A look back, for Labor Day

Posted on September 4, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

Times being what they are, teachers probably no longer ask this question I remember being asked often, or at least once a term, way back in grade school:

“Where does your dad work?”

One at a time, we’d all answer, and I don’t remember hearing any of the depressing or all too real answers you’d likely hear today – my dad lost his job or sorry, never met my dad. No, everyone (near as I can recall) had a dad at home, and all those dads worked. A small number of kids would speak of some fascinating or exciting dad’s career; these were the children of policemen or firefighters (and of course there was always that one kid who claimed his dad was an astronaut or a spy. The teacher would simply move on without comment).

But since this was Akron, Ohio in the 1970s – when Akron was deserving of its moniker Rubber City – most of us answered in a remarkably similar way: “Goodyear.” “Firestone.” “General Tire.”

My answer was, “BF Goodrich.” That was the company my dad retired from, not too long ago, after working there all my life and more. He’d worked in one of the tire plants when I was very young; all I remember from that is the sooty blackness he’d wear home every day. He moved from there to manufacturing conveyor belts, which was slightly less dirty but still back-breaking. Finally, when I was in my early teens, he started working at the Goodrich chemical plant, in south Akron, where he stayed until retirement.

It was a fortuitous move. The eighties saw a massive flight of rubber jobs out of Akron. Goodrich moved their headquarters from the city and shuttered most of their plants – my dad’s being one of the few exceptions. Firestone and General left. Goodyear kept their headquarters here, but dispersed most of their manufacturing. Akron remained The Rubber City in name at least, but that seemed more like a desperate reminiscence rather than a factual description.

My dad’s dad retired from Goodrich too, long before I was born. Between the two of them they probably gave three-quarters of a century to that company. I asked my dad recently if he’d be willing to tell his story, his and his father’s, as a sort of microcosmic look at the rubber industry’s heyday, as seen from the factory floor. He just chuckled a little and said, “No one would be interested.”

No? Not in the massive URW strikes in 1976 and 1985 and 1994? Not in the raucous marches that would seize control of miles of Main Street – the earliest of which I thought were delightful parades, because I was too young to understand what was at stake? Not in the strategic centrality of rubber, invisible to most of the world but so obvious to Akronites, which meant we all spent the Cold War painfully aware we were directly in the cross-hairs of who-knows-how-many Soviet ICBMs?

Well…maybe not. Which is a shame. Now that American manufacturing is mostly a memory, and now that our economy is largely built through the leveraging of debt and through the selling and reselling of things built far from our shores, maybe the idea of honoring the history of industrial labor is something that appeals to a very select few.

Which is, perhaps, why we celebrate our Labor Day in late, late summer (when most of the world celebrates it on the first of May), and why for most of us it’s simply a bank holiday and a chance to score some cheap retail deals.

But not for me. I’m a child of labor, with strong, vivid memories of a time when labor meant something, so for me Labor Day is and always shall be a sacred high holy day.

*                          *                         *

About a year after I left high school I worked for a while in a small rubber shop, as a press operator. Although that was my only contribution to Akron’s favorite industry, it wasn’t my only blue-collar job. I dug ditches, painted fences and swept floors. Can’t say I loved it, but I was happy to have the work.

That was all decades ago. My collar’s been solidly white ever since. This wasn’t planned – it was just the way it worked out. And all things being equal, I must admit I prefer a job where I don’t have to head straight for the shower every day upon arriving home.

But if fate or circumstances ever take that away, I know I can go back to digging ditches or pulling red-hot rubber molds from steamy presses, with little qualm and less difficulty. It’s in my blood, you see.

So happy Labor Day, dad, and happy Labor Day to all of you who truly Labor.

Everybody else: enjoy your day off; but spare a thought, won’t you, for all those workers, past, present and future, that this day is supposed to honor.

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Made in the USA

Posted on August 19, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

Want to support American jobs? Buy a book.

Printers, writers, booksellers, librarians, loggers, editors — these are few of the mostly domestic jobs your book-buying buck underwrites.

I think this holds true for most countries, and I’m certain it’s true in the U.S.: publication of general-audience-targeted fiction and non-fiction, which tend to be culturally specific, is therefore more often than not a domestic, if not regional industry. There are exceptions of course – the more mass-marketed the material, and the more it includes color, plastic, gizmos, etc., then the more likely it’s manufactured overseas.

