Stiedl Press has embarked upon an ambitious long-term publishing program that will bring back into print all the work—books and films—of the re­nowned photographer Robert Frank. As far as I can make out, the only exception to this undertaking is Cocksucker Blues, the rarely seen documentary film that follows the Rolling Stones on their 1972 North American tour (rarely seen because it was suppressed by the Stones themselves). The centrepiece of this project is a new edition of The Americans, published this year to mark the fiftieth anniversary of its first edition. Fans of the Beat writers will know that Frank asked Jack Kerouac to write the introduction to this collection of eighty-three black-and-white images, which show American faces that (in Kerouac’s words) “don’t editorialize or criticize or say anything but ‘This is the way we are in real life and if you don’t like it I don’t know anything about it ’cause I’m living my own life my way and may God bless us all, mebbe.’” I was struck by how well these photographs have aged; only the cars and the prices seem dated (behind a lunch counter waitress a sign offers “Jumbo Size Hot Dog 18¢ With Chilli 5¢ Extra”); the subjects—the ordinary Americans of small towns and cities, factories, sidewalks, parks and backyards—inhabit a territory that seems somewhere outside of time.