Monday, September 30, 2019
Surprising No One, Except Breathless Media
Girl Who Claimed Hair Was Cut in Racist Attack Admits She Made It Up
This happens more often than is reported, especially at schools and colleges, and it tears at the fabric of community again and again.
This happens more often than is reported, especially at schools and colleges, and it tears at the fabric of community again and again.
Sunday, September 29, 2019
Satire or Not?
(For those new to rifles, the one pictured is a Garand M1, the standard infantry weapon of WWII. In other words, a weapon of war.)
Saturday, September 28, 2019
Never Mind, Part Two
Does a Religious Upbringing Promote Generosity or Not?
In 2015, a paper by Jean Decety and co-authors reported that children who were brought up religiously were less generous. The paper received a great deal of attention, and was covered by over 80 media outlets including The Economist, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and Scientific American. As it turned out, however, the paper by Decety was wrong.Oops, again.
Friday, September 27, 2019
Raymond Loewy
"Good design keeps the user happy, the manufacturer in the black and the aesthete unoffended."
If no, then don't tell me.
This is one of those occasions where pictures really are worth a thousand words. To wit, I offer the following:
PRR K4 steam locomotive, circa 1930's
NYC Transit Authority R40 subway car
International Harvester Metro duty van
Lincoln Continental, 1946
Sunbeam Alpine, 1956
IH Farmall tractor
Studebaker Avanti, 1963
You know.
You know this one, too.
Greyhound Scenicruiser
USPS logo
Exxon/Mobil logo
USCG logo
Air Force One livery
What all of these colors and shapes have in common is that they, and many, many, many more, were the product of the imagination and creativity of a Frenchman whose work would span two continents, seventy years, and influence the way in which we look at the world.
Raymond Loewy was born in 1893 and, after distinguishing himself in battle in the French army duringWWI, earning a promotion to captain, and being wounded and awarded the Croix de guerre, he moved to the United States at the war's conclusion to become...a window dresser for Macy's, [also Saks, and a handful of other New York City department stores]. Not exactly what one would necessarily expect from a war hero but, then again, maybe it is, given what Loewy was able to do with that experience.
In 1929, while the world was reeling from the initial stage of the economic depression, the Gestetner company, makers of a state-of-the-art document copier, held an open contest for a new design for their premier product in order to make it appear less industrial and more, well, arty. Loewy won the contest and, with it, the attention of the industrial design world.
I know it looks dated, but we were still using these when I was a new teacher in 1977.
For the next five years, Loewy designed household appliances for Westinghouse and Sears-Roebuck and cars for the Hupp Motor Company. Even in mundane items, his designs brought modernism to the most common and weary of household fixtures and automobiles.
A pre-Loewy Hupmobile and...
... post-Loewy
His true breakthrough came with his long-standing relationship with the Pennsylvania Railroad, for whom he designed the shroud that streamlined their steam engine and brought panache to the interior quarters of their most popular line, the Chicago-to-New York Broadway Limited.
Eventually, Loewy was able to open design studios in both New York and London and maintain a presence in his native France. This brought a certain European cache to his work, something that was popular in the post-WWII world, and was especially prized by the designers and engineers at the Studebaker automobile company.
While virtually unknown today except by car historians and/or gear heads, Studebaker was determined to avoid the large, heavy, and fin-decorated gaudiness of other Detroit-based cars and offer something that was different, yet accessible. Also, trunk space was to be highlighted. In response, Loewy and his team re-designed the Starlight and Commander models and, in the early sixties, created one of the most unique and desirable cars ever when they produced the Avanti [pictured above].
Also, no fins.
A complete list of Loewy's design accomplishments may be found online, of course, along with appreciations of his influence on our world view. He has been remembered as "the man who designed everything" and "the man who made the 20th century". Remarkable, isn't it, that he is not better known?
Loewy would retire at the age of 87, move to Monte Carlo, and spend the remaining six years of his life in as French a manner as possible. A foundation that promotes industrial art annually presents an award that is considered the coup de grace in design and is named, naturally, for Loewy.
Even if not a Loewy design, a study of his work and art makes one look at common items with a much fuller appreciation, as many of our everyday items are products of a considerable amount of care and no small amount of creativity.
Eventually, Loewy was able to open design studios in both New York and London and maintain a presence in his native France. This brought a certain European cache to his work, something that was popular in the post-WWII world, and was especially prized by the designers and engineers at the Studebaker automobile company.
While virtually unknown today except by car historians and/or gear heads, Studebaker was determined to avoid the large, heavy, and fin-decorated gaudiness of other Detroit-based cars and offer something that was different, yet accessible. Also, trunk space was to be highlighted. In response, Loewy and his team re-designed the Starlight and Commander models and, in the early sixties, created one of the most unique and desirable cars ever when they produced the Avanti [pictured above].
A complete list of Loewy's design accomplishments may be found online, of course, along with appreciations of his influence on our world view. He has been remembered as "the man who designed everything" and "the man who made the 20th century". Remarkable, isn't it, that he is not better known?
Loewy would retire at the age of 87, move to Monte Carlo, and spend the remaining six years of his life in as French a manner as possible. A foundation that promotes industrial art annually presents an award that is considered the coup de grace in design and is named, naturally, for Loewy.
Even if not a Loewy design, a study of his work and art makes one look at common items with a much fuller appreciation, as many of our everyday items are products of a considerable amount of care and no small amount of creativity.
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Thursday's Place: Tintamarre
There really are such things as desert islands, and not just in the South Pacific. There is one just off of St. Martin in the Caribbean that carries a particular memory for me, even as it stretches back to 1994.
Ile Tintamarre, or simply Tintamarre, is just two miles away from the crowded and crazy tourist zones of St. Martin. It is only 1/3 of a mile wide and boasts some of the finest beaches in the Leeward Islands. While it may have been inhabited in ancient times, that is no longer the case. Immediately after WWII, a small French cargo airline made their base there, and even built a crude, concrete runway, but by 1950 the airline had gone bust and their outpost and airstrip surrendered to the wind and the weather.
 |
| Up there in the right-hand corner, if you squint, you can see it. |
Although no one now lives on the island, a French woman with a disdain for Americans [I told her I was Canadian so that she would serve me] would boat over in the mornings with the tide, set up a plank of driftwood on a couple of barrels, and serve drinks from some coolers ["Drink Gatorade!"] to the nomadic yachting crowd who would inevitably find her and her establishment.
