Periodical Ramblings (6)

Flair

It was not my intention in this series about serials to include within it, Flair, a magazine that only existed for 12 issues during 1950/51. I learned about it when I learned about Fleur Cowles, about whom I posted some information a while back. She produced the magazine for those we now refer to as ‘One Percenters’, and she was one herself. It was a costly production and after losing around $200,000 per issue, the publication ceased. A very short-lived fashion magazine seems hardly worth considering, but I will make a short case for doing so here.

   If you picture a very good book for children - the kind which has holes in the pages for peek-a-boo, and things which you pull and tug - and then populate it with people like the Duke and Duchess of York, Julien Freud and Hemingway rather than Piggly-Wiggly, you can begin to imagine what a copy of Flair looked like. Apart from the special paper, inserts and beautiful illustrations, there were often postcards and self-contained booklets. One issue even had scented pages.

   Flair was such an unusual and sumptuous periodical, you can even purchase it today - as a massive coffee-table book. When I was looking for information about the magazine, I discovered that the university nearby had a copy, although they would not have had a subscription to such a magazine back in 1950. The Best of Flair that I examined was published by Rizzoli in 2014 and an earlier edition was produced by HarperCollins in 1996. You can easily purchase a copy. Before you order, look at the Rizzoli video provided below.

   Another reason I decided to devote some time to Flair has to do with the fact that the copy I examined is dedicated to an unknown American soldier. Here is the explanation offered by Ms Cowles in the introduction:

“Many years ago, I received an anonymous letter which reads as follows”:

Dear Fleur Cowles,

    I have just been drafted to be sent to Vietnam. I don’t believe in war. I don’t believe in this one.  I shall probably be killed and if not, I shall probably just stand up and let it happen.

   I have nothing in this world worth leaving to anyone but my twelve issues of your magazine, FLAIR. They are on their way to you.

“The following pages have all been reproduced from the gift of this unknown American soldier -- to whom I now dedicate this book.”

Sources:

  To see what I have attempted to describe, view this short video: “The Best of Flair: The Magazine That Became an Art Form".

  For more covers such as the one above: “5 Covers of Flair: The Most Beautiful Magazine You’ve Never Heard Of,” Alex Beggs, Vanity Fair, Sept. 2014.

  “Fleur’s Flair,” Dan Piepenbring,  Paris Review, Jan. 20, 2015.

  

 Fleur Cowles died in 2009. “Fleur Cowles, 101, Is Dead: Friend of the Elite and the Editor of a Magazine For Them,” Enid Nemy, The New York Times, June 8, 2009.

She was quite interesting; have a quick look at her Wikipedia entry.

Here are some examples of the content found in The Best of Flair:

There is a section called “It’s About Time” which was a regular feature that allowed writers to complain. There are contributions from Margaret Mead, Simone De Beauvoir and Barbara Ward.

Michener has a travel piece on Hawaii and in the literature section you will find: Mary Hemingway, “Life with Papa”; Tallulah Bankhead, “On Satchmo” and

Tennessee Williams , “The Resemblance Between a Violin Case and a Coffin.”

There is a piece by Gypsy Rose Lee talking about her carnival experiences and Jean Cocteau writes, “ A Letter to Americans.”

The last section - “Smile and Farewell” contains cartoons about the hole in the cover that was a characteristic of Flair and which was referred to as the ‘cover cut-out.’

The Wide World of Sports

The Rainbow Man

   

     I receive thousands of  compliments daily about the eclectic nature of this blog, but lately complaints have poured in from readers who have noted my lack of coverage of SPORTS.  One perceptive critic opined that, apart from my fleeting reference to ‘Tex Cobb’, there has been nothing much about the sweaty subjects, even though I have sometimes mentioned the perhaps less worthy one of religion (he (she) then went on to criticize me for being uniformly negative about whatever cult I was discussing).  This post allows me to combine scripture and sports which should be almost as good, rankings-wise, as mentioning Lincoln and dogs (or cats).

     The fact that the title refers to an ABC television program about sports which ended before this century began, should indicate to you that I have not been keeping up. My interest in watching sports, waned even more quickly than my ability to participate in them. Once the players started moving around, and then the teams (not usually in the same direction), to play in stadiums with confusing corporate names which were full of fans who  responded only to signs saying, “Make Some Noise”, the free t-shirts and the thumping of organ music, I became much less enthusiastic. With ‘amateur’ sports, my interest was sustained a little longer, but then the players began leaving after one year of university, the bowls and college playing fields became corporate brands, teams from Utah moved to the Atlantic Coast Conference  and finally, ‘Whoa, Nellie’, Keith Jackson died.

Rollen Stewart

    Admittedly,  it is odd that rather than considering truly interesting old-timey sports subjects or personalities ( the Millrose Games, the Wanamaker Mile, the Penn Relays, Evel Knievel, Gorgeous George, Yogi Berra), I ended up choosing Stewart who, you have guessed, is the “Rainbow Man.”

