Elmo
Tide doesn't have a website. There isn't a biography or resume or
mission statement of his to be found online. What he does have
is a Flickr page that has been updated exactly twice: once
on June 28, 2008, and again on July 31, 2010. His photos have shown
up on dozens of alternative art blogs, always with a link to his
Flickr page, never with any context; often with the question, "Who
is Elmo Tide?"
Who
is Elmo Tide? He is an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in bacon.
His
photographs seem like anachronistic souvenirs from a time that never
existed, a weird mix of sleaze and nostalgia littered with archetypes
of cowboys, firefighters, wrestlers and strippers. Robert Frank and
Fellini go to the carnival.
Interview,
by Mito Habe-Evans
(http://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2010/09/01/129579293/)
« Who is Elmo Tide? Why the mystery?
Elmo Tide lives in fading shadows and regret.
Do you have any recurring dreams/nightmares? What happens?
Elmo had dreams. They lifted rage to be heralded as passion and fear to be lauded as irony. In them he felt superior and in his isolated elated thoughts of immortality his endless dread of complete and utter loss wrestled with tubes of empty model airplane glue until waking was as impossible as ending anything that was never begun.
Do you have a desk job?
A desk job is very much like a nose or a boob job in that being unhappy with who we are we hide behind someone else's creation. I made a very small desk from an old matchbox and 4 blood stained tooth picks. I carry it in my breast pocket. In the matchbox is a tiny tome written in classical Arabic which I cannot read.
What did you want to grow up to be when you were young?
When I was little I wanted to grow up to be young. Or fire. »
And that's all, folks !