At the time, I was crewing on board the S/V Polynesia, a 120 foot schooner out of Miami Beach. As I was searching for good stories and anything cold to drink, I found myself engaged in a two-hour conversation under a palm tree with the past commodore of the famous Bitter End Yacht Club in Virgin Gorda who had sailed over 200,000 nautical miles through the Leeward and Windward Islands. He regaled me with stories of his adventures both at sea and on land, and gave me a flavor of what life may be like when one surrenders to the wind. It was enthralling, of course, and almost enough to encourage me to quit teaching philosophy at a dreary boarding school in New England and never leave the Caribbean.
 |
| The S/V Polynesia |
When I got back on board the Polynesia, I mentioned to another crew member that I had met the commodore. The crew member gave a derisive snort and said, "He's no commodore. I don't think he can even sail. He probably rowed over here in that...thing." He motioned to a small, disreputable rowboat on the shore that looked more like a poorly re-purposed bathtub. "That's Whiskey Pete. He's always around somewhere. Everything he says is complete bosh. He used to sell hardware over in BVI. I don't know what it is, but every port seems to have a Whiskey Pete. They're fun to listen to, and they tell great stories, just know it's bosh."
I eventually found that to be true; there was and is a Whiskey Pete in every port. There should be one in every airport, if just to entertain delayed travelers. Honestly, I don't find them as annoying as did my fellow crew member and, as my wife sometimes notes, I seem to serve as a magnet to them.
While there are tours from St. Martin, enriched by vague and inaccurate stories about pirates and healthy [or toxic, depending on whom you ask] mud baths on the less visited portion of the island, it still tends mostly to attract the yachting crowd who enjoy lounging under the spare palms along that glorious beach. If only Tintamarre had surfable waves. Ah, well.
The S/V Polynesia, which began life as a cod fishing vessel for a Portuguese company, and was later featured in a 1950 Australian documentary made on behalf of National Geographic, has since disappeared. When the American company that owned the ship when I crewed aboard went bust, it found its way back to Portugal, where it was last sighted five years ago moldering away in a shipyard awaiting a refit. I have no idea whatever happened to her since, but I suspect her brass fittings and interior woodwork have made their way to other boats, ships, and marine salvage yards by now.
I never saw Whiskey Pete again, even though I made my way through the islands in various craft over the next several years, but I certainly have encountered his spiritual cousins. There is something about the remote places that brings out the marginal people, and it's only lately that I've begun to realize that I'm one of them.
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Sooth
The cultural power of celebrities — or more specifically, the average American’s misplaced trust in the judgment of people who they recognize from being on television or in the movies or hearing their music — is profoundly disturbing. I suspect that the process of becoming a celebrity is almost inherently psychologically damaging. They enjoy the cheers and adoration of large crowds but have difficulty developing and sustaining real behind-the-scenes relationships. Their fans love the characters they play, sometimes oblivious to the fact that the actor is not the character. Most of them are constantly evaluated based upon their appearance by strangers, developing all kinds of obsessions and disorders and frequently going under the knife to preserve their youthful looks. Their ideas for maintaining good health would give the American Medical Association nightmares. Addictions flourish and are almost endlessly enabled. Almost everyone they encounter wants something from them — an autograph, a picture, sex, to read a script, to play a role, or to offer help breaking into the business. And this is before we get to the point that their world lets the likes of Harvey Weinstein thrive and flourish.
Most of the people who create our popular culture are constantly marinating in a culture of exploitation, greed, envy, objectification, abuse, hedonistic excess, and runaway lust of every kind. It’s amazing any of them come out of the process of becoming famous with their head on straight. And yet so many of our fellow countrymen are endlessly fascinated with the inmates of the asylum.
Most of the people who create our popular culture are constantly marinating in a culture of exploitation, greed, envy, objectification, abuse, hedonistic excess, and runaway lust of every kind. It’s amazing any of them come out of the process of becoming famous with their head on straight. And yet so many of our fellow countrymen are endlessly fascinated with the inmates of the asylum.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Two Sets of Rules, as Ever
Shot:
Chaser:
Car Force One: Harrison Ford's Car And Aircraft Collection
Actor Harrison Ford demands the United Nations take immediate action on climate change, 'Our house is on fire, and we only have one house' pic.twitter.com/4wjt8ef2gn— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) September 24, 2019
Chaser:
Car Force One: Harrison Ford's Car And Aircraft Collection
A New Word Learned
"Baizuo (pronounced "bye-tswaw) is a Chinese epithet meaning naive western educated person who advocates for peace and equality only to satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority. A baizuo only cares about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment while being obsessed with political correctness to the extent that they import backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism.
The Chinese see the baizuo as ignorant and arrogant westerners who pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours.”
I heard it said quite a bit by this crowd:
I heard it said quite a bit by this crowd:
Monday, September 23, 2019
This Explains Everything
As soon as I read this, I understood:
When I was in junior high school [it was a thing back then, kids; it was replaced by this weird "middle school" lark] we sat through an assembly that scared us all silly with tales of how over-population was going to destroy us all. I think we had until the year 2000 or something. Jeez, we had spent our elementary school years worried sick about nuclear war, and now this.
Needless to say, 2000 came and went and life is actually pretty good. We're still here, the people who were paid to scare us are all gone. It appears they had grandchildren, however.
When I was in junior high school [it was a thing back then, kids; it was replaced by this weird "middle school" lark] we sat through an assembly that scared us all silly with tales of how over-population was going to destroy us all. I think we had until the year 2000 or something. Jeez, we had spent our elementary school years worried sick about nuclear war, and now this.
Needless to say, 2000 came and went and life is actually pretty good. We're still here, the people who were paid to scare us are all gone. It appears they had grandchildren, however.
One Will Never Go Broke Predicting the End of the World
Climate change activism is warming up this week with climate strikes, a U.N. summit, plus extra media coverage. Naturally, the apocalyptic rhetoric is warming up, too. To take only two examples among many: “2020 could be your last chance to stop an apocalypse,” warned a Los Angeles Times editorial last Sunday. What's more, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded to criticism that her Green New Deal is unrealistic by saying, “What’s not realistic is Miami not existing in a few years.”
Before anyone is tempted to start believing any of these predictions, it’s worth recalling that similar predictions of impending environmental doom have been made regularly for the past half-century. They have been made by leading scientific experts as well as journalists and politicians.
Although the cause of looming disaster has changed over the decades, one thing hasn’t changed: Every prediction with a date attached has not happened. Most have been spectacularly wrong.
Before anyone is tempted to start believing any of these predictions, it’s worth recalling that similar predictions of impending environmental doom have been made regularly for the past half-century. They have been made by leading scientific experts as well as journalists and politicians.
Although the cause of looming disaster has changed over the decades, one thing hasn’t changed: Every prediction with a date attached has not happened. Most have been spectacularly wrong.
Sunday, September 22, 2019
A Good Question with a Plausible Answer
How to explain the sense of panic and doom in the midst of comparative peace and prosperity? Maybe 20th century secular atheism is having an existential crisis. All the things it thought would make them happy turned out hollow. The Green frenzy is about how to end it already.— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) September 22, 2019
The New Bookburners are, No Surprise, the Very Ones Entrusted with the Nurture of Literature
Trashing Unwoke Books
I used to regard myself as a liberal, but the definition of such nowadays means the banning of words and books, the alteration of the electoral system, and placing limitations on what other people may eat, drive, and celebrate. Liberals are also intolerant of my religion.