    Surely you remember him and JOHN 3:16, which was Rollen’s way of letting you know that: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The Gospel would be displayed by him behind the goal post at a Jet’s game on Sunday, and then again on Monday in Seattle. It truly was miraculous.

The Pathetic Proselytizer


    Now that I have reminded you of this “Jesus Freak” and you know his name, my job is done since you can easily learn more about him. I will even help by providing sources below. I will just say that the story does not end well. In 1992, he held a hostage in a California motel, for reasons that are confusing to me and probably were for him - it had something to do with “rapture”. He remains in prison.

Sources:
     The usual ones can be consulted; there are Wikipedia entries for “Rainbow Man” and Rollen Stewart.
    More devoted fans should see this very good video (10 minutes): “A Colorful Testimony” by Caleb Crouch, Aug. 30, 2006.
    For a good piece last year see: “The Unbelievable Life of the 'John 3:16' Sports Guy,”
by Jake Rossen, MentalFloss.com,  August 18, 2017
    There are two stories by Cecil Adams on Straightdope.com (“Fighting Ignorance Since 1973”): 1) This question is answered back in 1987 - “What’s with those “John 3:16” signs that people hold up at football games?” 2) Ten years later there is a follow-up and this one answers the question -  “Is the guy who held up those “John 3:16” signs at sports events in jail for life?”

Post Script:
    The usual bonus stuff:
   As I write this, there is a Royal Wedding happening and Rollen showed up at an earlier one involving Princess Diana and Prince Charles.
   I do still watch one sport - golf - and have seen 3:16 signs. At the 1990 Masters, the Rainbow Man set off a remote-controlled air horn as Jack Nicklaus was swinging.
  If you wish to see scripture at your sporting events, you can likely see 3:16 displayed over in Binghamton, where Tim Tebow is playing Double-A ball with the Rumble Ponies. Clearly all his prayers have not been answered.



 Some Canadian content: Apparently Bill King, a Canadian, is supported by an evangelical organization to attend sporting events and display John 3:16



Now you know.

P.S.
I remain confused about sporting events. Although all the ice has melted, two of the teams still playing for the Stanley Cup are located in Tampa Bay and Las Vegas.

ENVIRONMENTAL BOOKS

UNIVERSITY PRESSES & BOOK SERIES

Over the last few years I have been jotting down notes about university presses and keeping track of interesting books published in series. In this post I will combine those two subjects and introduce you to a university press that publishes a very useful series of books related to the environment.

Since book stores generally stock only popular titles that will be sure to sell and since it is those titles that get reviewed in the dwindling number of newspapers that offer reviews, it is often difficult to discover books that are different. One can easily find and order books online, but you have to know what you want. If you are interested in environmental matters you are likely to find some interesting books in the lists below.

University of Washington Press

The University of Washington Press has been around for over 100 years and they note that, "As a nonprofit publisher, our mission is to develop and produce books based on value and impact rather than solely on commercial success." They offer series ranging from "Classics of Chinese Thought" to "Feminist Technosciences, but here we will focus on their Environmental Series.

Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books!!

The exclamation marks register the surprise in seeing 'Weyerhaeuser' and 'Environmental' together, but Weyerhaeuser has been a very generous sponsor of this series since 1991. "The concept was to publish a series of scholarly books, focused on environmental themes and written for nonacademic audiences. Because of the unusual generosity of the Weyerhaeuser gift, the series would support its books and authors as few university presses are able to do, providing special funds for illustrations, subventions to help cover permissions fees, spectacular cover designs, and enhanced marketing."

    There was some concern as to whether such a partnership would allow for complete editorial independence and the concern was addressed: 

"The press intended this to be one of its premier series. There was, however, a question that many of my colleagues asked me: would a series carrying the name of one of the world’s largest timber and forest products companies be able to publish works of environmental scholarship no
matter what their politics, even if some were critical of the timber industry? Would authors even be willing to let their books be published by such a series? I had colleagues who were convinced that this would be an insurmountable problem, so I quizzed Don Ellegood about it at some length.
He assured me—indeed, wrote into my contract—that I would have complete editorial control over the books I recruited. As long as they met the press’s standards for scholarship, their interpretive point of view would have no bearing on whether they would be accepted for publication in the series."

     The series WEYERHAEUSER ENVIRONMENTAL BOOKS consists of three sub-series: 1) Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books; 2) Weyerhaeuser Environmental Classics and 3) Cycle of Fire. For a additional information about each of the books and the authors see this beautifully illustrated document - Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books: A Celebration - which is available on the University of Washington Press website.

     All of the titles are listed below. For readers in the London area who have access to the Western Libraries, the titles found in one of those libraries are noted in bold, followed by [WL]. If those initials include a number, it indicates that more than one copy is available.

1. Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books "explore human relationships with natural environments in all their variety and complexity. They seek to cast new light on the ways that natural systems affect human communities, the ways that people affect the environments of which they are a part, and the ways that different cultural conceptions of nature profoundly shape our sense of the world around us."

