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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Nineteen: Conveying a Sense of Place – A Town of Ghosts, Frozen in Time > Tuba, Bodie, California, 2004
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17-OCT-2004

Tuba, Bodie, California, 2004

Built in 1878, the Miners Union Hall was once the center of Bodie’s social life. An annual Fourth of July grand ball, a masquerade ball on Washington’s Birthday, and Christmas parties were held here. At the far end of its ballroom, now a dusty museum, is an old painting of a shipwreck. Below it is an old piano, bearing a battered tuba on its top. I was drawn to this juxtaposition of symbols because of its incongruity. The waves in the painting filling the background of my image were utterly alien to Bodie, and perhaps represented a touch of romantic fantasy for those who once danced beneath them. The tuba that serenaded those dancers is now mute and dented, much as Bodie itself has been abused by man and nature and is now forever silenced. Neither tuba nor town will ever play again.

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Phil Douglis23-Apr-2007 03:02
Thank you, Don -- the essence of this image's surreal quality can be found in Lisa Haskin's wonderful comment. She said that this photo convey's "the rather out of whack sentiment of this very strange little town." I tried to visually express the strangeness of this place in this image.
Donald Verger22-Apr-2007 20:49
yes, surreal, vote
Phil Douglis31-Oct-2004 01:37
Yes, Peter, this is a mystifying image. I was mystified when I approached it there in the dusty museum that once was Bodie's big dance hall. I shot it anyway, and the more I looked at it, and considered where it was, the more sense it made to me, too. The juxtaposition of the battered tuba and part of a old painting of a shipwreck was pure fantasy, escapism, relics of pleasure once sought in a place where pleasure was a rarity. And now you add another layer of meaning to this image -- a lost community. Wonderful what a little imagination can do. Thanks so much for adding this comment, Peter and for telling me what this image means to you.
Guest 31-Oct-2004 01:26
I was looking at the image before reading your description and was completely lost, and it seems like I fit right in because poeple of Bodie were lost, Bodie itself was lost, mast was lost. One one hand the image portrays Bodie as a lost place, but the tube links it to humanity because we can be lost anywhere, regardless of how far or close we are.
Peter
Phil Douglis29-Oct-2004 04:10
And that, Bruce, is the point of this image.
Guest 29-Oct-2004 02:47
Holy cow - at first glance at the thumbnail I thought we were looking at sand dunes - which would be a bizarre enough sight behind a tuba, but then to see the mast poking up, and realize those are waves, and isn't this supposed to be a DESERT we're in here. Very disorienting. As you said, Bodie is seriously out-of-whack.
Phil Douglis28-Oct-2004 21:33
And that is exactly why I made this picture. There is something out of whack with Bodie. People were being murdered daily while its citizens danced to the music of this old tuba. The waves are totally unrelated to Bodie, yet there were right there as a fixture on its ballroom wall. A fantasy no doubt, helping them divert their minds from the terrible reality of living with death all around them. As Dave said, this is a surreal image. I made it because to me, Bodie is a surreal place.
Guest 28-Oct-2004 21:07
Strange image. Hard to get a grip on and find some kind of solid meaning in. Looks like a tuba in the bottom of the ocean but for some strange reason seems to also convey the rather out of whack sentiment of this very strange little town.
Phil Douglis28-Oct-2004 05:44
That's just what I thought, Dave, when I walked into that old hall and saw this battered horn lying there beneath the waves.
Dave Wyman28-Oct-2004 05:14
Surreal.
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