The Un-Bomb (2): Ballet, Not Bombs

Ever since Isaiah had a vision of men beating their swords into ploughshares, it has been pleasant to imagine or witness other examples of the tools or symbols of war being converted into those of peace. I've posted a few examples over on the Tumblr.

Full set of images: Ballet Bomb

Gotta Love Those Romance Titles (or: the price of freedom is eternal kitsch)

The American politicians and publishers who, in the title of John Hench's prize-winning book, sought to use "Books as Weapons" in the war against fascism, thought they were making the world free for democracy. Of course, they were also making the world free for free markets, and thereby, not just for Hemingway, Steinbeck, Saroyan, and the other authors whom they held up as models of civic engagement and cultural achievement, but also for all sorts of literary trash.

To put it another way: the price of liberty is eternal kitsch. Of course, that's the price of "totalitarianism," too, though in different ways and for different reasons. While I was in Prague this spring, I saw a massive and fascinating exhibition on the stifling of modernism and the avant-garde, first, by the Nazis, and then by the communists. 

For many of us, the romance novel epitomizes American literary kitsch. To be sure, the genre and its readership have become the subject of scholarly study: one thinks first and foremost of the pioneering work of Janice Radway, who provocatively argued against the dominant condescension toward both.

Sorry, I digressed: I was starting to risk venturing into the serious, which is not at all my purpose here.

Anyway, when it comes to the romance novel, many of just appreciate the lame titles and cheesy cover art. The titles may not be as distinctive and clever as those of classic country and western songs, but like them, they do adhere to certain conventions and constitute a sort of subgenre in their own right. In this case, though, one suspects that the humor is accidental, or at any rate, if implicitly part of the publishers' intent, not uppermost in the minds of their consumers.

This spring, as the Amherst Historical Commission prepared to put forward a request for Community Preservation Act funds for the restoration of paintings hanging in the Jones Library (still need to post about that), I took a stroll through the building to re-familiarize myself with the location of each work of art.

Lo and behold, I came across one of the canvases— Paul Dominique's late 19th-century "Arabs Mounted in Battle"—hanging over: the romance collection.

To me, it actually seemed entirely appropriate. Whereas some might see a glaring contrast between this "high" work of art—after all, it's an oil painting more than a hundred years old, in an elaborate gilded frame (what more need one know?)—and the genre literature of mass cultural production below, I see but variations on a theme.

To be sure, the painting is "historically significant" (otherwise we could not fund its preservation), and reasonably competent, but it is a typical piece of orientalism, depicting the exotic "otherness" of Arab culture for the delight of the western viewer. Unlike a book published in a pressrun of tens or hundreds of thousands of copies, Dominique's painting is a cultural product that exists in but one exemplar, and yet for all that, it is interchangeable with dozens if not hundreds of others. In its own way, it is every bit as conventional as the romance novel—and conventional ideals, representations, and sentiments are the hallmarks of kitsch.

And of course the connection doesn't end there. The Arab male has long functioned as a figure combining danger and allure. One need but think of Valentino and the vogue of "the sheik" theme, derived from the novel of the same name by E. M. Hull (whose real name was not the same: Edith Maude Winstanely). In fact, as the publishers of the new edition remind us, "The Sheik is recognized as the immediate precursor to the modern romance novel." Apparently, the theme has even been making something of a comeback. Oy (as they say). [this ¶ was accidentally omitted from the original upload.]

A classic debate in library philosophy has been whether to collect comprehensively or selectively: as much as possible, or only "the best": what Matthew Battles called the distinction between the "universal" and "Parnassan" ideals of the library. On the local level, this most often gets translated into debates about whether to purchase popular fiction, controversial political works, and the like. Romance novels are among the most contentious genres. The limited evidence suggests that most public libraries do have fairly extensive holdings of romances, though precise patterns of acquisition and funding are less clear. Most libraries have a romance novel collection because there is public demand for it and they serve the public; and there's nothing wrong with that.

Damn. I keep getting serious. Must. Stop. Now.

So, back to those romance titles and covers. One of my favorite "tweeps" and library bloggers, Rita Meade, a.k.a. Screwy Decimal (here, the blog; here, the Twitter account; further: 1, 2, 3) has made a minor art of chronicling the inanity and inadvertent humor of romance titles and romance novel culture—to which she adds her own very intentional humor under the rubric, "Romance Title of the Day," e.g.:

• 'Sex in the Middle Ages.' Well, I hope they practiced serf sex.

 • 'His Virgin Secretary.' Well, I guess it's something to put on the ol' resume.

• 'His Pregnancy Bargain.' I love when a man puts the "us" in uterus

I promised Rita I'd share some of our local examples.

At any rate, without further ado, here's my modest contribution. My favorite is One Fine Cowboy: He's got a way with horses. . . and with women . . . . Feel free to supply your own commentary. The possibilities are almost endless.

The Dangerous Baron Leigh

One Fine Cowboy

A Pregnant Proposal

Confessions of a Viscount

Your tax dollars at work.

