have pre-formulated questions to ask that I expect specific answers to, which seems how today's AI seems to work.

Here's how I actually read them, in case any AI is reading this and would like to know :-) 

In the good weather the back porch is where the reading happens. I usually have a small stack of books that for some reason or another I've been thinking about. I gather them up, along with something to drink, coffee, tea, or something stronger depending on mood and time-of-day :-) , pull up a lawn chair, put the books and things on a little table, and settle in.

Me being me, with my model building interests and all, I'm usually drawn first to the photos and illustrations in whatever books are in my stack. I'm just looking for interesting things. When something catches my eye, then the back-and-forth with the text begins as I read and search and think. Sometimes I start with text, but it's usually with images on these expeditions.

On the surface it may sound like something that can easily be replaced with internet browsing and AI questioning. For me though I think the total experience of being outside in good weather, enjoying something to drink, the physicality of the printed pages, and appreciating how easy it is to jump from one page to another, to other books, and back as the search goes on. Maybe a tablet could replace the experience and make it more 'efficient', but I think my efficient is a better efficient as it's a more complete body, mind, and soul experience, and I never know what interesting things I might find.

Oh, and I don't take the books to the shredder when I'm done. No, as time goes on, I'll likely repeat the process with the same books in a different mix when I'm in some other frame-of-mind, thinking of other things. This is where Marie Kondo's work left me horrified. When her work was fairly new I started to read it, but when I got to the part where she recommended cutting out the pieces from books and magazines that 'brought joy' or some such thing, and tossing the rest I nearly passed out. Just because something doesn't 'bring joy' today doesn't mean it won't down the road. I gave up on her writings there and then; they brought me no joy and got tossed.

Ok, well, in good weather, the back porch is where all the reading happens, not just the open ended railway book adventures. There're novels, comics, graphic novels, and so on, last year it was the Inferno while I basked in the sun :-) and this year Purgatorio, and maybe Paradiso if I can survive the trek; there's also sketching ideas in notebooks and so on. Yes, the phone gets out there too, but it hasn't so far replaced my little analog world.

The first railbus, #10, for New Haven by Mack.
The caption reads:
"Prototype Mack railbus 10 initially excited New Haven officials, who ordered nine more. They were delivered, but a new management made scant use of them."
Photo credit: M. D. McCarter Collection.

Before I wrap things up I should mention a little 'discovery' in Doodlebug Country that teased me, lead me astray a bit, but in the end left me with some interesting information I didn't expect to find. Here's the passage that got me thinking for awhile that there really was something similar to an RDC-M way back when, shrouded in the mists of time :-) :

"After World War II, the New Haven was hit hard by rising costs and declining patronage, particularly on its commuter runs out of Boston. In 1952 President Frederick C. Dumaine, hoping that new equipment would rejuvenate the business, purchased no less than 40 Budd RDC cars and used them to increase the number of trains on most routes.

Dumaine also consulted Mack about a smaller, lighter version of the RDC for branch lines and off-peak commuter service. He wanted a vehicle capable of competing with the motor bus with its rider appeal.

The result was in fact a railbus based on the Mack Type C-50 city bus, dubbed Type FCD in honor of Dumaine. The prototype, car 10 [JDL: shown in the above photo], went into service in 1952. The bus body was a single-end design, but in fact the 40-foot long car could operate in either direction, and often did."

When I first encountered that passage I anxiously read more as I thought Mack might be modifying standard RDCs, but no, they stuck to what they knew; however, it turned out these buses-on-rails didn't turn around the flagging commuter business. 

I highly recommend Doodlebug Country. It shows the wide variety of railcar equipment in use in the first half of the 20th century through an extensive collection of photos and detailed tables of equipment.

Desert Dodge Do-Over, Part 6: Drivetrain AI & Parts Bin Mentality

In the last episode I shortened the chassis to fit the shortened body. Saws were drawn; glue was squirted; RDCs were dreamt about; all ended well.