But plain old black-and-white printed on pulp – more often than not that’s conceived, produced, printed and distributed within the same borders where you’re consuming it.

Since the days when your nose was continually snotty, folks have been trying to convince you to read because it’s good for you. If that hasn’t gotten through by now…

…then read a book, whether you buy it, borrow it or look at it over someone’s shoulder, because it’s your patriotic duty to support that industry. Don’t make the eagle cry – read a book.

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This week in conspicuous art theft

Posted on August 13, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

Isn’t it great when the thief looks directly at the camera?

At about 6pm, on Thursday, August 11, the master criminal depicted above strolled into the Marc Ecko Gallery on West 23rd Street in Manhattan, and strolled out with $100,000 worth of purloined art. His haul was an acrylic-on-advertising poster, created in 1999 by the Brooklyn artist KAWS (neé Brian Donnelly).

In its reporting on Friday, The Village Voice dubs the thief a “hipster-type person,” to which The Deconstruction must protest. It’s the mustache, isn’t it V.V.? So unfair. A mustache does not automatically a hipster make. The Deconstruction, for one, was favoring really obscure mustaches (you’ve probably never heard of them) long before hipsters, and this art thief, came along.

In any case, as fun and interesting as art theft can be, it becomes a lot less interesting when/if it’s revealed to be a P.R. stunt. We’re not jumping to conclusions (well okay, maybe we are), but in 2006 the selfsame Marc Ecko rented then re-painted a Boeing 747, all in the pursuit of internet famedom, as the guy who tagged Air Force One.

Sorry, Marc Ecko, but contrived criminality isn’t edgy or compelling, In fact, it’s kind of lame.

Oh, but the NYPD is investigating Thursday’s theft. So if it turns out you stole from your own gallery, maybe you’ll finally get to wear those shiny bracelets you like to pretend you deserve.

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27

Posted on August 6, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

Is it a curse, or a coincidence? Why are so many bright stars extinguished, at the height of their luminosity, at the age of 27?

Amy Winehouse is only the latest. Like with many who passed before her, our collective eulogy sadly noted: “we saw it coming.”

Because so much that comes with fame, especially young, sudden fame, is fraught with risk, temptation and self-destruction. It’s been that way for generations. Thus there was shock and dismay, but little surprise, in those nine afflicted months from late ’70 to mid ’71 when we lost Janis, Jim and Jimi – all at age 27.

And so many others. Brian Jones. Kurt Cobain. Pat Tillman. It goes all the way back to the devil-haunted crossroads of Robert Johnson. Was that where the curse began? Did he set loose the hellhound that would dog the trail of the young, talented and famous who were to follow him?

Fame and success, for all their rewards, are dangerous. They grant jet-set lifestyles, and they beguilingly maneuver their darlings into fast glamorous cars. But those jets fall from the skies, don’t they? And those cars wrap themselves around trees. Another star is dead and we all agree, again, that we saw it coming.

And I’ll say it, before it’s said by the statisticians and the actuaries: 27 is just a number. There’s no real trend here, other than the one we insist on seeing. Elvis died at 42. Buddy Holly was 22. Paul, Ringo, Mick and Keith are all still going strong. The curse can’t be anything more than an illusion.

I’m sure it is. And I’m just as sure that every representative of Young Hollywood lets out a shuddering sigh of relief, upon reaching his or her 28th birthday.

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The Call of Lovecraft

Posted on July 31, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

What does a writer want? No doubt there are as many answers to that as there are writers–as many writers as there have ever been, in fact. But throughout those innumerable answers, most of which probably revolve around fame, fortune and the mountains of cocaine and nonstop sex that follow, we can probably reduce them all to a single common denominator:

A writer wants to be read.

The best most writers hope for is some currency among contemporary readership, and perhaps a semblance of a following while they still live. As for immortality, a writer takes solice in the fact that their work will survive them, but has no serious thought of being known and read generations after they die. That’s the domain of the rare and lofty masters; even the most outsized egos among us hesitate to aspire that high.

What then are we to make of Howard Phillips Lovecraft? Better still, what would H.P. make of his own immortality?