I'm not sure what I am anymore, but it certainly isn't a liberal by the current definition.
Saturday, September 21, 2019
Well, This is Interesting
Reports of Jesus appearing in dreams or in some kind of apparent bodily form to Muslims in the Middle East are being heard with increasing frequency, and not just from evangelical Christian missionaries.
As a result, the time is coming soon when Christians and skeptics alike will have to take public notice, and sooner than later for congressional aides in jobs working on international relations, foreign assistance, religious freedoms and related issues.
As a result, the time is coming soon when Christians and skeptics alike will have to take public notice, and sooner than later for congressional aides in jobs working on international relations, foreign assistance, religious freedoms and related issues.
It Makes One Feel Morally Superior, Not Physically Healthy
The Impossible Whopper has roughly the same number of calories as a traditional Whopper (they both have similar amounts of fat and protein, as well). But the Impossible Whopper has 9 more grams of carbs, and it has more sodium than its meatier counterpart. https://t.co/jU5r7J8iHj— Bruce Mehlman (@bpmehlman) September 15, 2019
Friday, September 20, 2019
A Pungent Observation
Remembering some old reporter skills, I took the opportunity to speak with some of those on the boardwalk in the town where I'm surfing attending a very important clergy retreat conference about their "strike" on behalf of...um...the climate or environment or something. They were a little unclear about it, actually.
Of the teenagers, all eleven to whom I spoke admitted they joined just so they could have a day off of school and, hence, a three-day weekend. Their teachers encouraged them to do so for the same reason.
Of the adults, none of the fourteen to whom I spoke have jobs, as they were either retired, unemployed, or stay-at-home moms. It's hard to "strike" when one has no job from which to strike. Since the moms had their children with them, it looks like they didn't "strike" from being a mom, either.
As long as everyone is having a good time.
Of the teenagers, all eleven to whom I spoke admitted they joined just so they could have a day off of school and, hence, a three-day weekend. Their teachers encouraged them to do so for the same reason.
Of the adults, none of the fourteen to whom I spoke have jobs, as they were either retired, unemployed, or stay-at-home moms. It's hard to "strike" when one has no job from which to strike. Since the moms had their children with them, it looks like they didn't "strike" from being a mom, either.
As long as everyone is having a good time.
Grace Hopper
"Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up and loyalty down.
Respect for one's superiors; care for one's crew."
The U.S. Navy has a guided missile destroyer named for an admiral who never served as a line officer, never commanded a ship, and never, as far as I can find, put to sea. She did, however, substantially transform the world in which we live. That's why the destroyer's nickname is, like that of its namesake, "Amazing Grace".
The admiral is also responsible for the hardest foreign language I've ever known. While it seems an archaic and virtually dead language now, and wasn't for human-to-human communication, it permitted machines to speak with us and vice versa. It was called Fortran. That language, and its related idiom of Cobal, was composed to operate computers and probably carries as much historical influence as English, French, and Mandarin.
One of the chief architects of those languages was Grace Hopper. Born in New York City in 1906, Hopper showed an early interest in knowing how things work and, after dismantling a series of household mechanical clocks when she was seven, how things went back together. Her formal education was impressive, especially as she was almost admitted to Vassar at the age of sixteen [poor Latin scores prevented her admission, but she matriculated the next year]. By 1934, Hopper was the possessor of a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Yale University and a sinecure as an associate professor at Vassar.
Then, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hopper and many other educated women sought to aid the country's war effort, so many that the Navy established an officers' training school for women at Smith College [Goodness, how things have changed. Can we imagine such a thing today at a liberal arts college notoriously hostile towards the military?] Hopper graduated at the top of her class and was assigned to the Navy's "Computation Project" at Harvard University to work on the famous, and remarkably advanced, Mark I computer.
Of course, it's less powerful than a modern smart phone, but in its day....
Her work on this and subsequent computer developments were such that, at war's end, she applied to remain in the Navy and continue her work. While she was denied regular Navy service [because of the war, the fact that she was physically slight was ignored; after the war, that adjustment was no longer permitted], she remained in the Navy Reserves and continued to work as a consultant to the War [now Defense] Department.
Shortly after being turned down for regular duty, the Remington Rand [now Unisys] corporation hired Hopper to be their director of automatic programming since, with her achievements in computer languages, she had proven that computing machines could do much more than simply work out mathematical problems. Along with a team of like-minded mathematicians and engineers, Hopper helped to develop the next radical leap forward in artificial intelligence: The UNIVAC. The UNIVAC and its successive models would be used not only by military developers and academics, but would work out the results of the 1950 census and accurately predict the outcome of the 1952 presidential election.
Hopper would also re-organize military computing by suggesting the replacement of a centralized system with a collection of smaller, distributed stations that could access a common mainframe. Recognizing a good thing, however belatedly, the Navy realized the treasure that was Grace Hopper and kept her active during the remainder of her career. While she was required to retire at the age of sixty, now with the rank of full commander, she was recalled to duty the next year and the next and the next, eventually retiring once again [for perhaps the fourth or fifth time] with the rank of captain. She was finally required to absolutely, positively retire at the age of 79. In recognition of being the fifth longest serving officer in the Navy's history, and the longest serving woman, Hopper was promoted to commodore [or one-star admiral] and, on board the USS Consitution in Boston Harbor in 1986, was awarded the highest non-combat military medal by then-President Reagan.
Oh, and just for fun, she then made an appearance on the David Letterman Show.
Hopper continued to work in the computer industry until her death at age 85 in 1992. Of the many achievements that can be laid at her feet, perhaps the most piquant is the coining of particular term much beloved by IT specialists, computer coders, and frustrated office carrel residents. When poking through the guts of an early computer to discover why it was acting in a non-optimal manner, a moth flew out of the works. Once the computer was operational, Grace Hopper announced that the machine was now "de-bugged".
In these days when young women are being actively encouraged to find roles in the math and science fields, perhaps the greatest testimony to Hopper's influence may be found through a website named for her that renders information about the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Or, for those of a more martial nature, spend a few moments appreciating the sturdy and sophisticated computing system that allows an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer to function in a manner found daunting to our nation's enemies.
Hopper and her fan club at work on a later version of the UNIVAC. Compared to the Mark I, it's practically portable.
Hopper would also re-organize military computing by suggesting the replacement of a centralized system with a collection of smaller, distributed stations that could access a common mainframe. Recognizing a good thing, however belatedly, the Navy realized the treasure that was Grace Hopper and kept her active during the remainder of her career. While she was required to retire at the age of sixty, now with the rank of full commander, she was recalled to duty the next year and the next and the next, eventually retiring once again [for perhaps the fourth or fifth time] with the rank of captain. She was finally required to absolutely, positively retire at the age of 79. In recognition of being the fifth longest serving officer in the Navy's history, and the longest serving woman, Hopper was promoted to commodore [or one-star admiral] and, on board the USS Consitution in Boston Harbor in 1986, was awarded the highest non-combat military medal by then-President Reagan.
