Periodical Ramblings (4)

The Wilson Quarterly

    Canada is one of eight nations (conveniently ignoring the indigenous ones) in the Arctic Council and as Canadians we tend to look north and think most of it belongs to us. On this blustery Arctic-like day, I can perform a civic duty while conveniently inside and point you to some of the articles on the Far North in a recent issue of The Wilson Quarterly:

THE CHALLENGE OF ARCTIC GOVERNANCE
BY DOUGLAS C. NORD
Governance is challenging in any context, but it becomes even more complex when attempted in an area that, until recently, has had little experience with regional decision-making.

CHANGING CLIMATES FOR ARCTIC SECURITY
BY SHERRI GOODMAN
Shaped by changing climates – political as well as planetary – our understanding of security in the Arctic has morphed since the Cold War and continues to take on new forms.

THE ARCTIC ENVIRONMENT IN THE AGE OF MAN
BY ROSS A. VIRGINIA
The Arctic is hurtling into the Anthropocene, and caribou, walruses, and even mosquitoes are responding.

THE ARCTIC, FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY
BY MICHAEL SFRAGA
From oil paintings and poetry to militarization and melting (and yes, even video games), our quest to understand the region at the top of the planet continues – and the stakes today are higher than ever.

LANGUAGES OF THE ARCTIC
“The languages of the Arctic - carriers of the culture and identity of the region’s people - are fighting for their survival. In this special interactive project, explore the linguistic diversity and human spirit of the Far North.”
A special project by The Wilson Quarterly [this will take you to a very interesting YouTube presentation].

     Unfortunately you cannot run to the local newsstand (which is probably far away) or to the nearest Indigo and grab a copy of The Wilson Quarterly. Fortunately you can read it here. The print publication which began over forty years ago had to cease publishing print copies about five years back. You are probably saying "So What?, I can read it without getting cold.”  Still, I would like to suggest that something has been lost and, besides, it gives me another excuse to ramble among the periodicals we used to find in good libraries and even at newsstands on a nearby corner.

     The first thing you should know is that it was a much better reader's digest than the other one. The first thirty to forty pages were devoted to alerting you to what was being published in various magazines and journals. This section, (initially called "Periodicals" and later "The Periodical Observer" and still later, "In Essence"), offered thorough summaries and digests of articles that were much longer than typical abstracts.  If you are a researcher interested in in the intellectual or popular culture of, say the late 1970s, you could learn a lot by grabbing a single issue of The Wilson Quarterly from that period. 

     In the first issue in the autumn of 1976 the editor, Peter Braestrup, indicates that The Wilson Quarterly “ is designed to bring the world of scholars and specialists to the intelligent lay reader" and that is what it did. There were articles, book reviews, interviews and "clusters" of essays on particular subjects, such as the Arctic cluster in the current issue. The coverage was eclectic. Two of the books reviewed in the first issue demonstrate this: A River Runs Through It takes care of the subject of fish while Beautiful Swimmers deals with crabs. (That was a cheap way to get in a plug for the latter book which is about crabs and the Chesapeake Bay area - an area where I grew up. William Warner, the author of the book, did win a Pulitzer for it, however, and it does illustrate that the WQ was more than a political or economics journal.)

     The print publication was published by The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the digital one still is - for now. That such an interesting periodical, even with some 'institutional' support, has to struggle is unfortunate. As one 'obituary' writer noted when the print edition ceased:

     "I'd hate to see The Wilson Quarterly fold," said Daniel Akst, a longtime contributing editor, and author of "We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an Age of Excess." "Few publications are as reliably (and pleasurably) non-hysterical, historically informed and pragmatic in outlook. WQ's infrequent publication schedule has only made it more precious in this day of unlimited instantaneous blab."

Some Sources:
     An article about the first issue of The Wilson Quarterly notes that the initial press run was 80,000 and that it cost $12.
“The Wilson Quarterly, Review of Ideas, Issued,” The New York Times, Oct. 19, 1976. It says that “ the 160 page review is a digest of articles that have appeared earlier elsewhere, as well as a printed record of excerpts from discussions at the center. It also contains reprints from books, short book reviews, and recommended background reading lists on subjects it treats. There is an original article, on Brazil, and a reprint of Russell Lyne’s 1949 Harper’s piece entitled, “Highbrow, Lowbrow, Middlebrow,” with Lyne’s recent reflections on his 1949 selections.’