The next thing I decided to do was install the drivetrain. This involved shortening the driveshafts and lowering the engine a little so its transmission would line up properly with the transfer case's new location. This doesn't sound like much, but it turned out to be a tricky sort of job. In the end I couldn't get all the drivetrain elements lined up as I had hoped so I simply connected the partially lowered engine to the transfer case with a highly unrealistic, cobbled together drive shaft whose universal joints are an insult to hotrodders everywhere. 

The kit's driveshafts were cut, shortened, and glued back together.
The transfer case mount and the engine mounts were lowered.

Again, while I was doing this work I thought back to when I first tried this project when I was 12 and realized once again I could not have done it back then, and that this phase of construction is so involved and convoluted I can see why it was glossed over in the article. I'm doing a bit of glossing over here myself, but at least I'm showing you what the underside of the vehicle has ended up looking like, and giving some hints about how to proceed if you're crazy enough to tackle this project.

Speaking of crazy, since there appeared to me to be information missing from the article I decided to ask Gemini to summarize the article and see what it might find. No, I haven't lost my ability to think, I was just curious to see if it could actually 'read' a jpeg of the article and see what it had to say about it. Here's the summary Gemini gave:

The article, titled "A Desert Dodge," was written by Bill Wright for the September 1972 issue of Car Model magazine. It provides a step-by-step guide on how to take MPC’s then-new 1/25 scale "Baja-Brute" Dodge Adventurer SE kit and modify it into a more authentic Mexican off-road racer.

Here is a summary of the article:

Background and Context

The author opens with a brief history of off-road racing in the Southwest, noting the transition from modified "junkers" and VW-based dune buggies to the professionalization of the "Baja 1000." He highlights how major manufacturers (Ford, Dodge, etc.) began entering the fray, leading to the release of specialized model kits like the MPC "Baja-Brute."

The Project Goal

While the MPC kit provided a good base, the author argues that serious off-road racers are even more modified than the "out of the box" kit suggests. The goal of the build is to "shorten" the truck and add a custom, heavy-duty external roll cage to match the real-world racers of the era.

Key Modifications

The article details eight specific steps to achieve a more "pro" look:

• Sectioning the Body: To make the truck more agile, the author instructs to cut one full inch out of the stock pickup bed and shorten the chassis and drive shaft accordingly.

• Custom Roll Cage: Using K&S brass tubing (1/16, 3/32, and 1/8-inch), the author explains how to bend and solder a complex "exoskeleton" roll cage that wraps over the roof and into the bed.

• Weight Reduction: The roof is "sliced" from the roll cage (likely referring to the interior clearance or thinning the plastic) to simulate racing weight-saving measures.

• Scratch-Building Details: 

* Screen Mesh: Used on the roof cage for cargo/spare tire storage.

• "Flex-Straw" Intake: A clever "low-tech" tip where a plastic drinking straw is used to simulate the large air cleaner hose running from the dashboard to the engine.

• Air Cleaner Housing: Cut from thick plastic or wood to simulate the housing that protects the carburetor from desert sand.

• Finishing Touches: The build uses decals from a "Duster" kit and adds spare tires and off-road lights to the rear cage.

Summary of the "Baja" Style

The article concludes by noting that these modifications simulate the "funny car-style" tube chassis machines with fiberglass bodies that were winning the Baja 1000 at the time, elevating the standard kit from a "street-legal" 4WD to a dedicated racing machine.

It's quite a decent summary actually. I was glad to read in the 'Sectioning the Body' bullet point Gemini interpreted the text the same as I did that the instruction is to cut an inch out of the pickup bed. Unlike Gemini though, through the experience of building the model I can figure out that cutting out that inch is too much when the resulting bed is compared to the article's photos. In fact if I had paid more attention to the photos instead of the text I would have twigged that the text was wrong. Gemini didn't come to that realization and I don't think it can.

I glued on some bolt greeblies to suggest detail.

