Photos by Russell Jaffe
If you’re going to lose yourself in Iowa like I have for the last four years, you need to obey the gravity of our place and time and go to the Iowa State Fair. This year’s slogan, “Nothing Compares,” is totally appropriate and a total understatement for the kind of place that prides itself on both measuring Primary-election voter trends and coming up with terrifying, new ways to fry and consume things that were once a part of the plant or animal kingdom—maybe.
The entire State Fair itself is an art display, not just about the art of entertainment or of capitalism or of Iowa itself, but rather a massive artful tribute to a uniquely individualist place on earth: America, and its internal satellites equally beaming signals that are tributes to the iconography of the self. My friend who goes with me, basic-training bound and a soon-to-be Army band member, calls this place a sociologist’s dream—a confluence of agriculture, art, commerce and gluttony, among other things.
Men and women in makeshift official attire and orange vests sail front lawn seas atop broken plastic chairs or ratty living room armchairs. They hold plywood signs or scribbly posterboard showing the rates—$5 or $6—to park in their yards. One glares at me with a burning, ice-eyed hatred as I park in an open spot on the street for free.
By one of the main entrances, WHO-radio’s Crystal Studios has an angry man screaming, “Obama … these children of the Obama generation … they don’t think there’s prosperity out there. They have been told that evil corporations and evil Republicans can take their rights. The vast majority of college graduates are taught this! Folks, we need to fight back against this liberal indoctrination!”
Across the way is a “double dipped corn dogs” stand. There’s a “double bacon wrapped corn dogs” stand next door.
It’s probably worth taking a second to break down what art actually is: Something that grabs one’s attention deliberately or with some measure of an artist’s intention in a visual, auditory or somehow sensory way that presents an environment or landscape—a realm, a dimension, something people can both relate to and escape within—to explore new ground and reconcile with the familiar. So there is something very artful to the gaudy, inflatable ice creams atop some stands, the spinning neon lights, the bright neon paint and countless, useless striped flags, the ephemeral artery of walkways channeled by fatty walls of block letters and the smell of fryer oil and smoked meat and dense, damp sugar. The heavy air is briefly intoxicating when you walk by.
And the people. Overweight men with goatees, sunburned folds of skin; T-shirts that say “my Indian name is RUNS WITH BEER;” older cowboys eating corn dogs while they’re hunched over trash cans; young girls with huge eyes and huger eyelashes wearing oversized Hawkeyes shirts or homemade sports-team, neon inside-joke displays with numbers and names on the back; hats, hats, hats; power scooters; Hawaiian shirts and khaki shorts that break the treeline of the knees; incredibly blond children; shirts tucked into jeans tucked into cowboy boots; tank tops hanging on shoulders that are just extensions of armpits; people shuffling, skipping, spinning and dancing.
It’s such a rich cross section of profoundly loud and proud expressionists. It’s like a USA convention, a massive tribute to the manifest destiny of the individual and their boundless hunger.
The entire state fair is a justification for the way of life in the state. Food, corn, plants, animals—animals that can be eaten, and animals that jump and run and smell good and be attractive and are herded and obedient. And eaten. I cannot stress that enough. From the best to the worst to the wierdest to the most, the prizes make sure the hierarchy of the individual is the ultimate showcase of art. And how different, really, is that from any art gallery?
We drink some beers and go down the giant slide which we ride down on burlap bags. There’s a strange DIY undercurrent like the chalky dirt that lines the entire shining light and smoke of the fair. At one stand you can get a bucket of cookies for $14. That’s another thing art does: Art allows you to do things. Art makes rules and sometimes you have to decide if those rules are worth figuring out and obeying. I think the mental processes behind eating a bag of cookies from the store in one sitting changes drastically when suddenly you’re presented food in a bucket that’s differently accessible.
Iowa’s functional economy is on display as if it was a gallery show. Iowa Beef Industry Council! Iowa Pork Producers! Shiny, waxen and right next to the colossal line to the famous, infamous, kitschy iconic butter sculptures. This year they’re Abe Lincoln themed. Crowds of people like clusters of fried nuts stick together closely as their butter president twirls limitlessly on display.
The individual vendors and prize winners are more tributes to Iowan tenacity. And the Iowa individual is more than hard-working—they are strange, quixotic and laser-focused on strange things (like crops, for example) that were once life necessities but are now ornamental blends of the educational and commercial. In many cases you can’t tell where one stops and one starts.
At 3 p.m., at a talent show stage that has become a kind of ad-hoc vaudeville of scripted shows and themed competitions, we watch a woman in a pinafore skirt, smock and wrist gauntlets lift at least five pounds of potatoes with her tongue.
We take the sky tram from one end of the fair to the other. It is a continuous state of observation. We observe the observers, it’s the gallery view within the gallery. It’s almost unreal how symbolic the layers of observing within observing there are at the fair. Looking is the all-important method of being at the Iowa State Fair, where this year “Nothing Compares.” The gallery of the gallery, the looking at people looking at things looking back at people is uniquely individualistic, utilitarian and surreal—tacky artifice and raw bravado. Indeed, the way the art is presented is as art as the art itself.
And what better way to end the fair then to check out the Rabbit Skills Agility Test? I don’t think I’ve ever cheered so loud for rabbits hopping through hoops in my life.
Russell Jaffe is maximal man doing maximal things.