Oh, and just for fun, she then made an appearance on the David Letterman Show.
Hopper continued to work in the computer industry until her death at age 85 in 1992. Of the many achievements that can be laid at her feet, perhaps the most piquant is the coining of particular term much beloved by IT specialists, computer coders, and frustrated office carrel residents. When poking through the guts of an early computer to discover why it was acting in a non-optimal manner, a moth flew out of the works. Once the computer was operational, Grace Hopper announced that the machine was now "de-bugged".
In these days when young women are being actively encouraged to find roles in the math and science fields, perhaps the greatest testimony to Hopper's influence may be found through a website named for her that renders information about the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Or, for those of a more martial nature, spend a few moments appreciating the sturdy and sophisticated computing system that allows an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer to function in a manner found daunting to our nation's enemies.
Now there's an officer who has earned a salute. Or else.
Thursday, September 19, 2019
Thursday's Place: Margaritaville
Please forgive this personal recollection, but I’m away from family this week and feeling sentimental about it. Lately, I’ve been marveling, too, about how things that were once simple and fun have become, over time, remarkably complicated.
I first visited Key West in 1987. I was attending, as the diocesan representative, a conference in Miami on music and liturgy. As was often the case in those days, when it wasn't as obvious that mainstream Christianity was in decline, the discussions were lightweight and designed to allow clergy to burnish their resumes, network for future elevation to the episcopate, and drink prodigious amounts during the cocktail and dinner times.
In other words, for someone in his early thirties, it was a drag.
Fortunately, a woman whom I had been seeing for a couple of years was there as the representative of her diocese and, in a moment of wildness [my life is a series of ordinary events punctuated by these moments when I seem to lose my reason], I suggested that she and I play hooky and take a drive down the long highway to the Keys, just to see what they were like. After all, we were in south Florida, so why not?
That was a propitious moment of wildness, as it turned out. We were just going to drive to Key Largo, but the day was beautiful, the winter traffic light, and as it had been snowing every day in dreary, gray Erie, Pennsylvania, I kept driving that rented Dodge Neon further and further south over those gloriously blue waters until the highway ran out.
It should be noted that this was before Key West became the tourist mecca it is nowadays. Cruise ships were not allowed in port, for example, and the town still had some genuine characters about, rather than the ones who play to the visitors these days. The gay community had discovered the charm of those tumbledown old shanties and had begun to transform the side streets into showplaces. Small, funky businesses were opening, a hand-rolling cigar factory still remained, and everyone knew that Ernest Hemingway really didn't hang out at Sloppy Joe's, but rather at Capt. Tony's.
Then there was this little, newly opened burger shop that was capitalizing off of the popularity of one-time resident Jimmy Buffet's song, "Margaritaville". Rumor had it that it was even owned by the singer/songwriter himself.
There really wasn't much to it, a narrow storefront that held a counter, some booths, and a few tables. All I recall of the menu was that I ordered a "Cheeseburger in Paradise", which was one of the songs that was on a well-used 8-Track in my car. Other than that, it was entirely ordinary, save for the fact it was a really good cheeseburger.
Florida was none of those things. I was free, and with freedom comes hope; with hope comes the rediscovery of joy. In the sunlight, the azure waters, and the audacity of the Key West state of mind, I began to surrender my vexations. That evening, still in Key West and enjoying a late dinner before the long drive back to Miami, I proposed and she said "yes". I was grim no more and the future's cast was far more bright.
That narrow burger joint has since become a chain of restaurants, bars, gift shops; cookbooks; a brewery, and even a retirement community. I can still order a Cheeseburger in Paradise, but it's from the menu of the Margaritaville restaurant in a casino twenty minutes from my home. Key West has changed, too, and is far less funky and far more mercenary than it was thirty years ago.
Well, what isn't, I suppose?
However, there is still a moment that presents itself when I experience what Melville called the "damp, drizzly November in my soul", when job, co-workers, politics, the system in which I abide, the cussedness of parishioners, the coercive directions of canon-quoting bishops, all begin to weigh on me and I long for sun, surf, and those azure waters.
When I'm fortunate to have both the time and money, off I go. But, when I'm trapped by the season or the circumstances, the memory of that lost day wandering in the casual ease of the Keys, and of what was achieved that day that was of lasting, then I can at least mentally return to that quiet afternoon the turned out to define much of the rest of my life. Paradise, indeed.
Monday, September 16, 2019
We Interrupt Our Break to Bring You This Update
Is the New York Times completely deranged?
I remember in the 1970's when a wire story I wrote was picked up by the Times. They didn't publish it, but I was still in seventh heaven knowing that I had fleetingly been on their radar. Nowadays, if they asked, I'd say "yeah, nah". I'd be concerned with being associated with such a sloppy operation.BOMBSHELL: New York Times corrects Kavanaugh smear to note alleged victim does not recall any such incident. pic.twitter.com/yigeOyOCzo— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 16, 2019
Sunday, September 15, 2019
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Gee, No Kidding
Transgender conversion therapy linked to psychological distress, study says
Conversion therapy may be leading more transgender people to attempt suicide, new research shows.Any professional who recommended this to a patient, especially a teenage one, committed grievous malpractice.
Twitter Sooth
My god. The intense stupidity of this logic:— Katherine Mangu-Ward (@kmanguward) September 11, 2019
1) Black market vape cartridges made people sick, so
2) let's pass a bunch of regulations to push more popular types of vape cartridges into that same black market.
3) Lives will be saved!
Wait, no. THAT WON'T WORK AT ALL. Argh. https://t.co/L2V3YUf4EM
Friday, September 13, 2019
Fred Rogers
Technically, it was the fellow who played Bob Dog on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood who introduced us. As he was the father of one of my college acquaintances, it was the result of an early type of networking. The television station for which Mr. Rogers worked would offer one month internships, usually in the winter, for students interested in television production. Since I was interested in everything in those days, and since Mr. Rogers was on my college's board of trustees and was present on campus from time to time, Mr. Dog saw to it that I had a place at the same dinner table with him.
When I had the occasion artfully to bring it up in conversation, I told Mr. Rogers of my interest in the internship. He smiled in that unaffected manner familiar to anyone who ever watched his show, and gave me a name to call. I did and, during that January, found myself touring the PBS studio and having my duties described to me by a production assistant who would, shortly thereafter, leave for Hollywood to become an actor. He did rather well for himself, as it turns out, even being nominated for an Academy Award.