It’s been 75 years since H.P. Lovecraft died, at the cruelly young age of 46. The author of a few dozen short stories and a handful of novellas, he saw little evidence in his lifetime of the impact his innovative horror, sci-fi and gothic fiction writing was to have. Although he was published, and published widely, and although his genius was recognized and commented on by more successful contemporary writers like Robert E. Howard and August Derleth, he was never able to truly enjoy the fruits of his work. He suffered chronically throughout his life from poverty and poor health; the latter, though, which included night terrors, probably contributed to the frighteningly real worlds he created.

As real as those worlds were, and as influential as they are today, they probably simply came too early. Pulp-fiction editors of the ’20s and ’30s were intrigued, and printed nearly anything Lovecraft cared to submit. The readers weren’t as accepting. Most Lovecraft stories were met with letters of protest, and complaints that he was just too weird. They wanted the detective stories and the easily grasped sci-fi and fantasy they were used to. Lovecraft’s imagination asked too much of them.

Somehow, against all odds, our culture has caught up with him. Lovecraft and his mythos are everywhere; Cthulhu, Dagon, Yog-Sothoth, and the misty gates Unknown Kadath have infilitrated our music, our movies, and in an ongoing way, our literature. Modern horror writers like Stephen King and Clive Barker not only cheerfully cite H.P. Lovecraft as their major influence, many of them continue to work within and expand upon the Lovecraftian mythos (in a way that H.P. would have surely approved of). There are far too many examples to cite, but Neal Gaiman’s “I Cthulhu” is one definitely not to be missed.

This is all the sort of immortality that might not be expected, but is certainly not without precedent. Lovecraft himself might not have anticipated it, but some of his editors probably did. What no one could have foreseen, though, is how the Cthulhu mythos is making itself real.

Broadly speaking, it’s called Chaos Magick; it’s a modern urban pagan movement seeking to harness both traditional and newer sorcerous paradigms, in an updated version of The Great Work. Pagans of all stripes are known to seize upon cultural traditions, using Egyptian, Greek, Native American and every other conceivable pantheon to create religions built of recognizable archetypes.

And some, amazingly, are doing the same with Lovecraft. Modern magicians are weaving spells and raising spirits, conceived not in some distant magical golden age, but in a writer’s imagination less than a century ago. These magicians are not unaware of that, nor are they deluded that Lovecraft wrote anything but fiction. Rather, they operate under the conviction that our culture, its embrace of the Lovecraft mythos, have granted unnatural life to Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones. (Interestingly, the same supposition is central to Gaiman’s own extraordinary novel, a modern classic, American Gods.)

So might have Lovecraft foreseen this? Might he have known that his work was to be read, studied and venerated three quarters of a century after his death? Could he have suspected that one day men and women would worship his godlings, and seek his Necronomicon? Probably not consciously…

But late at night, before the screaming began, voices probably whispered, and warned him that this was to be.

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Bummed about Borders

Posted on July 19, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

Goodbye Borders, and thanks for everything.

Perhaps the liquidation of Borders Books & Music is good news for independent booksellers. And although the indies are personal heroes of mine, I can’t share in their joy. Borders might have been a big-box in their heyday, with the power to undercut and destroy any small bookstore they happened to compete against…but it was my big-box, which I’ll miss terribly.

I cannot begin to calculate how many hours I spent wandering their stacks, and how much of my hard-earned lucre ended up in their till. Can’t speculate how many lunch hours were spent at Borders (at many Borders; there was always one within a short drive no matter where I was). Sometimes I’d wander in looking for a specific book, sometimes I’d have no particular purpose at all. Nearly always left with something great, though.

That time will inevitably be spent with the indies now, and although that’s cause to rejoice let’s temper that a little, please. Borders wasn’t always a big-box. It was an indie once itself, pioneered in 1971 in Ann Arbor by a couple of brothers, Tom and Louis Borders, both University of Michigan undergraduates. For a company founded by such youngsters to survive and prosper for nearly 40 years is kind of miraculous. For it to wither and die today is a testament to changing times, to changing reading habits, and maybe just to entropy.

A shameful but true fact about we book lovers: we’re more than a little vulture-like by nature. So in the coming days many of us, maybe most of us, certainly me, will be swinging by Borders to see what bargains are to be had.

And there’s nothing wrong with that, I guess. But please, let’s try not to get caught up in the moment. Let’s remember, with proper deference, what we’re losing here. Let’s remember that we are losing forever 399 cathedrals to the beauty, brilliance and business of books. Let’s remember that nearly 11,000 fellow book-lovers are losing their jobs.

