Authors: Ben Ruhe
Date Submitted: February 28, 2003
Article Type: Journal

In his new book The Philosopher’s Kite: Essays and Stories (12 Second Press, New York), Tal Streeter roams the kite world and far beyond in his inimitable fashion. Part autobiography, part travelogue, part speculative treatise, part imaginative tale telling, the volume eloquently extols the pleasures of kiteflying and all things related to it.

Two of Streeter’s earlier kite books focused on Asia, The Art of the Japanese Kite and A Kite Journey Through India, but this new, slim paperback focuses on Streeter himself. He tells why he turned from making huge steel sculptures in New York City to delicate kites, his life in Japan on a fellowship where he discovered the living national treasure kitemakers that became the subject of his first volume on kites, his development of the five-mile Flying Red Line kite.

A discourse on why things fly gives way to a reminiscence on his discovery of the moon orchid leaf kite in Indonesia that Streeter speculates may be the earliest sort of kite ever made, going much further back in time than even the oldest Chinese claim of antiquity. He tells about experiencing Afghan kiteflying in both its native country and in California, about sky art as a concept and artistic movement, about travels in India. Then, going back in time to his own beginnings, he recalls his childhood in Kansas. Finally, he lets his imagination really roam and takes kites in particular and aeronautics in general from the ground upward into deep space.

PDF Link: Journal Issue