Outside Lies Magic is a book about the acute observation of ordinary things, about becoming aware in everyday places, about seeing in utterly new ways, about enriching your life unexpectedly. For more than 20 years, John R. Stilgoe has developed and practiced the art of exploring the everyday world around us, where so much lies hidden just beneath the surface, offering uncommon knowledge if we but know what to look for. In this remarkable book, Stilgoe inspires us to become explorers on our own–on foot or on bicycle–and by so doing to reap the benefits of escaping, even temporarily, the traps of our programmed lives.
"Exploration encourages creativity, serendipity, invention," he writes. And while sharing his insights on how to explore, Stilgoe provides a fascinating pocket history of the American landscape, as striking in its originality as it is revealing. Stilgoe dissects our visual surroundings; his observations will transform the way you see everything. Through his eyes, an abandoned railroad line is redolent of history and future promise; front lawns recall our agrarian past; vacant lots hold cathedrals of potential.
From the electrical grid overhead to fences, malls, and main streets, Stilgoe offers a fresh understanding of the links and fractures in our society. After reading Outside Lies Magic, your world will never look the same again.

Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places

Politics & Social Sciences

Stilgoe, John R.

Stilgoe, John

Anthropology

Walker Books

Shallow-Water Dictionary is both a celebration of the richness of?our vernacular language and a lament on its passing -- and?with it, the passing of the words we need to understand the shallow-water?regions, which, once the primary landscape of America, now face?extinction, both physical and linguistic.??Beautifully written, Shallow-Water Dictionary is a?thought-provoking and valuable addition to our knowlege of our changing?landscape. Stilgoe's definitions are lyric explanations --?literary, etymological, historical, vernacular -- of?more than 25 words and terms whose original meanings have been eroded by?time.

Shallow-Water Dictionary

Arts & Photography

Architecture

Princeton Architectural Press

Sometimes resembling a river of grass, sometimes more like the wheat fields of the Canadian prairies, the High Line is a unique ruin that simultaneously permits contemplation of nature and the city. Since March 2000, photographer Joel Sternfeld has been documenting the abandoned elevated railway line which runs for 1.5 miles along the West Side of New York City, from 34th Street down along the edge of the Hudson River, through West Chelsea's tree-lined blocks and art galleries, and into the heart of the Meat Packing District. Walking the path of this real-time landscape, Sternfeld has created a suite of images in which the landscape is read as both a social and cultural indicator.

Joel Sternfeld: Walking The High Line

Gopnik, Adam

Individual Artists

Steidl/Pace/MacGill Gallery

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Books by Stilgoe, John