So snap up your bargains, by all means. But spare a kindness, a word of encouragement, and your thanks, to the people of Borders.

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Rupert Murdoch and the culture of sleeze

Posted on July 16, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of analyzing the cultural impact of News Corp’s phone-hacking scandal is its constant evolving nature. Conclusions we draw today might very well be rendered irrelevant by the admissions, revelations, resignations and indictments sure to come tomorrow.

Indeed, the smart money pegged this as old news, and a non-story, back in 2005. That was when Buckingham Palace asserted that elements of a News of the World story about Prince William could have only have been gleaned by the newspaper illegally accessing a royal aide’s voicemail.

That’s exactly what had happened, but the fallout was less than spectacular. Blame was pinned on a single private investigator, who was said to have acted entirely on his own. NotW editor Andy Coulson, while denying all knowledge of the affair, resigned in 2007, which effectively ended the investigation. Amazingly, Coulson was almost immediately appointed Communications Director for the Conservative Party, and in 2010 became Director of Communications for Prime Minister David Cameron.

All of which seemed sure evidence that the “scandal,” such as it was, had blown over. Thus it would have remained, but for one intrepid reporter: Nick Davies of the Guardian.

Davies was just asking the obvious questions – how is it possible that management of NotW, and its parent companies, News International and News Corporation, were unaware of the illegal news-gathering methods? And why were the authorities so quick to believe them?

We now know that News of the World was routinely bribing U.K. police officers and other government officials for tips and leads, which probably explains the perfunctory nature of their investigations. And although the entirety of News Corp’s executive structure is still claiming ignorance, heads have begun to roll. Andy Coulson was arrested last week, and this week has seen the resignation of two Murdoch proteges: Rebekah Brooks in the U.K., and Les Hinton in the U.S.

This is all vindication for Davies, who for years was branded a crank and a liar, even within the Houses of Parliament. As is now well known, it was Davies’ reporting that News of the World had hacked into the voicemail of 13-year old murder victim Milly Dowler, that finally spurred official action (and public revulsion) against NotW, Rupert Murdoch and his corporate media empire.

But what does all of this mean?

In the short term, it means a setback of indeterminate scale for News Corp. The company has been forced to abandon its plan to gain controlling interest in BSkyB, the largest private satellite broadcaster in the United Kingdom. An advertisers’ boycott, primarily targeting NotW, included General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Virgin Holidays and undoubtedly cost the company millions. Finally, on July 10th, 2011, News of the World ceased operations, after 168 years in print.

News Corp was never just a media company, though, and Rupert Murdoch was never just a publisher. The company enjoys enormous political clout on three continents. With amazing candor, David Cameron admitted last week that every British government, including his own, had shamelessly courted the favor of News Corp. Could it be that this unprecedented clout has been crippled, if not destroyed, by a self-inflicted wound?

That remains to be seen. Murdoch and his son and heir James, have reluctantly agreed to answer questions before Parliament. In the U.S. the FBI has reportedly begun investigating the company, possibly for hacking into the voicemail accounts of 9/11 terror victims.

Not surprising, Fox News (the primary voice of News Corp in the U.S.) is calling this a tempest in a teapot, and is complaining that other media is “piling on.” Last Friday, on the morning show “Fox&Friends,” host Steve Doocy weaved a bizarre comparison, somehow equating News Corps’ perpetration of illegal hacking, with the banking industry’s history of being victims of hacking. That clumsiness aside (after all, Doocy never has made much sense), it’s not terribly surprising that Fox would take the lead in any damage control efforts. One has to wonder, though, what the commentary of Doocy, O’Reilly, Hannity, et al, would look like, if the illegalities of NotW could be connected to any other media empire.

To my mind, the biggest questions that remain are what this all implies for the culture that Rupert Murdoch has built in and through his News Corp outlets. Is immorality and illegality simply part of the way they do business? If so – why? Why were the reporters, investigators and editors of NotW willing to not only break laws, but to do so in a way guaranteed to provoke backlash? And why did their corporate masters foster an environment that made that possible?

News Corp, as I’ve said, is not just a media outfit. It is a political player. So is the company’s willingness to break laws related to its fervor to gather news, or to its desire to expand its political influence?

Answer that, and you’ve got insight to just how frightening and shattering this scandal might become.