A Storied Wilderness: Rewilding the Apostle Islands

Behind the Curve: Science and the Politics of Global Warming

Bringing Whales Ashore: Oceans and the Environment of Early Modern Japan

Car Country: An Environmental History [WL2]

Cultivating Nature: The Conservation of a Valencian Working Landscape [WL]

Defending Giants: The Redwood Wars and the Transformation of American [WL2]

Drawing Lines in the Forest: Creating Wilderness Areas in the Pacific Northwest [WL2]

Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country[WL]

Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement [WL2]

Environmental Politics

Faith in Nature: Environmentalism as Religious Quest [WL2]

Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares: The Paradox of Old Growth in the Inland West [WL2]

George Perkins Marsh: Prophet of Conservation [WL]

How to Read the American West: A Field Guide

Iceland Imagined: Nature, Culture, and Storytelling in the North Atlantic [WL]

Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West [WL]

Landscapes of Conflict: The Oregon Story, 1940-2000

Landscapes of Promise: The Oregon Story, 1800-1940

Loving Nature, Fearing the State: Environmentalism and Anti-government Politics before Reagan [WL2]

Making Mountains: New York City and the Catskills

Making Salmon: An Environmental History of the Northwest Fisheries Crisis [WL4]

Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place, [WL]

Nature Next Door: Cities and Trees in the American Northeast [WL]

On the Road Again: Montana's Changing Landscape

Pests in the City: Flies, Bedbugs, Cockroaches, and Rats [WL]

Plowed Under: Agriculture and Environment in the Palouse

Public Power, Private Dams: The Hells Canyon High Dam Controversy

Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon [WL]

Quagmire: Nation-Building and Nature in the Mekong Delta [WL]

Seeking Refuge: Birds and Landscapes of the Pacific Flyway [WL]

Seismic City: An Environmental History of San Francisco's 1906 Earthquake

Shaping the Shoreline: Fisheries and Tourism on the Monterey Coast

Smell Detectives: An Olfactory History of Nineteenth-Century Urban America

Tangled Roots: The Appalachian Trail and American Environmental Politics [WL]

The City Is More Than Human: An Animal History of Seattle

The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area

The Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy: U.S.-Canadian Wildlife Protection Treaties in the Progressive Era [WL3]

The Fishermen's Frontier: People and Salmon in Southeast Alaska [WL]

The Lost Wolves of Japan

The Natural History of Puget Sound Country [WL]

The Nature of Gold: An Environmental History of the Klondike Gold Rush [WL2]

The Organic Profit: Rodale and the Making of Marketplace Environmentalism

The Promise of Wilderness: American Environmental Politics since 1964 [WL2]

The Republic of Nature: An Environmental History of the United States [WL2]

The Rhine: An Eco-Biography, 1815-2000 [WL]

Toxic Archipelago: A History of Industrial Disease in Japan

Vacationland: Tourism and Environment in the Colorado High Country [WL]

Whales and Nations: Environmental Diplomacy on the High Seas

Where Land and Water Meet: A Western Landscape Transformed

Wilderburbs: Communities on Nature's Edge [WL]

Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the Wilderness Act

Windshield Wilderness: Cars, Roads, and Nature in Washington's National Parks [WL]

2. Weyerhaeuser Environmental Classics "are reprinted editions of key works that explore human relationships with natural environments in all their variety and complexity. Drawn from many different disciplines, they examine how natural systems affect human communities, how people affect the environments of which they are a part, and how different cultural conceptions of nature powerfully shape our sense of the world around us. These are books about the environment that have stood the test of time, and that continue to offer profound insights about the human place in nature."

A Symbol of Wilderness: Echo Park and the American Conservation Movement

Conservation in the Progressive Era: Classic Texts

DDT, Silent Spring, and the Rise of Environmentalism [WL]

Environmental Justice in Postwar America: A Documentary Reader

Making Climate Change History: Documents from Global Warming's Past [WL]

Man and Nature: Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action [WL]

Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the Aesthetics
of the Infinite [WL2]

Nuclear Reactions: Documenting American Encounters with Nuclear Energy

Reel Nature: America's Romance with Wildlife on Film [WL2]

The Environmental Moment: 1968-1972 [WL2]

The Great Columbia Plain: A Historical Geography, 1805-1910 [WL2]

The Wilderness Writings of Howard Zahniser

Tutira: The Story of a New Zealand Sheep Station [WL]

3. Cycle of Fire "is a suite of books that collectively narrate the story of how fire and humanity have interacted to shape the Earth."
All of these books are by the same author: Stephen J. Pyne

World Fire: The Culture of Fire on Earth [WL2]

Vestal Fire: An Environmental History, Told through Fire, of Europe and
Europe's Encounter with the World [WL]

Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire [WL]

Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia [WL]

The Ice: A Journey to Antarctica [WL]

Awful Splendour: A Fire History of Canada [WL3]