For two articles about the demise of the print edition see:
“Wilson Quarterly to End Print Publication,” Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times, June 9, 2012.
“The Wilson Quarterly, the 36-year-old general interest magazine published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, has announced that it will put out its final print issue in July….”
“Mr. Lagerfeld said he did not know the magazine's current circulation figures, but a blog post at the Nieman Journalism Lab noted that the Wilson Center spent $1.96 million on the magazine against $950,000 revenue in 2010. The Wilson Quarterly's spring issue, currently on newsstands, is titled ''The Age of Connection,'' and includes several articles on the promise and perils of the digital age.”

“Wilson Center May Sell or Fold its Esteemed Wilson Quarterly, as Readership Declines; The Wilson Center’s 37-year-old Publication Center has Struggled to Find a Footing in the Digital World.”Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post, Sept. 8, 2013.
“The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is exploring selling or ceasing publication of The Wilson Quarterly, a wise, wonky and sometimes witty magazine that showcases the work of renowned intellectuals and policy experts but has struggled to find a footing in the digital world, according to sources.
The quarterly abruptly canceled its print edition last year, shifting its focus to digital platforms such as the Kindle and iPad, as well as its Web site. But readership has declined, and the cachet of a 37-year-old publication that once cultivated a loyal and elite audience drawn to its special brand of brainy, yet accessible, writing has slipped.”
The quotation by Akst is from the article above.


     
Fortunately the archive is provided on the web site, although the link is not immediately apparent. You will find it here.

  To conclude with some Canadian content, here is a sample from the first issue.
This is a summary of an article by George Woodcock that appeared in The American Scholar. 

“Rediscovering The Noble Savage: “The Lure of the Primitive" by George Woodcock, in The American Scholar (Summer 1976), 1811 Q st., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009. “Although many scholars have studied vanishing primitive cultures, few have asked why civilized man is so fascinated nowadays by what Europeans used to call "savage cultures." Woodcock, editor of Canadian Literature, writes that Portuguese voyages to Africa and the discovery of America first brought Europeans into contact with primitive peoples. They were regarded as inferior pagan beings, "as unspoiled children to be converted into imitation Christian gentlemen," or simply exploited for commercial purposes (the ivory trade and slavery). Paralleling these derogatory attitudes, there emerged among rationalist thinkers in the late seventeenth century the romantic cult of the Noble Savage. Real knowledge percolated slowly into Europe from the reports of travelers, missionaries, and traders. Then came Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871) and the slow development of anthropology. Not until early in the twentieth century was primitive man seen "as the representative of a complex, valid way of life contemporaneous with our own, neither intrinsically inferior nor necessarily improvable." Woodcock says such recognition came about largely through shifts in perception among Western artists and intellectuals: Picasso, who discovered African art and in 1907 painted the pioneer work of cubism, Les Demoiselles d'dvignon-like primitive art, a projection of inner visions; Sir James Frazier, whose 12-volume The Golden Bough (1907) revealed a worldwide network of common mental constructions -including the mythologizing habit we share with primitives; and the pioneering field studies by Anglo-Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands of the western Pacific. The lure of the primitive, says Woodcock, lies both in a desire to find what is common to all societies and "in a pointless nostalgia for peoples and ways of existence that our greed for land and resources has destroyed." 

SOUND

   

    At the end of 2016 I happened to be looking for some of the internet sources for sound that I had noticed over the last couple of years. They were scattered in my notes and among my bookmarks so I rounded them up here. I thought I might as well share them.

    This short list should be useful for those searching for sources where you can hear things as well as see them. Be warned that some of these resources will not actually provide you with the sound via online streaming; in some instances you will have to visit the library or archive to access the sound. Still, below you will find thousands of speeches, songs and sounds and be able to listen to them.

    The list is divided into two sections, one for Human Sounds and one for Sounds from Nature. Researchers who focus on audio and the acoustic could certainly provide you with many more I am sure, but this list should suffice for those who are trying to locate a particular speech or identify the sound of a bird.