So You Want to Write a Novel

The "xtranormal" do-it-yourself text-to-movie animations, with curious characters saying outrageous things in monotones, are going viral. The video that introduced me to the genre is "So You Want to Write a Novel," which is one of the best.




The video skewers a specific but common type of would-be writer: someone with no training, no patience, and no shame. It shows a reality that few of us encounter, but an acquaintance who is a professional writer and editor, told me,

Word for word I've been through it hundreds of times. From now on I'm going to email them the link to the video & skip the stupid conversation!

I serve periodically on creative writing senior thesis committees. They are not the people I see depicted here.  They are ambitious but extraordinarily hard-working and receptive to advice and criticism. They may not be ready to write the great American novel, but they also do not labor under the delusion that is what they are doing. They are convinced they have something to say, and our job is simply to advise them on how to say it better, which is to say: in such a way that someone else will be willing to listen in the first place.

That said, many of my colleagues appreciated this piece in a sad way. They saw reflected here not their best creative writing students, and rather, many a typical undeservedly overconfident undergraduate in other fields.  To be sure, every generation of teachers and artists seems to feel that standards have declined since it went through the education machine. That's a trope.  Still, one does worry. It used to be (again, maybe it was a fiction back then, too) that one could expect that students knew how to write, in the sense of knowing how to structure an argument and having a mastery of the basic mechanics and style of writing.

For me, the exchange that struck home was this one:

Author: “It’s going to need a lot of editing: I’m not the best speller.”
Editor: “My throat is starting to close up. The publishing industry really sort of expects you to have the whole spelling and grammar thing down.”

"really sort of expects you to have the whole spelling and grammar thing down": I think I'm going to use that line a lot in my assignments and paper comments.

Pencils from Cremated Human Remains

Causing quite a stir lately: reports on artist Nadine Jarvis, who creates pencils using the ashes from cremated corpses as the lead. "Carbon Copies," she calls them (an average of 240 per body, in case you were wondering).

Maybe this is the only way that writing can confer immortality on a person.

Perils and Pleasures of Autograph-Hunting

From CNN (7 March): "Saudi men arrested for seeking female writer's autograph":(CNN) -- Saudi Arabia's religious police detained two male novelists for questioning last week after they attempted to get the autograph of a female writer at a book fair in Riyadh, according to local media reports.

Both novelists, who were held for questioning but not charged with a crime, are demanding an apology from the conservative Muslim kingdom's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

The commission, feared by many Saudis, is made up of several thousand religious policemen charged with, among other things, enforcement of dress codes, mandatory observance of prayer times and segregation of the sexes. (read the rest)

In general, it is the reticence of the author that "the autograph hunters" must fear, though, here as in other affairs, many things can go awry. In P. G. Wodehouse's story of the same name, the unfortunate student seeking to bribe his housemaster with a celebrity signature ends up in trouble with both parties and forced to copy out classical literature as punishment (though a sort of reduced sentence signals a modest accidental victory). In the case of Saudi Arabia, the situation would presumably be more dire, but the seekers appear confident that no real consequences will ensue:

One of the writers, Khal, told Al-Watan that he doesn't believe the new leadership endorses actions like those of the commission members who detained him.

"It seems that the relationship between the committee and the intellectuals is based on animosity and hostility and perhaps that is shown from the fashion in which they treated us," he said.

One hopes--although in a society in which there can be a serious debate as to whether an influential cleric actually issued a fatwa calling for the death of Mickey Mouse (the fact may be [feebly] disputed; the fact that one has to debate that fact is not), one could well understand the caution of the collector.

Admittedly, my favorite tale of at least implicit or de facto autograph-hunting involves an audacious request that, although less objectively dangerous and less successful than either of the above, surely surpasses them in the quest for a place in the annals of something or other.

In 1940, a young Fidel Castro wrote to the President of the United States:

My good friend Roosvelt:I don't know very English, but I know as much as write to you.

I like to hear the radio, and I am very happy, because I heard in it, that you will be President for a new (periódo)

I am twelve years old. I am a boy but I think very much, but I do not think that I am writting to the President of the United States.

If you like, give me a ten dollars bill green american in the letter because never have I not seen a ten dollars bill green american and I would like to have one of them. . .

[after giving Roosevelt his mailing address, he also helpfully offers to point the President to some big iron mines that could be useful for ship construction]

(And of course, Cuba still awaits that influx of aid from Washington.)

Top that one, I dare you.

Amherst 250th: Say What You Mean

Thanks, Pb!

I'm sure that the people organizing Amherst's 250th Anniversary celebrations were just so excited to win a major gift that they forgot to proofread:

As a historian of the book--and someone who from time to time has to read linguistically and conceptually challenged student papers--I am of course fascinated by the difference between oral and written language. More attention to stylistic felicity might have avoided this embarrassment.

Anyway. . .

Please be more careful next time.