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The court of public spectacle

Posted on July 6, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

We try to keep it light here at the Deconstruction. Matters of child murder, and capital trials, are generally beyond our purview.

But we were born unto a society that delves into such things, that anachronistically holds one or two “trials of the century” every decade. Such trials, like or not, become integral to American culture. Thus, like it or not, they become fodder for our deconstruction.

I’ll start by admitting that I’m utterly unqualified to comment on any aspect of the case or trial. Cases like this make me queasy; I don’t follow them and don’t (usually) write about them. I didn’t intend to write about this one until shortly after 2:15 pm EST on Tuesday, July 5.

Those among us who did follow the trial will recognize the significance of that date and time. That was the verdict announcement, which was conveniently scheduled and publicized some hours beforehand – in a thoroughly undignified, unseemly way. At least that’s how it seemed to me.

I’d heard that announcement was coming. I went out of my way to avoid hearing it, viewing it or reading about it…knowing full well I wouldn’t be able to hide from it for long.

Sure enough, within minutes of Casey Anthony being found Not Guilty of murder, I was informed of such by a friend.

The informant was, again, a friend, so I’ll try to be gentle here. But those fascinating few moments of our conversation was when I recognized this for the cultural phenomenon that it is, and when I knew I’d be writing about it – so I feel compelled to describe the scene in detail.

She was grinning. I’m certain she was completely unaware of it, but she was grinning from ear to ear. She professed shock and disgust at the verdict, and made it clear that she thought Casey Anthony is as guilty as the day is long. She sounded somber – or rather, she sounded like she wanted to be somber.

But she was grinning that way you do when you get to be the one to pass on the latest gossip. Or when you have divined the plot twist that no one else saw coming.

I don’t think she has forgotten that this is indeed real life – that some years ago a toddler died horribly, and that ever since the child’s mother has stood accused of murder. I don’t think any of us has forgotten that. But events and our culture, and the twisted spectacle of cameras in the courtroom, have conspired to make us want to forget that. The spectacle and the sideshow barkers of cable “news” have endeavored to make us seek entertainment in tragedy.

Soon thereafter the drumbeat was picked up via social media, where it continues to beat strong. “No Justice for Caylee” is tweeted. “Porch-lights on for Caylee” says Facebook. Was there grinning there too, when those words were typed? I don’t know. But it seems to me that “porch-lights on for Caylee” is just as self-serving, just as mindlessly self-involving, as the delight one feels when one is the first to share some wonderful, terrible news.

Or maybe it’s just helplessness, and lashing out, and remembering a child who died and who died badly.

I don’t know because I’m not one who takes to the social-media pulpit over my rage about a verdict. I can’t put myself in the place of such a person, and therefore I will try my best not to judge such a person.

But likewise, I can’t put myself in the place of the Anthony trial jury. I can’t put myself in the place of Casey Anthony. I wasn’t there, at the trial, nor at the scene of Caylee’s death. I don’t know, can’t know, what happened.

So I can’t second guess the verdict. I must accept that it’s over. I have to hope that justice has been done.

And I have to hope that the rest of us can do the same.

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Happy Birthday, America

Posted on July 4, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

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The end of all mankind! (for lulz)

Posted on July 2, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

You would think, wouldn’t you, that one of the primary tenets of the entertainment industry would be: don’t bum out your audience.

But how then are we to explain the post-apocalypse drama? Each year, amongst the slew of sparkly vampire movies, the too-cute date movies, and the Serious Art movies (limited release, one week only in LA and NYC), we’re treated to one or two thoughtful depictions of how all our hopes and dreams are destined to dry up and blow away.

And oh yes, I watch them. I watch the incoming asteroids and the bubbling toxins escape from the lab. I watch the nuclear landscape and the Last Honorable Man questing his way through hordes of cannibalistic mutants (knowing, of course, that he’s destined to fail and that the hordes will certainly feast on his bones…because hope is dead).

I watch them all, just like I watch all sorts of movies. But whereas the blockbuster comedy leaves me chuckling, and whereas the Serious Art thing leaves me awed and impressed (assuming of course that I was in NYC or LA for that one lucky week) – the post-apocalypse movie leaves me drained and depressed.

And I pay good money to feel that way!

Not surprisingly, the bad feelings are more acute depending upon how plausible I deem the doom scenario. Twelve Monkeys? Totally depressing, because I can totally see that happening! Deep Impact and Armageddon? Thoroughly depressing because that particular doom is pretty much a mathematical certainty.