Human Sounds

 

     For sources from the  United States start first at the Library of Congress where you could end up spending the rest of your life listening. There are many points of entry, but I suggest beginning at the RECORDED SOUND RESEARCH CENTER.

From there try: Recordings Available Online where you will find collections as

The National Jukebox,  For Food for Thought: Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Other National Press Club Luncheon Speakers, 1954-1989, and such things as the: Sports Byline USA Collection :

“Since 1988, the Sports Byline USA radio series has regularly presented interviews with notable figures from the world of sports. To this point, they have aired over 6,400 such interviews with athletes, coaches, trainers, managers, owners, writers and others in the areas of baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer, tennis, golf, track and field and other sports. Notable interviewees include John Wooden, Reggie White, Mickey Mantle, Elgin Baylor, Hank Aaron, Oscar Robertson, John Elway, Jose Canseco, Charles Barkley, Mike Krzyzewski, Jimmie Johnson, John Mackey, Archie Griffin, Bonnie Blair, Bill Bradley, Willie Mays, Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, John McEnroe, Natalie Coughlin and Meadowlark Lemon.”

Another useful entrance is found at the Library of Congress  American Memory site.

Some Other Suggestions in the U.S.

American Archive of Public Broadcasting

“The American Archive of Public Broadcasting contains more than 50,000 hours of digitized public broadcasting programs and original materials.”

This very rich site is worth visiting. Unfortunately, however, the content does not appear to be allowed to cross the border into Canada.

G. Robert Vincent Voice Library. Michigan State University Libraries.

“The G. Robert Vincent Voice Library is a collection of over 100,000 hours of spoken word recordings, dating back to 1888. The collection includes the voices of over 500,000 persons from all walks of life.”

This collection is close by in East Lansing so one could visit to listen to material not available online.

Here is a short review of the collection (from Choice, Nov. 2011)

“The G. Robert Vincent Voice Library (VVL) contains more material than any other academic voice library in the US: recordings of speeches, oral history interviews, lectures, and performances from a variety of prominent individuals from the business, political, artistic, athletic, and entertainment fields. Started in 1962 with a donation of 8,000 recordings, by 2000 the library had seen a 20-fold increase. Today it features 40,000-plus hours of spoken word recordings, as the comprehensive About link makes clear. The library, while comprehensive, is not completely accessible online. Copyright restrictions prevent the sharing of many items electronically. Those available online can be found in three browsable collections, which feature speeches from US presidents, oral histories from men and women who worked in the automotive industry, and readings and discussions from Michigan writers. The RealAudio files are relatively clear and easy to access. In addition to accessing the fully available collections, users may search the library's in-house holdings (which include WW II material and many recordings related to the arts) and order them through interlibrary loan. Rudimentary search capabilities allow for searches by keyword, speaker name, call number, and year. Although the inability to access all recordings online is a drawback, it does not diminish the usefulness of the collections that are available.”

     For Canada a good place to begin your search is at: Virtual Gramophone: Canadian Historical Sound Recordings which  “contains information for 78-rpm and cylinder recordings released in Canada from 1900 to 1950, as well as foreign recordings featuring Canadian artists and/or compositions. Each database record provides information about an original recording, such as its title and performer, relevant dates, and details about the label and disc. As well, “you will find Selected audio recordings are available in mp3 and Real-Audio formats. The recordings include:

First World War era military bands and popular music

Recordings from the vaudeville era of the 1920s

The music and entertainment scene in Quebec in the 1920s and 1930s

Orchestral, instrumental and religious music

Opera recordings by Canadian singers

See also the digital archives of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which has a useful “On This Day” section which allows you to select videos related to the day you choose.

The National Film Board of Canada site is very useful and if you go to the archival section you can search for films by keyword.

    For the United Kingdom go to British Library Sounds which “presents 50,000 recordings and their associated documentation from the Library’s extensive collections of unique sound recordings which come from all over the world and cover the entire range of recorded sound: music, drama and literature, oral history, wildlife and environmental sounds.”

Sounds From Nature

    In the U.S. you should go directly to:

The Macaulay Library - The Cornell Lab of Ornithology

This library has expanded and now includes more than bird sounds. It is the largest archive of natural sounds in the world, To learn more see this article from The Cornell Chronicle, Jan. 17, 2013.

