Dogs In My Life: The Photographs of John Tibule Mendes

by Bill Lavender (Editor)

After John Tibule Mendes died in 1965, it was discovered that this lonely and socially awkward man had spent most of his free time documenting unusual scenes of early 20th century New Orleans. The glass-plate negatives he left behind are published here for the first time. Excerpts from his autobiography, Dogs in My Life, add Mendesi sometimes tragic, sometimes hilarious, voice to the remarkable images of historic buildings, demolitions, transvestites and working-class life.

120 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2009

About the author

Bill Lavender is a poet, novelist, musician, carpenter and publisher living in New Orleans. He is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry—most recently, city of god—and a novel trilogy, Three Letters. He is also the publisher at Lavender Ink/Diálogos. His poems, stories and essays have appeared in dozens of print and web journals and anthologies, with theoretical writings appearing in Contemporary Literature and Poetics Today, among others.

His ground-breaking verse memoir, Memory Wing, dubbed by Rodger Kamentetz "a contemporary autobiographical masterpiece," was published by Black Widow in 2011. His novel, Q, a neo-picaresque view of the surreal world of the future, appeared from Trembling Pillow in 2013. A chapbook, surrealism, was published in 2016 by Lavender Ink. His Amazon author page lists most of his books.

Read an interview with Bill about his poetics and about the press at Jacket2.

He is the co-founder, with Megan Burns of Trembling Pillow Press, of the New Orleans Poetry Festival.

Reviews

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Tibule Mendes: A Visual Mark Twain

John Tibule Mendes (1888 - 1965) was an antivivisectionist, a champion for all things related to the welfare of dogs, and a chronicler of New Orleans from the time he first made photographs on glass plates in 1916 until he died. From the warm and exceptionally well written Introduction by this book's editor Bill Lavender we learn as much as there is to know about this strange man who seemingly cared little for publicity for his photographic achievements but instead kept his focus on his favorite companions - the dogs of New Orleans.

Included in this tribute to an uncommonly interesting 'common man' are the first reproductions of his many photographs of the streets, the history, the folks, the Mardi Gras parades, the building up and the tearing down of the great old city of New Orleans (the city where he was born and lived and died) - in essence this is a collection of Americana never seen before. These wonderful images of dogs, people and secret and public places ring with the same honesty as the writings of Mark Twain. Indeed in 1964 John Tibule Mendes published his autobiography DOGS IN MY LIFE and portions of that last stab at commemorating a life as a common man in New Orleans are captured here. This monograph is a down home, no nonsense capturing of one man's love for life, for dogs, and for a grand old city, and as such it is a welcome addition to the books that are being published that remind us of our past and of kinder times. This is a beauty of a book for photographer, for lovers of historic images and for those who simply want to wander down memory land at the side of a genteel man - and his dogs, of course!

Grady Harp