But the star in those days was Mr. Rogers, albeit the most self-effacing and unassuming star ever to grace the cathode rays. During my four weeks on the show, doing everything from moving furniture and puppets to operating the "picture picture", I dabbled in every aspect of television production that the union would permit. I also learned a number of things about Mr. Rogers, namely:
- he was an ordained Presbyterian minister [he had even been a classmate of my cousin's!]
- his cardigan sweaters had been knitted by his mother
- he was a licensed pilot
- he wore sneakers because they were less noisy on set than hard shoes
- the sneakers, at least in my day, were actually Sperry Topsiders, not Keds as is often reported
- he didn't smoke or drink and was a vegetarian
- he was without pretense and was the same in "real life" as he was on screen
I also learned, one day when I clumsily dropped the model of his neighborhood in a rather loud, disrupting, and damaging crash, that he had a favorite swear word.
Born in 1928, Fred Rogers displayed something that's rather lost these days; a determination that is marked by patience, not petulance. During seminary, when he was immersed in the call to make holy scripture relevant in an era when it was becoming rendered distant by overwrought piety, he chanced to watch television for the first time at his parents' house. He was appalled. [Imagine what he would make of just one, casual evening in this century watching "reality" shows on basic cable.] He thought, surely, there was a way to make television watchable and educational.
Starting as production assistant at NBC in New York and then as a puppeteer on WQED in Pittsburgh, Rogers learned what was to be his trade from those who had served in television since its nascent period. Recognizing a good thing when they saw it, the powers-that-be in the Presbyterian Church suggested that he forgo pulpit work and continue to pursue possibilities in the cool medium.
Beginning with the Canadian Broadcasting Company as an on-air personality, Rogers would eventually be called back to Pittsburgh to further develop the show he started on the CBC. It would eventually morph into what a couple of generations recognize as Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. By 1968, the show was syndicated and began public broadcasting's long and successful experiment with children's entertainment and education.
By the time Rogers retired in 2000, he had filmed 895 episodes. They are still being shown today. Rogers died in 2003.
While some clergy have sought to use television in its broadest manner, attempting to represent prayer and devotion as a sort of metaphysical lottery laced with appeals for donations, Rogers kept true to his simple message and method of practical, worldly education. I suppose this is why it's his sweater and not some evangelist's hairpiece that's on display in the Smithsonian.
There may, too, be a lesson in his singular ministry for those of us charting Christianity's new and rather different course for this century. A singular and simple mission, rendered in quiet charm, and addressing the world as one's neighborhood, may just be the foundation for continued proclamation.
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Thursday's Place: The Smiling Dog Saloon
Something that should be understood about Cleveland, Ohio. The people who live there like to bowl. They're in leagues, the factory or plant or hospital where they work belongs to a league; their church is in a league. That's just the way it is. Except for some oddballs, everyone whom I knew when growing up had his or her own bowling ball.
The mayor of Cleveland was once invited to Jimmy Carter's White House for a conference on urban issues. He refused as it was his wife's league night and they were contenders. Even the mayor's political opponents understood. The White House will always be there, but a potential league championship is a rarity.
However, on the corner of West 25th Street was something the likes of which no one had ever seen: A failed bowling alley. In Cleveland. Really.
So, although it was completely equipped with fifteen lanes and surfacing that would guarantee at least a few perfect games a year, even if those wouldn't be certified by the PBA, it was considered odd that no one wanted to take over a turn-key business in an excellent location neat the Interstate.
Except the obvious, of course. For a bowling alley to fail in Cleveland, that meant it was built on a tribal burial ground or something equally as cursed. The place was so snake-bit that no one would ever make it into a bowling alley again.
However, there is one medium that deals successfully with curses, hard luck, the works of Satan, and the like, even turning such experiences into art, and that's music. In 1971, the bowling alley became, after a lot of renovation, The Smiling Dog Saloon, the last outpost of jazz in Ohio, Indiana, and western Pennsylvania.
The decline of jazz is one of the sadder portions of 20th century history, given that it is as American a creation as one may enjoy, made up of the bits and pieces of the vast history and range of cultural experience contained in our shared experience. While jazz commanded the airwaves and the record sales, was presented by small combos in intimate spaces and large orchestras in vast dance halls, by the 1970's, when one could no longer dance to the jazz that had become sullenly introspective, it was supplanted by rock music and its various sub-genres.
Even in Cleveland, that had its own form of jazz based around the Hammond B3 organ, the number of jazz clubs had been reduced from over one hundred to, well, one.
A ordinary soul might despair, but Rodger Bohn, the owner of The Smiling Dog, thought it merely meant that they would have little competition. He was right. Over the next decade, the Dog would host Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea with Return to Forever, Stanley Clarke, Sun Ra; Weather Report, Stan Getz, Mose Allison, Keith Jarrett, Charlie Haden, Cannonball Adderly, Yusef Lateef, and even the comedian Martin Mull. One night, although not a jazz group, Lynyrd Skynyrd even made an appearance.
Even if one doesn't know jazz, at least a few of those names are recognizable. The very notion of seeing Miles Davis for $6, when it would have cost $50 in NYC, and be able to sit at a table with a $5 pitcher of beer while he played mere feet away from you, seems incomprehensible.
Welcome to Cleveland, city of incomprehensibility.
Since I began sneaking into The Dog when I was fifteen or so, owing to my mature appearance and really good fake ID, I was able to catch many of the seminal jazz performers in an intimate atmosphere that permitted the audience an opportunity to observe the singular creative process of improvisation unfold before them. As Miles Davis once said, "Do not fear mistakes; there are none", one could see him weave around and through any lost moment of melody, any fouling of the blue notes, and seize some transposed, multi-key emotion from those discords. It was terrific.
Unfortunately, it wasn't profitable. The Smiling Dog Saloon closed before that decade was over and that corner of West 25th would fall quiet for another twenty years until gentrifying entrepreneurs would discover the neighborhood. I believe the former site of so much jazz history is now a dental office.
My two favorite acts at The Dog were Jimmy McGriff, since I'm partial to the Hammond B3, and particularly Sun Ra, my moment with whom is to be found elsewhere in The Coracle.
The good news is, since the closing of that last jazz club in what was once a lively city for performances, a dozen new places have been developed in and around the metro area that still attract the music genre's leading lights. And, when fond reminiscence is made by those artists in their twilight, often The Smiling Dog is mentioned with appreciation for what it did to keep jazz alive, and the venue that it provided for fans of the music.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Intrusive Memory
I gave blood, drove to New Jersey, forgot my uniform (we didn’t wear them much before that day; mostly just for the annual photo) and then spent the next eighteen hours organizing the evacuation by watercraft, even jet skis, of those trapped in south Manhattan.
I am perpetually caught between the Marine’s voice and the monk’s voice in my consciousness. That day, the Marine was winning the argument. In the weeks that followed, as I helped with burial after burial, it was the monk who prevailed. Barely.