The Yellowstone National Park Collection

Acoustic Atlas

The Acoustic Atlas is curated by the Montana State University Library and includes more than 2500 recordings of species and environments from throughout the Western United States. Among the sounds one finds more than a 1000 from birds.

“Through a cooperative project between the Acoustic Atlas and Yellowstone National Park, the growing audio collection aims to create new ways to experience the animals, landscapes and people of the area, by offering a freely accessible online archive of natural sounds, interviews and radio stories focused on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.”

The Watkins Marine Mammal Sound Database

Here you will find a  resource that contains approximately 2000 unique recordings of more than 60 species of marine mammals. To learn more see the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The British Library sound archive is mentioned above. Use this link to go directly to the sounds of the Environment and Nature. Here you will find the British Library Wildlife Recordings.

   As an aside, one should appreciate these freely accessible resources. The BBC offers access to 13,000+ nature and animal sound effects for $3,999 US.

Post Script:   
    I have not looked much for Canadian sound sources, but will note that Canada was an early leader in sound studies thanks to Murray Schafer who is from Sarnia. For additional information see the World Soundscape Project.
     For a couple of books about sounds and history see:How Early America Sounded and Listening to Nineteenth Century America.

The usual bonus information:
If you are tired of all the noise that was generated in 2017 and seeking silence then go to the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park. It is supposed to be the quietest place in the United States. See One Square Inch. (Listen carefully and you will hear the birds).

The Newfoundland Dog

(Lord Byron’s dog, ‘Boatswain’, by Clifton Tomson, 1808)

     I happened to read a short historical sketch which had the Newfoundland Dog as its subject and confess that I did not quickly associate the word “Newfoundland” with dog the way I would have if Labrador had been mentioned. I will not say much more about the breeds since my knowledge of them is slight and I would not want to offend any readers who may be members of the Westminster Kennel Club. I will, however, pass along two interesting bits:

Delivery Before Amazon

“The Newfoundland dog is habitually used in its native country, for the purposes of draught. They are easily broken in, and soon inured to the trammels of harness; three, four, or five are used in a sledge or other vehicle, and will convey a load of some hundreds weight for many miles with great ease. This, when once instructed in and accustomed to the road, they will do without any supervision; and having delivered the load with which they have been entrusted, will return to the residence of their master, to receive their accustomed food…”

Dogs Before Dog Control

“Captain Brown states, that in 1810, it was computed that there were upwards of two thousand of these Dogs, at and in the vicinity of St. John’s, Newfoundland. They are left to shift for themselves during the whole summer, and are not only troublesome to the inhabitants, but become absolute nuisances, from starvation and disease.”

Sources:
    The short sketch is found in Vol. 1, of The Cabinet of Natural History and American Sports, which was originally published c1830. In the 1973 edition put out by the Imprint Society you will find it on p; 19.
     The source by Captain Brown cited in the sketch is the following: Biographical Sketches, and authentic Anecdotes of Dogs ; exhibiting remarkable Instances of the Instinct, Sagacity, and social Disposition of this faithful Animal : illustrated by Representations of the most striking Varieties, and by correct Portraits of celebrated or remarkable Dogs, from Drawings chiefly original. Also, a Historical Introduction ; and a copious Appendix on the Breeding, Feeding, Training, Diseases, and Medical Treatment of Dogs; together with a Treatise on the Game Laws of Great Britain. By Captain Thomas Brown, F.R.S.E., F.L.S., M.R.P.S.E., M.W.S., &c..
[To give you something to look forward to in 2018, I plan to do an essay on book subtitles. You don’t see many anymore like the one above]

     The illustration is from: “Byron and His Dog in Pictures”, The Guardian, Dec. 3, 2013.