Interestingly, the reverse is also true. I can relax and enjoy Planet of the Apes (both versions), because a future of enslavement to the simians isn’t one I really fret over.

All of which, in a meandering way, leads me to my point. I’m exploring my own post-apocalyptic landscape these days, in the ongoing story that started with my 2009 novel, Mind.Net.

I won’t reveal too many details, other than to say that my rather mundane doom scenario starts with, yawn, the power going out.

No big whoop, right? Humankind has done pretty well without electricity for nearly all our history, up until a hundred years ago or so. Sure, we rely on it – but if it went away, we’d adapt. Life would go on.

Doubtlessly. But when you look at that transition period (as I’m doing now), prior to adaptation…well, that’s where the depression sets in.

To begin with, kiss goodbye everyone who relies upon electricity for their very survival. Goodbye, ventilator patients! In fact, goodbye to just about everyone with any serious medical issues; after all, we can only keep plundering those darkened pharmacies for so many months.

Next, say ‘bye to everyone who lacks the knowledge, will or gumption to fend for themselves. Canned and dry-goods are going to be hot commodities; sooner or later you’ll need to figure out more natural ways to feed yourself and your family. Will that be as easy as making your way out to the open spaces and laying down some crops? Maybe, but you won’t be the only one with that idea. You just might have to fight for the chance to do so.

And it goes beyond stark survival, which is somehow most depressing of all. The little things, the conveniences, the delights of modern life: all gone. No more take-out sushi. No more Xbox. No more internet. Within a few generations memories of the internet would be a bedtime story, a puzzle from antiquity that most people would simply assume was fantasy.

That’s what I’m getting myself caught up in. And because I view the whole spiel as somewhat plausible, it’s really kicking me in the gut. And it makes me wonder if it’ll kick my audience in the gut.

So I hearken back, and try to recall why I started writing this thing to begin with.

Oh yeah. To entertain people.

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An eagle flips the switch

Posted on June 18, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

You know how sometimes you get annoyed with the neighbors and all their loud music and television and too-bright lights? You know how sometimes you just want to march over there and turn off their power? Well this is how the mighty bald eagle handles that.

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Posted on June 8, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

That’s Ava Gardner up there, making the moon eyes.

Pretty much every candid picture you see of Hemingway is just like that – he’s the undisputed center of attention.

Now a couple of movies, Midnight in Paris and Hemingway and Gellhorn, seek to put Papa on the screen, with Corey Stoll (Law & Order L.A.) and Clive Owen, respectively, playing the man.

I wish them both luck. They both seem like plenty good actors. But…they want to play that guy. That guy up there that Ava Gardner can’t stop eye-raping.

My guess is that if Papa wanted someone to play him in a movie, he’d stomp back from that bar he’s haunting in Cuba, and slap every actor he thought might be suitable until he found one that didn’t cry.

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Book Detective: marginalia

Posted on May 30, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

Marginalia. Librarians, archivists and some collectors consider it vandalism. Marginalia are the comments, asides, underlining and bizarre streams of consciousness that wind up inked or penciled into the margins of books over the hopefully long course of their lives.

I understand the hostility, especially among librarians. But for some of the books I collect, marginalia can offer some of the most interesting bits.

Foremost among these are my grammar books. I’ll snatch up pretty much any English-related textbooks I come across, and so far my collection spans the mid-19th to mid-20th century, and includes everything from primary school McGuffey Readers to college-level books on rhetoric.

Regardless, and I’m sure there are some readers who’ll know this is true, students of every age and type are apt to scribble in the margins. Most of it is as mundane as you imagine: “do ex. 4-16 by weds.” Even that is a little less mundane, to me at least, everytime I remember that “weds” was fifty or a hundred years ago. Did she get ex. 4-16 complete on time, you think?

And here we have marginalia from The New Handbook of Composition, published in 1926 by Edwin Woolley. What I’ve detected, from copious marginalia in this book, was that it was once shared by Lois Bishop and Ruth Hoffmaster. Were the notes here penciled by Lois or Ruth? No idea.

In any case, I’m always drawn back to that emphatic underlined “Look Over.” Simplest explanation is that Ruth or Lois or someone should have ‘looked over’ that section, that page, that chapter or whatever.