I am perpetually caught between the Marine’s voice and the monk’s voice in my consciousness. That day, the Marine was winning the argument. In the weeks that followed, as I helped with burial after burial, it was the monk who prevailed. Barely.
Not Exactly an Original Observation
Is Political Activism Responsible for the Decline of the Episcopal Church?
So what explains this state of affairs? Perhaps it’s something akin to Tom Wolfe’s criticism of contemporary art in his book "The Painted Word," wherein he argued that leading artists were not making art for the public, but for art critics. The Episcopal Church, and indeed most of the mainline Protestant denominations, have traded the wants and needs of their parishioners for alignment with the social and political views of what passes in this country for the intelligentsia.
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Monday, September 9, 2019
Tremendous Sooth
No, The First Christians Did NOT Practice Socialism (No Matter What Your Professor Claimed)
I keep hearing this one from supposedly educated people. It means two things: Educated people don't know what socialism is, and educated people don't know what Christianity is.
I keep hearing this one from supposedly educated people. It means two things: Educated people don't know what socialism is, and educated people don't know what Christianity is.
Sunday, September 8, 2019
This Surprises Only the Terminally Naïve
Greta’s very corporate children’s crusade:
Behind the schoolgirl climate warrior lies a shadowy cabal of lobbyists, investors and energy companies seeking to profit from a green bonanza
Soylent Green is...You Know
Swedish Researcher Pushes Eating Human Flesh as Answer to Future Climate Change Food Shortages
Eugenics and genocide are always in the mix with those who opine about the environment. While it's always an imagined "other" who will be eaten, history teaches us that all movements eventually turn on themselves. Or, in common parlance, sooner or later activists eat their own. See The French Revolution for how this plays out.
Of course, since contemporary environmental activism was originally a product of Socialism, that's no real surprise. Right on cue, clap hands, here comes Bernie:
Eugenics and genocide are always in the mix with those who opine about the environment. While it's always an imagined "other" who will be eaten, history teaches us that all movements eventually turn on themselves. Or, in common parlance, sooner or later activists eat their own. See The French Revolution for how this plays out.
Of course, since contemporary environmental activism was originally a product of Socialism, that's no real surprise. Right on cue, clap hands, here comes Bernie:
Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders answered "yes" and spoke about abortion when asked at a CNN town hall event Wednesday night if population control would play a part in his administration's policy for dealing with climate change.The fact that he was specifically speaking about "population control" in countries that are not predominantly Caucasian was interesting.
Saturday, September 7, 2019
Another Variation on "Study Blames Men"
Hi @MelanieHamlett and @harpersbazaarus! Thanks for the womansplaining, but “toxic masculinity” doesn’t exist and straight men - the people who built civilization - are perfectly capable of having friends 👍🏻 pic.twitter.com/X3cOQCNUL7— Peter Lloyd (@Suffragentleman) September 7, 2019
I appreciate that this is probably another example of modern periodical marketing, where an article is published or posted in order to attract negative attention; attention that is then doubled when the article's author mocks those who either take umbrage at or disagree with the premise.
But, I can't help but wonder if it isn't also a cry for help. The article's author is locked into the world of NYC entertainment and media, a world not known for strong, honest interpersonal relationships, and she suspects that maybe her world is experienced by only a minority of similar-minded and trapped people, and that there is a larger, exterior world of happy men, and women, who are living non-toxic lives filled with friendships and purpose. This would be disturbing enough to force one to pretend that outside world doesn't exist and, instead, every portion of reality corresponds only to her world view.
Her response may be further evidence of this painful, perhaps toxic, isolation:
— Peter Lloyd (@Suffragentleman) September 8, 2019
"Study Blames Men" is the Theme of the Age, isn't It?
Why Are Marriage Rates Down? Study Blames Lack Of ‘Economically-Attractive’ Men
Hang on. If a man makes more money than a woman, that's Patriarchy; If he makes less, he's ruining marriage. Do I have that right?
Let's try an alternative headline, shall we?
Why Are Marriage Rates Down? Study Blames Abundance of Loud, Vulgar, Grasping, Corpulent Women
Yes, that's better.
A similar take:
A similar take:
1. Works, studies, strives relentless to gain financial security that will attract prospective female mating partners— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) September 7, 2019
2. Looks around at inventory of prospective female mating partners
3. Quits job and spends all savings on video games and crack
Friday, September 6, 2019
Francis Chichester
"To the question, "When were your spirits at the lowest ebb?" the obvious answer seemed to be, "When the gin gave out."
When I was seven years old, I was diagnosed with leukemia. While the prognosis was not shared with me, I could tell from my parents' faces that something serious had just been imparted to them. I was then placed in the hospital for seven days. As the facility was new and still under construction, there were no separate areas for children or adults, so I found myself in the cancer ward with a collection of adult men, all of whom seemed to smoke. During that week, which ended when it was discovered that the diagnosis was in error [I was suffering from anemia, which was easily treated], I was taught how to play poker by my ward mates, witnessed death for the first time [the fellow in the bed next to mine], and decided that personal complacency was the enemy of life. As an educational philosopher once said, when asked for a suggestion for a curriculum for elementary school children, "Teach them that they're going to die. Then they'll cherish the life they have." This is a lesson that others have learned, as well, and throughout history. One such individual was Sir Francis Chichester.
I am assured by the children who have grown up in my various houses that being the offspring or ward of a clergyman is not the most exciting thing in the world. While I was always tempted to respond, "Yeah, you ought to see how boring it is being a member of the clergy", I would point out to them how lucky they were to have the association of so many interesting people and been to some rather interesting places. While that didn't mollify them at the time, they now, upon mature reflection, admit that was the case.
Francis Chichester's father was a priest in the Church of England and he, too, felt that creeping boredom. Born in 1901, his parents sought to address it by sending him to boarding school [at the age of six!] and then to college during the First World War in order to study for the ministry. That didn't quite satisfy him and, upon the war's completion, he emigrated to New Zealand and created a mildly successful property development company which, as with so many, dissolved into bankruptcy during the Great Depression.
Not to be daunted by this minor reversal, Chichester returned to England in 1929 and, on a lark, purchased a de Havilland DH.60 Gipsy Moth biplane and took flying lessons. Hoping to turn that into a business back in New Zealand, Chichester decided to do what had never been done and fly from the United Kingdom to Australia, a feat he accomplished in 180 hours after a slight delay caused by crashing in Libya. By the time he landed in Sydney harbor, Chichester had become a sensation with the local press and, after some careful negotiation, published a memoir of the adventure in his book Solo to Sydney.
Encouraged by his new-found fame, Chichester decided to equip the plane with floats and attempt a solo flight around the world. He made it as far as Japan when he collided with telegraph wires, crashed, and spent the next five years recovering from the breaking of several greater and lesser bones.