     I was not aware of Byron’s dogs and only learned about them in my typically dilettantish way. I can assure those of you who are more serious about canine things that much more is easily found about Newfoundlands, Labradors and the dogs that Byron had. Boatswain’s tomb, by the way, is bigger than Byron’s.
     But, even dog scholars might not have known about the two interesting doggie tidbits noted above. And here are some more:
     When I went to look for Captain Brown’s book I learned that it is exceedingly rare and not easily found. After some searching, however, I did learn that, ironically enough the entire volume is available (in electronic form, if not on sale or in many libraries). Apparently it was one of the books scanned before Google abandoned the project ( - that should be the subject of another post). For loyal readers and dog lovers here it is.
Biographical Sketches, and Authentic Anecdotes of Dogs…

PS - The short sketch did not include mention of the fact that by 1815 dog control of a rather serious type had been implemented in St. John’s - “that all dogs found at large should be forthwith destroyed…”
The book also mentions many other breeds such as the Russian Dog, the Iceland Dog and the Greenland Dog, the Esquimaux Dog, the Siberian and the Maltese.

Forbidden Food

  It seems that many of the people who do not have to worry about having enough food, worry about nothing more than food. Able to have just about anything on an increasingly global menu the modern diner worries not about getting something to eat, but instead about eating it. Palsied by plenitude, the worry shifts to the ingredients and angst develops over such things as calories and gluten. That, I can assure you, is the last mention of the g-word in what I hope is a short post. Instead I will discuss two fads (or perhaps I should call them ‘trends’) which seem to me a trifle suspicious (trifle as in trivial, not as in the dessert which you should probably not eat.)

Clean Eating

     We were sitting on the deck on  a summer evening, eating too much food (which was probably both unsanctioned and unwholesome) and drinking too much wine (which is certainly not approved of by most medical and some religious authorities), when the neighbour jogged by on her way back from the gym and mentioned that she was ‘clean eating’. I thought that was probably not a bad idea and surely a better one than eating something dirty.

     Not realizing that it is a ‘current food thing’ I went hunting for ‘clean eating’ and found it first among the Fletcherites who were, oddly enough, the followers of Horace Fletcher. He was known as “The Great Masticator” and he suggested that "Nature will castigate those who don't masticate”. Back then (early in the last century) ‘clean eating’ had more to do with chewing than eating; one needed to chew even mashed potatoes very thoroughly. In any case, it seems to me that with a few minor spelling changes Old Horace could have had another career preaching on about activities that take place toward the other end of the body.

[Fake news alert: I know you think I am making all of this up and that no one would fall for Fletcher or practice ‘clean eating’. But, you are wrong. If you go searching, just make sure you search for “Horace Fletcher” not “Joseph Fletcher”  who “was a leading academic proponent of the potential benefits of abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, eugenics, and cloning”. He certainly deserves a post of his own.]

   Since ‘clean eating’ is a current food thing, or was earlier this year, you probably know what it is and I will not go on about it. It seems now to be more about the food than the chewing. I am sure it is all probably explained in the magazine, Clean Eating. I will now move on to the other current food thing, or it was earlier last month.

Placenta Eating

     This seems like a rather abrupt jump from clean eating, but apparently it is the ‘new thing’. I don’t follow the tabloids or read much celebrity news, but if you do, you probably know all about it so I will keep this short. In fact, I will simply turn this subject over to someone else.      
     This is from an article in the Washington Post, but, unfortunately, it is not fake news:

“Over the past decade, the authors say, there’s been a growing interest in natural childbirth by people wary of bringing a human life into the world in an antiseptic room full of intravenous drugs, gloved doctors and fluorescent light. And many have questioned whether doctors have it all wrong when they place a placenta in a biohazard bag and toss it out.
After all, for many mammals, the consumption of placentas — placentophagy, as researchers call it — has been going on for as long as there have been placentas.
For anyone who missed that day in biology class, the placenta is an organ shared by a pregnant mother and her growing fetus, functioning as the lungs, gastrointestinal system, liver and kidneys of the developing child.
During birth, the organ is expelled along with the baby, and most hospitals discard it as medical waste.
Proponents have said eating placenta reduces pain, improves mood and energy level, increases milk production, and may even have anti-aging properties — a wonder drug produced by a pregnant woman’s own body.
For humans, eating placenta has been a fringe practice until recently.
Positive placenta-eating anecdotes have flourished, and so have companies that charge hundreds to prepare a placenta for consumption, dehydrated like beef jerky or processed into smoothies or pills.”

