This little book has got me all riled up. It purports to be about nothing-things that do not happen, entry zero in an imagined sequence, no captions or dates, and a text that, translated into English from Italian, has only the barest hints of meaning. "This is a diary," the text claims, "made of commas, full stops and white spaces between the words."

This is anything but a lively book-the moments captured approach banality degree zero, an almost total disregard for moments, decisive or even notable. One is tempted to find quotes about nihilism from Sartre's Being and Nothingness.




On the positive side, reading a book for the sheer pleasures of the pictures themselves, the odd renderings of facts as fiction regardless of their apparent disconnection, is enlightening and provocative. To be spared narrative, the complexities of back-story, and any apparent imposition of will. What a blessing!




Then again, once you make a photograph, you have made something happen. You have created an event, substance where there was absence, notice where there had been oblivion. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous. —George Slade