Once cleared to fly again, in 1936, Chichester became the first to fly across Asia from Sydney to London after which he began carefully to plan a solo, round-the-world flight. Before those plans, and their funding, were complete, Germany invaded Poland and the next six years were consumed by world-wide conflagration. While Chichester, record-setting and highly experienced pilot, was rejected for service in the Royal Air Force [he was nearsighted] as a pilot and officer, he was made the chief navigation instructor at the RAF's training school, mainly due to his ability to use a nautical sextant while in flight. By the end of the war, at the age of 44, married with children and beginning to feel the effects of his injuries, Chichester decided to retire from aviation records and settle down to run a map and chart business. Besides, the age of jets had begun and that meant the days of seat-of-the-pants, open cockpit flying were over.
Ordinarily, this is where his story would begin its gradual conclusion. However, in 1958 he was diagnosed with lung cancer, refused the common surgery, became a vegetarian, and began to look for something new to occupy, before he died, his un-slaked sense of adventure. As flying no longer interested him, and as he had purchased a mid-sized sailboat for weekend fun, Chichester began to research the standing records of solo sailing and planned his next adventure. Things had to be organized quickly however, as he had been given only six months to live. [That turned out to be a gross miscalculation, by the way.]
Warming up by competing in two transatlantic races in 1960 and 1964 in his boat, the Gipsy Moth III, winning the first and placing in the second, Chichester commissioned the 54-foot Gipsy Moth IV in 1965 to be built to his exacting design. As his intention was to sail solo around the world faster than anyone ever had before, the boat needed to have special qualities such as a sail-based self-steering guidance system, the ability for the sailor to steer from his bunk, and a weighted keel that enabled the boat to right itself if capsized in rough weather.
I am assured by the children who have grown up in my various houses that being the offspring or ward of a clergyman is not the most exciting thing in the world. While I was always tempted to respond, "Yeah, you ought to see how boring it is being a member of the clergy", I would point out to them how lucky they were to have the association of so many interesting people and been to some rather interesting places. While that didn't mollify them at the time, they now, upon mature reflection, admit that was the case.
Francis Chichester's father was a priest in the Church of England and he, too, felt that creeping boredom. Born in 1901, his parents sought to address it by sending him to boarding school [at the age of six!] and then to college during the First World War in order to study for the ministry. That didn't quite satisfy him and, upon the war's completion, he emigrated to New Zealand and created a mildly successful property development company which, as with so many, dissolved into bankruptcy during the Great Depression.
Not to be daunted by this minor reversal, Chichester returned to England in 1929 and, on a lark, purchased a de Havilland DH.60 Gipsy Moth biplane and took flying lessons. Hoping to turn that into a business back in New Zealand, Chichester decided to do what had never been done and fly from the United Kingdom to Australia, a feat he accomplished in 180 hours after a slight delay caused by crashing in Libya. By the time he landed in Sydney harbor, Chichester had become a sensation with the local press and, after some careful negotiation, published a memoir of the adventure in his book Solo to Sydney.
Encouraged by his new-found fame, Chichester decided to equip the plane with floats and attempt a solo flight around the world. He made it as far as Japan when he collided with telegraph wires, crashed, and spent the next five years recovering from the breaking of several greater and lesser bones.
Once cleared to fly again, in 1936, Chichester became the first to fly across Asia from Sydney to London after which he began carefully to plan a solo, round-the-world flight. Before those plans, and their funding, were complete, Germany invaded Poland and the next six years were consumed by world-wide conflagration. While Chichester, record-setting and highly experienced pilot, was rejected for service in the Royal Air Force [he was nearsighted] as a pilot and officer, he was made the chief navigation instructor at the RAF's training school, mainly due to his ability to use a nautical sextant while in flight. By the end of the war, at the age of 44, married with children and beginning to feel the effects of his injuries, Chichester decided to retire from aviation records and settle down to run a map and chart business. Besides, the age of jets had begun and that meant the days of seat-of-the-pants, open cockpit flying were over.
Ordinarily, this is where his story would begin its gradual conclusion. However, in 1958 he was diagnosed with lung cancer, refused the common surgery, became a vegetarian, and began to look for something new to occupy, before he died, his un-slaked sense of adventure. As flying no longer interested him, and as he had purchased a mid-sized sailboat for weekend fun, Chichester began to research the standing records of solo sailing and planned his next adventure. Things had to be organized quickly however, as he had been given only six months to live. [That turned out to be a gross miscalculation, by the way.]
Warming up by competing in two transatlantic races in 1960 and 1964 in his boat, the Gipsy Moth III, winning the first and placing in the second, Chichester commissioned the 54-foot Gipsy Moth IV in 1965 to be built to his exacting design. As his intention was to sail solo around the world faster than anyone ever had before, the boat needed to have special qualities such as a sail-based self-steering guidance system, the ability for the sailor to steer from his bunk, and a weighted keel that enabled the boat to right itself if capsized in rough weather.
In August of 1966, Chichester began his voyage from Plymouth, England with the intention to stop only once on his circumnavigation. As often happens with sailing adventures, nature usually has her own ideas. 107 days later, after nearly 14,000 nautical miles, somewhat bruised and with a boat that had been battered by 30 foot waves, the Gipsy Moth entered the harbor in Sydney. For the second time in 30 years, Chichester once again found himself a reluctant celebrity. So much so, that Queen Elizabeth II knighted him in absentia while he and his boat were being patched up in Australia.
In order to encourage readership, the tabloid papers began a controversy about Chichester's age and general health and the wisdom of a 65-year-old being "permitted" to continue his voyage. In a move that still heartens aging watermen, Chichester ignored that nonsense and continued his voyage, arriving back in England 119 days later, setting a record for the fastest circumnavigation ever by a small craft and also for the longest non-stop passage made by a solo sailor in a small boat. He would mark this accomplishment in his best-selling book, Gipsy Moth Circles the World, and be knighted, now in person, by the Queen while she wielded the same sword with which Elizabeth I had knighted Sir Francis Drake.
The lung ailment returned, however, before Chichester could begin his next adventure, and he would succumb to it in August of 1972. I was living in the U.K. at the time and his life and achievements were discussed for at least three full days on every channel of the BBC.
Francis Chichester's books are still in print, and it is easy to locate used copies of his story of the circumnavigation. For sailing fans, the restored Gipsy Moth IV is currently the most popular visitation site at the nautical museum in Greenwich, berthed as it is next to the Cutty Sark.
Thursday, September 5, 2019
Thursday's Place: Shakespeare and Company
"Fitting people with books is about as difficult as fitting them with shoes"
It is both enviable and awkward to serve as a clergyman to the affluent. Enviable, in that one generally has a comfortable sinecure and access to some of the finer experiences enjoyed by that stratum of our society, and awkward as, no matter how accepting they may be, one is still not a true member of their company. That, you see, takes money, and money is something that clergy rarely have.