Source: : “Don’t Eat Your Placenta, Researchers Warn,”  by Cleve R. Wootson Jr. , Washington Post, October 18, 2017.

     For all of you who eat and who are unnerved by all of this I suggest you follow the advice offered in the title of this article, “Relax, You Don’t Need to ‘Eat Clean”, and read the first couple of  paragraphs: 

“We talk about food in the negative: What we shouldn’t eat, what we’ll regret later, what’s evil, dangerously tempting, unhealthy.
The effects are more insidious than any overindulgent amount of “bad food” can ever be. By fretting about food, we turn occasions for comfort and joy into sources of fear and anxiety. And when we avoid certain foods, we usually compensate by consuming too much of others.
All of this happens under the guise of science. But a closer look at the research behind our food fears shows that many of our most demonized foods are actually fine for us.”

     So there you have it. The current culinary zeitgeist summed up in two fads with only one mention of gluten.

Sources:
The article quoted directly above -” Relax, You Don’t Need to ‘Eat Clean” - is by Aaron E. Carroll, and it is found in The New York Times on Nov. 4, 2017. 

Fox News followers who believe that anything published in that publication or the Washington Post is surely to be suspect should see:

“Consumption of the Placenta in the Postpartum Period”, by Emily Hart Hayes, in the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing, January–February, 2016,Volume 45, Issue 1, Pages 78–89. It includes a full literature review. Here is the abstract:
“Postpartum women are consuming their placentas to achieve claimed health benefits, including improved mood, energy, and lactation. Strong scientific evidence to substantiate these claims is lacking. Self-reported benefits from some women include improved mood and lactation; animal models suggest there may be an analgesic effect. Possible risks include infection, thromboembolism from estrogens in placental tissue, and accumulation of environmental toxins. Women’s health care providers should be aware of this practice to help women make informed decisions.”

[Avoided above are all the religious strictures which further complicate dietary matters and which serve, as they usually do, to reduce our enjoyment while increasing the likelihood of nasty doctrinal disputes. For a quick primer see the essay “Food and Drink Prohibitions” provided by Wikipedia. You will learn, for example, that in regard to the consumption of bats: “In Judaism, the Deuteronomic Code and Priestly Code explicitly prohibit the bat. Likewise, Islamic Sharia forbids their consumption. (However, in the predominantly Muslim nation of Indonesia, bat meat is known to be a prized delicacy, especially within the Batak and Minahasa minority communities, both of which are largely non-Muslim.)”]

Canadian Cartoonists

     Once again, you should know that I have been preoccupied and am attempting to quickly increase my posts for December and avoid shopping. So, given quick consideration are a few Canadian cartoonists and illustrators who would otherwise deserve more of our attention.

Barry Blitt


   
     If you have your own shopping to do, you might consider buying the book Blitt by Barry Blitt. In it you will find “caricatures of the public figures, mainly entertainers and politicians, who've occupied the limelight from the late 1980s on. It's got Michael Jackson holding an infant over an apartment-building railing, Vladimir Putin depicted as a figure-skater prancing around the ice, Pope Francis doing snow angels and, of course, Donald Trump, mid-air, coming down for a big, fat belly flop in the American pool.”
     Perhaps you have wondered, “How did a Jewish kid [Blitt] from the insular Montreal suburb of Côte Saint-Luc end up in the thick of New York's cosmopolitan media scene, published by everyone, the unlikely owner of playwright Arthur Miller's old house?”, and if so, you will find the answer in this review: “Catcher of the Wry: A New Collection of Satirical Sketches Highlights Cartoonist Barry Blitt's Singular Take on the Past Few Decades,” by Alec Scott, G&M, Nov. 10, 2017.

Bruce McCall


(Sorry about the quality of the image.
The billboard says "Bay of Pigs Now Called Porky's Cove)

     Much of Blitt’s work appears in The New Yorker where the covers are also often done by another Canadian, Bruce McCall. His (McCall’s) first appeared in 1995 and he has now done over 70 of them. He also provides the odd cartoon and articles such as “Not So Fast, Canada”, a funny one found in the July 31st, 2017  issue. He has published a number of books, including Thin Ice which describes growing up in Simcoe and elsewhere here in Ontario.