Since the instructions for modifying the chassis and body are missing - the subject of this post and the previous one - I asked Gemini to tell me what was missing. I wanted to see if it noticed that, and to see if it noticed any other missing instructions. Here's what it told me:

Based on the era of the magazine and the "pro-modeler" style of Bill Wright, the article is remarkably complete for its time, but it does leave out a few technical "connective" steps that a modern modeler might find challenging.

By 1972 standards, this was a high-level instructional piece. However, if you were trying to replicate this build today, you would likely find gaps in three specific areas:

1. Structural Alignment (The "Chassis Sectioning")

In Step 1, the author mentions removing an "equal amount" from the chassis and the rear drive shaft after sectioning the bed.

• What’s missing: He doesn't explain how to reinforce those cuts. Simply gluing two ends of a plastic chassis or a thin drive shaft together creates a very weak "butt joint" that will likely snap. A modern guide would suggest "sleeving" the drive shaft with a brass tube or using plastic reinforcement plates (gussets) on the chassis rails to ensure the truck doesn't sag in the middle.

2. Soldering vs. Gluing Brass

The article suggests that the K&S brass tubing can be "soldered or epoxied together if you clean the joints."

• What’s missing: Soldering brass to create a roll cage is a specific skill. The author doesn't mention the need for flux or how to "fish-mouth" (notch) the ends of the tubes so they sit flush against each other. If you just touch two round tubes together and apply solder or epoxy, the surface area is too small for a permanent bond.

3. Interior and Engine Integration

The guide focuses almost entirely on the exterior "look" of the Baja racer.

• What’s missing: * Step 8 discusses the air cleaner housing and hose, but it doesn't detail how to modify the hood to accommodate these parts or how the "Flex-Straw" passes through the firewall without interfering with the dashboard.

There is no mention of interior modifications, such as removing the passenger seat or adding racing harnesses, which would be standard for a truck of this caliber.

Is it "Complete"?

Yes, for the 1972 hobbyist. During this era, Car Model readers were expected to have a "parts bin" mentality. The article provides the difficult creative solutions (the measurements for the body and the design of the cage) and assumes the builder has the basic mechanical skills to make the pieces stick together.

It’s a perfect example of the "kitbashing" philosophy that E. L. Moore and his contemporaries championed—using everyday items like drinking straws and window mesh to solve complex modeling problems.

Regarding Gemini's advice for chassis sectioning, the part I've been dealing with recently, its advice is true, but generic. As you've seen, I didn't follow that advice. I used butt joints to hold the drive shafts together, and didn't use sleeving. The resulting joints I made are quite strong and rigid, it just takes a little patience to hold the pieces together while the glue is setting up. Also, I didn't reinforce the chassis as again the glue joints are quite strong and the entire unit of chassis and body will be quite strong when it's finally all glued together. I guess it's an experience thing, the modeller needs to apply their knowledge to the problem at hand and proceed with what seems appropriate. In this case, the model isn't subjected to any loads other than casual handling, so lots of extra reinforcement isn't required, just careful fitting of parts and solid gluing.

The E. L. Moore reference at the end is odd, but Gemini has run E. L. Moore requests for me before and I've added an note to it that I have a significant E. L. Moore database, so Gemini seems to inject Mr. Moore wherever it seems appropriate to it. I don't completely disagree with it's assertion about E. L. Moore as he did use everyday items now and then, but he certainly wasn't a kitbasher, that was an Art Curren speciality.

Chassis was base coated with Vallejo Model Color Black Grey

Gemini concluded its response about missing instructions with this question to me:

Would you like me to look closer at the photos to see if I can spot any "unspoken" modifications to the interior or engine bay?

To which I said, Yes. It then generated this:

After a closer look at the photos and researching the original 1971 MPC kit, I’ve spotted several "unspoken" details that Bill Wright included in his final build but didn't explicitly describe in the text.