At the end of last year, Shiraz Socialist, trying to add some levity to the grim situation of the world, offered a cultural-political questionnaire. Among the highlights, one devoted to books and censorship:

It’s that time of the year when you get bumper issues of magazines, the reviews of the past twelve months and, of course, the Christmas quiz.

So here, for Christmas, is our special quiz.

ARE YOU A CLERICAL FASCIST?

Answer the following 10 questions to check your clerical fascism credentials!

1. Before being published a book should be:-
a) Vetted by a board of clerics for blasphemy
b) Vetted by academics for offensiveness
c) Eh?
. . . . .
10. The Golden Age was:-
a) 8th century, Baghdad
b) 1917 USSR – there was something to hope for
c) 10 September 2001 – though there was plenty of crap around, it wasn’t this particular kind of crap

(take the full quiz)

As 2009 begins, the questions seem bound to remain relevant for a long time.

What to read (and things I wish I'd said, written, or done)

Whenever one despairs of intellectual stimulus, the right thing just somehow comes along:

For the past 30 years, the Bookseller magazine has awarded a prize to the oddest book title it can find. The first ever winner was Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice
Mind-boggling as that is, it is far from the strangest. Now the top prize has been won by the 1996 magnum opus Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers, . . .  More.

Damn. You couldn't make this stuff up (which is to say: I wish I could; the last time I tried was in college, with a brief [that word alone doomed it to failure] German philosophical treatise, entitled, Wissen und Pissen, which won plaudits from those who understand both topics, but remained a fragment).

Of course, for those who can (or try), there are works such as that by Tad Tuleja, late of neighboring Belchertown; a hamlet whose unappetizing name alone prevented me from seeking a domicile there (though it has since become quite the fashionable place, mainly because it had land for large building lots).  His The Catalog of Lost Books: An Annotated and Seriously Addled Collection of Great Books That Should Have Been Written, But Never Were (1989), with a preface appropriately entitled, "À la Recherche des Tomes Perdus," includes such treasures as "The Cretan Eraser: Inventories of Knossos," "Bulimius: The Art of Stuffing," "Heloise Hausenhintsen: The Helper's Helper" (that one may require a certain generational context), "William Shakespeare: Hamletta," "Pocahontas: The London Diary," "Alfred E. Neumann: What, Me Worry?" (another lost reference on the very young, now that other and better satirical entertainments abound), "Marilyn Monroe: A Prolegomena to Semiotics," and "Lumpy Gravy: The Mushroom Hunters."

He outfoxed himself, however, with James Bereford's Miseries of Human Life. As an astute reader pointed out (I guess one just has to know the 19th century and how those people thought; a few of us make it our business and pleasure to do so) it was in fact a real book from 1816 that fooled both author and reviewer. Tuleja was smart and gracious enough to acknowledge the error--but also sly and proud enough to inform the letter-writer that there was in addition a deliberate false attribution--that is, in this case, a real title--lurking in his catalogue. Are you clever enough to find it? (Hint: It's not "Guy-Martine Ratatouille: Cacophony of the Spheres.")

And for those of you who still want to make up some good titles, be aware that it is an uphill battle. Here are some past winners from the list of real titles:

1986: Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality (Brunner/Mazel)
1988: Versailles: The View From Sweden (University of Chicago Press)
1989: How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art (Ten Speed Press)
1990: Lesbian Sadomasochism Safety Manual (Lace Publications)

(Not for nothing was that one of my favorite decades, greed and Reaganism notwithstanding.  After the lean years of the nineties, which perhaps produced fewer striking titles, the new millennium is already generating a bumper crop.)

1994: Highlights in the History of Concrete (British Cement Association)
1995: Reusing Old Graves (Shaw & Son)

2002: Living With Crazy Buttocks (Kaz Cooke - Penguin)
2003: The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories (Kensington Publishing)
2004: Bombproof Your Horse (J A Allen)
2005: People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It (Gary Leon Hill - Red Wheel/Weiser Books)
2006: The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification (Harry N Abrams)

Font Fun

"Font Conference," from College Humor

Having posted this one, I of course cannot resist the temptation to add a link to Cheshire Dave's classic take on "Cooper Black."

Re: Introducing the book (Covered by NRK News)

The story behind the surprising success of a comedy skit about books in the Middle Ages. From Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK).

Medieval helpdesk with English subtitles

What better way to begin than with this surprise international hit? First posted in a Danish-subtitled version of the original Norwegian with English subtitles appended, it rapidly made its way through book circles in early 2007. It's as funny now as it was then, reminding us that our problems are not unique, and that, in an age of rapid technological change, we can best find our bearings if we begin by historicizing our own position.

Description: From a show called Øystein & Meg (Øystein & I) produced by the Norwegian Broadcasting television channel (NRK) in 2001. The spoken language is Norwegian. It's written by Knut Nærum and performed by Øystein Bache and Rune Gokstad.

After the surprise success of the various bootleg versions, Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) posted this "official" one.

The next post provides background and commentary from NRK.