But…that is a demanding “Look Over” isn’t it? Couldn’t it be that Ruth and Lois were huddled together in English class, when suddenly, something remarkable happened – over there! Ruth-or-Lois didn’t notice, she was looking elsewhere, but Lois-or-Ruth quickly alerted her to it, with a hastily scrawled note!

Or…maybe not. Maybe just in my head. And maybe it doesn’t matter a spit’s worth, and certainly I’ll never know one way or another. But it keeps me guessing, and I like guessing, and it’s helping to keep a few antiquarian book dealers in business. So there’s that.

Other times marginalia is a lot less mysterious, but also downright breathtaking. Case in point is my copy of the Advanced Course in Composition and Rhetoric, by the Right Honorable G.P. Quackenbos, 1876 edition.

All I know about this book is that for a while it was in the possession of John Leo Benitz, late of Pittsburgh, Holy Ghost College student.

Tragically, John left no other marginalia. I know because I’ve checked every page. For all I know Master John never opened the book beyond the front end-papers.

But twice in 1885, twice in 11 months, in fact, Mr. John Benitz got the urge to practice his marvelous penmanship. And if I met him today I’d thank him for it.

My collection’s most recent edition surprised me by its dearth of marginalia. It seems to be primary-school level, so I was hoping for the best. Sadly, none to be found in this 1894 edition of Maxwell’s First Book in English.

But you know how sometimes you go looking for one thing but find something else?

What I found in this book was synchronicity. Not of the earth-shattering, omen-fearing way, but more like the type that make me and Dr. Jung say Hmmm.

The first one I noticed as soon as I cracked the book open (the inside front cover is always the best marginalia spot). Instead I found that during the book’s tenure at PS 61, Borough of Manhattan, sometime after Aug. 16 1905, the book was (successively? maybe..) assigned to first Josephine Calandrino, then Josephine Bruno.

Two Italian girls in Manhattan named Josephine? Maybe not shocking, exactly. But it gave me pause. Then I flipped the pages at random and landed on the letter-writing exercise. Again, this isn’t life-altering, but – my grandfather was born and raised in Ilion, New York, and I’ve been up and down Prospect Street in Cleveland so often that I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve sat on the stoop of Number 219 and eaten a sandwich. More than once.

And that, my friends, is book-detecting. My version of it anyway. Startlingly nerdy, maybe, but innocently so and it keeps me from far more nefarious activities. At least, that’s the hope.

So keep your fingers crossed for marginalia in my next big purchase. It’s best for everyone that way.

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Charles J. Berry, USMC

Posted on May 28, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

Cpl. Charles J. Berry of Lorain Ohio served with the First Battalion, Fifth Marine Division. He gave his life on March 3, 1945, on Iwo Jima. During a Japanese infiltration attack he diligently and expertly manned a machine gun emplacement, helping to prevent his position from being overrun. Shortly after midnight he sacrificed himself by diving onto a grenade,  thereby saving the Marines with whom he was sharing a foxhole. For his actions he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor

Well over a million U.S. service members have fallen in action since 1775. I wish I could cite them all by name and deed.

But my soapbox and megaphone just aren’t big enough. So I compromise, in my celebration of Memorial Day, by citing the name and deeds of Cpl. Charles J. Berry, USMC, who died for his country on Iwo.

In the annals of the U.S. military there are no shortage of heroes. We can and should honor them all. But to humanize that process, to put a face on it, I suggest we all choose just one fallen warrior and perpetuate his or her memory by citing them by name, and recalling their deeds.

Mine is Cpl. Charles J. Berry, Medal of Honor recipient. Who’s yours?

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Smutmerchant

Posted on May 18, 2011 by editor, facilitator, decider

I won’t dwell on the subject much, this being a family newspaper and all, but if you ever get the urge to do some eye-opening sociology fieldwork, then get yourself a job in a porn store.

Think the giga-tera-petabytes of free cyberporn has killed off the neighborhood smut-peddling biz? No way. At least not while the boomers are still ’round. The once thriving business of video rental has been reduced, pretty much, to one very specialized sort of store, and they’re keeping afloat by selling or renting their hilariously skeevy wares to guys who look just like your dad.

I could tell you stories. But some things you gotta see for yourself. So seriously, find some work at one of these places, and stay as long as you can stand it. You’ll come away understanding humanity in a way otherwise impossible.

And just this bit of practical advice: never ever look at the security monitor.

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