If you are looking for the most complete picture for your E. L. Moore dataset, here are the subtle additions visible in the images:

[JDL: No, I don't know why it again mentioned my E. L. Moore dataset. It seems to think everything I ask it has something to do with E. L. Moore. Ok, well, yes to me all roads lead to E. L. Moore, but come on :-) ]

1. Interior Strip-Down

While the text mentions the "Baja-Brute" kit as a base, the photos of the finished model (specifically Step 8 and the final profile views) show a very sparse interior.

• The Dash: In Step 8, you can see the "Flex-Straw" intake hose disappearing into the dashboard area. Real Baja trucks of this era often had their entire heater core and glove box removed to save weight and make room for radio equipment or specialized gauges.

• Seats: Though not detailed in a step, the final photos show low-back bucket seats. The original "Adventurer SE" trim usually featured a plush bench seat, meaning the author swapped these out for "racing" buckets, likely from his parts bin.

[JDL: No, the seats in the model haven't been replaced with bucket seats. The kit's original bench seat is still there.]

2. Chassis and Suspension "Lift"

The final photos show the truck sitting significantly higher than a stock 1972 Dodge.

• The Secret: If you look at the wheel wells in the final assembly shots, there is a massive gap. This suggests the author likely performed a "suspension lift." In 1970s modeling, this was often done by adding small plastic spacers (or "lift blocks") between the leaf springs and the axles—a common modification that Wright likely assumed his readers already knew how to do.

[JDL: A good observation and this is what I did being schooled in the 70s as I was.]

3. Engine Bay "Pass-Through"

Step 8 is the only mention of the engine, but it’s a crucial one.

• The Missing Cut: To get that "Flex-Straw" from the air cleaner (in the bed) to the carburetor (under the hood), Wright would have had to cut a hole through the rear firewall of the cab.

[JDL: Wright's modification was more show than the go suggested above.]

• The Airbox: He mentions simulating the air cleaner housing with plastic or wood. In the photos, this looks like a large "canister" style filter. This was a classic "Pre-Cleaner" setup used to spinning out heavy sand before it reached the engine.

4. Exterior "Survival" Gear

The final photos show several items that aren't in the "How-To" list but are vital for the look:

• Spare Tires: Two full-sized spares are strapped into the rear cage.

• Fuel Cell: There is a cylindrical object in the bed near the air cleaner that likely represents a high-capacity fuel cell, essential for the long stretches of the Baja 1000.

• Rear-Facing Lights: Small spotlights are mounted to the top of the roll cage, facing backward—used by racers to let trailing drivers see them through the thick dust clouds.

Gemini wanted to do more at this point, but I had had enough. 

I don't think I'll be asking Gemini for help with interpreting scale modelling articles anytime soon, but there were a couple of interesting things that came out of this for me. 

First, I was struck by an overwhelming sense of how much things have changed since I bought that issue of Car Model in the summer of '72 at the Painted Post Smoke Shop. It's not like I didn't already realize this on an intellectual level, but it hit me at a visceral one as I asked this thing, this simulation of human thought, about something from an era where things like it didn't exist. It's a freaky feeling I need to examine some more.

Have a look at the passages on bricoleur and bricolage.

Second was Gemini's introduction of the term "parts bin mentality". It rather dances around this phrase, but from its use the meaning has something to do with a modeller having some experience with kitbashing and feeling at ease using carefully chosen everyday items in a model. I'll agree with it in that specialized things like photoetched and 3D printed parts weren't available so creative modellers had to find other ways to build the things they were after, and repurposing everyday items was one way. For this approach though I think Claude Lévi-Strauss' use of the term bricoleur and bricolage, that he develops in his book The Savage Mind aka Wild Thought, are more accurate and descriptive of the long history of this type of modelling, art, and, ultimately, understanding. Bricoleur and bricolage are worthy of their own post, so I'll leave further discussion for the future. Maybe Gemini will update its vocabulary in the meantime :-)

The cursed GMC Jimmy compared to the Desert Dodge
The Dodge looks like it'll be much taller.

For my immediate future though I'll be moving on to preparing the body and cab interior for attaching to the chassis. Stay tuned!