This status of simultaneously being an insider and an outsider was something that Sylvia Beach knew well, born as she was in 1887 to a Presbyterian minister who served churches in the tony sections of Baltimore and Paris, and eventually the wealthiest church in his denomination in the United States, First Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey. In each, Beach met the capitalists and artists who created the foundation of what would become The American Century. This interaction made her aware of the tastes, language, preferences, and pursuits of the elites and the educated, but without anything more than the cursory membership granted to a pastor's daughter.
Her experiences while living in Paris were broader than those of Princeton, as Paris meant freedom and experimentation, both personal and artistic, and it was to Paris that Beach would return once she could, at first as a Red Cross worker during the waning days of World War I, and later as a student of French literature. Gradually, she would be drawn into the exciting and enervating world of the literary salon and meet she who would be her life-long companion, Adrienne Monnier, the owner of a used book store.
As continental writers would gather at Monnier's shop and read from their works, entertain the patrons, and lift a few francs from the register as a "loan", Beach was introduced to the sublime writers, such as the prolific Andre Gide, and the mildly ridiculous, such as Rene Daumal, the author of A Night of Serious Drinking. Inspired by the free-flow of ideas and perspectives, and recognizing that the burgeoning American, Canadian, and British population in Paris carried a remarkable amount of discretionary income, Beach used her mother's small savings to begin an annex to Monnier's shop, a place where books written in English would be found. Thus was born the virtual lighthouse of The Lost Generation: Shakespeare and Company.
Beach's business plan was to provide a store that was both a book shop and a lending library; it was deceptively simple and immediately successful. Virtually all of the English-speaking writers in Paris in the 1920's were patrons of Shakespeare and Company, with many becoming supporters and confidants of Beach. It was her custom to offer generous lending privileges to struggling artists, along with an occasional meal or monetary assistance.
With the largess made possible through the shop's success, Beach extended her support in an extraordinary manner when she offered to publish a novel so modern and controversial that its author could not find any conventional outlet. In 1922, Shakespeare and Company published James Joyce's Ulysses, often recognized as one of the great literary works of the 20th century. While the publication made the small shop world-famous, it also nearly broke Beach as Joyce signed with a more conventional publisher just when the novel was about to make enough money for her to recoup her considerable investment.
[An aside: It was grubby, selfish, and un-kind of Joyce. It is to Beach's credit, and her Christian up-bringing, that she did not pitch Joyce's collected works into the Paris gutter and threaten his only good eye.]
Beach's loyal customers kept her financially viable, however, both after the Ulysses debacle and during the next decade's economic depression. Nothing, though, could protect Shakespeare and Company from the Nazi occupation during World War II. Not only was the shop closed in perpetuity, but Beach was sent to an internment camp for several months until her release was negotiated by an American art dealer in exchange for several paintings given as gifts to Hermann Goering.This status of simultaneously being an insider and an outsider was something that Sylvia Beach knew well, born as she was in 1887 to a Presbyterian minister who served churches in the tony sections of Baltimore and Paris, and eventually the wealthiest church in his denomination in the United States, First Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey. In each, Beach met the capitalists and artists who created the foundation of what would become The American Century. This interaction made her aware of the tastes, language, preferences, and pursuits of the elites and the educated, but without anything more than the cursory membership granted to a pastor's daughter.
Her experiences while living in Paris were broader than those of Princeton, as Paris meant freedom and experimentation, both personal and artistic, and it was to Paris that Beach would return once she could, at first as a Red Cross worker during the waning days of World War I, and later as a student of French literature. Gradually, she would be drawn into the exciting and enervating world of the literary salon and meet she who would be her life-long companion, Adrienne Monnier, the owner of a used book store.
As continental writers would gather at Monnier's shop and read from their works, entertain the patrons, and lift a few francs from the register as a "loan", Beach was introduced to the sublime writers, such as the prolific Andre Gide, and the mildly ridiculous, such as Rene Daumal, the author of A Night of Serious Drinking. Inspired by the free-flow of ideas and perspectives, and recognizing that the burgeoning American, Canadian, and British population in Paris carried a remarkable amount of discretionary income, Beach used her mother's small savings to begin an annex to Monnier's shop, a place where books written in English would be found. Thus was born the virtual lighthouse of The Lost Generation: Shakespeare and Company.
Beach's business plan was to provide a store that was both a book shop and a lending library; it was deceptively simple and immediately successful. Virtually all of the English-speaking writers in Paris in the 1920's were patrons of Shakespeare and Company, with many becoming supporters and confidants of Beach. It was her custom to offer generous lending privileges to struggling artists, along with an occasional meal or monetary assistance.
With the largess made possible through the shop's success, Beach extended her support in an extraordinary manner when she offered to publish a novel so modern and controversial that its author could not find any conventional outlet. In 1922, Shakespeare and Company published James Joyce's Ulysses, often recognized as one of the great literary works of the 20th century. While the publication made the small shop world-famous, it also nearly broke Beach as Joyce signed with a more conventional publisher just when the novel was about to make enough money for her to recoup her considerable investment.
[An aside: It was grubby, selfish, and un-kind of Joyce. It is to Beach's credit, and her Christian up-bringing, that she did not pitch Joyce's collected works into the Paris gutter and threaten his only good eye.]
 | |||||||
| Beach with the great |
[Another aside: Although done symbolically, in a gloriously quixotic moment, and while ostensibly working as a journalist embedded with an American battalion, Ernest Hemingway cajoled a collection of American soldiers to help him "liberate" Shakespeare and Company from the Germans. He did so out his respect for Beach and her early support, and so that he could write her a florid letter detailing the adventure and assuring her that the Nazis had been driven out of that hallowed location. He also thought there might still be a particularly good bottle of brandy hidden among the shelves.]
 | ||
| Beach and Hemingway in happier days in front of the store |
After the better part of a lifetime together, the ill and troubled Monnier would commit suicide in 1955. While Beach would take over Monnier's bookstore, in a nice twist of fate, it would be Shakespeare and Company's brave publication of Ulysses that would seal Beach's status in Western literature and grant her a reputation of greater worth than any of its potential profits. Her memoir of those days, Shakespeare and Company [1959], is still in print, and a fine biography and history, Sylvia Beach and The Lost Generation [1985], is an appropriate appreciation of her selfless role in one of literature's most fertile periods.
Beach would die in Paris in 1962 and be buried in the Princeton Cemetery, the burial plot the final perquisite of her father's tenure at First Presbyterian. Her letters and other papers were bequeathed to the library at Princeton University.
Contemporary visitors to Paris can find a bookstore named Shakespeare and Company on the Rue de la Bucherie managed by Sylvia Beach Whitman. While not a blood relation to her namesake, in her recreation of the ambiance of the original she is certainly spiritual kin to Beach and all of those writers and readers who would study those dusty cramped shelves in the Rue de l'Odean, looking for just the right book that would help them reinvent English prose.