Doug Sneyd

   
     I only know of Mr. Sneyd because of the stories I have heard about him. He was a friend of my father-in-law who just passed away on Dec. 2nd. [this was the major preoccupation]. During the late summer and early fall, he tried to get to Orillia to see Doug, but was unable to do so.

    Mr. Sneyd has been a cartoonist for Playboy since the 1960s. Given the new prudishness and puritanism, I chose to supply his image rather than one of his cartoons. You can find them in the book,The Art of Doug Sneyd or you can see and buy them from his web site: Sneyd: The Art of Playboy Cartoonist Doug Sneyd.

Post Script
     The stories we heard about Mr. Sneyd generally had to do with fine parties and good times and were more about his conviviality than his career. After a little poking around, however, I have learned that his career was perhaps, shall we say, more illustrious than I indicated. The book mentioned above, for example, was nominated for an Eisner Award back in 2012 in the category “Best Humor Publication.” If you are dismissive of the Playboy cartoons as bordering on the ‘pornographic’, you should know that he created many political ones for newspapers such as The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. In the latter I found this article about him from forty years ago: “Mixing the Comic Strip and Editorial Cartoon,” (July 23, 1978)

    “As a high school student in Ontario, Canada, Doug Sneyd got no further than lesson 18 in the Famous Artists correspondence course. That one was titled “Earn While You Learn.” He decided to do just that.
     Steyd, now 46, has been earning his living as an illustrator and cartoonist ever since. After 12 years as a regular cartoonist for Playboy magazine and eight years doing an internationally-syndicated political panel, Sneyd has created SCOOPS, which begins today and will appear each Sunday on the Op Ed page of The Globe.
     SCOOPS now appears in 112 newspapers.” [c.1978]

     The article concludes with Sneyd noting that with the help of his family he runs a “real cottage industry” from his lakeside home in Ontario.
     Cartoons were an important feature at Playboy. Recently, when Mr Hefner died, it was noted in one piece that he “was as devoted to cartoonists as he was to the centerfold,” and that is why Sneyd had  such well-known cartoonist colleagues as, Al Jaffee, Jules Feiffer, Shel Silverstein and Arnold Roth. See: “Hugh Hefner Dreamed of Being a Cartoonist; Instead, He Changed the Market for Top Comic Artists,” Michael Cavna, The Washington Post, Sept. 28, 2017.
     A few years ago Sneyd was honoured at the ToonSeum, which is a museum in Pittsburgh that celebrates the comic and cartoon arts. See: “Bunny Tales: Legendary Playboy Cartoonist Doug Sneyd Will Give Fans a Glimpse Into His Life and Art,” Dan Majors, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 19, 2012:

     "Joe Wos, executive director of the ToonSeum on Liberty Avenue, Downtown, has as his guest tonight legendary cartoonist Doug Sneyd, whose art has adorned the pages of Playboy magazine for nearly 50 years.
"Like most men, I bought Playboy for the cartoons," said Mr. Wos, who opened the cartoon museum almost three years ago. "And I always loved his work.
"He is able to meld two worlds. The beauty of the human form, these beautiful, voluptuous women. And, at the same time, he caricatures human nature, poking gentle fun at our sexual hang-ups and foibles. He has tremendous insight."
Mr. Sneyd, 80, of Ontario, Canada, arrived in town this morning for the Pittsburgh Comic Con this weekend. While some artists are shy, even reclusive, Mr. Sneyd said he delights in traveling and meeting fans.
Mr. Wos, a cartoonist himself, said Mr. Sneyd is one of his heroes.
"There's no question that he is one of the greatest Playboy artists ever," he said. "His wit is still biting and satirical today. For example, he has some rough sketches for tonight's exhibit that Playboy declined to use. One shows a woman in bed between two men who are wearing dark glasses and earpieces and the caption is 'How long have you guys been in the Secret Service?' Well, this was done long before today's controversy. His work remains timely."


Graydon Carter

 
     The vulgarian is the guy on the right who is frequently attacked by the Canadian Carter who is the gent on the left. Although he is not a cartoonist, he is another Canadian who went south and found success. He is retiring this month after 25 years as the editor of Vanity Fair. This year he became a Member of the Order of Canada “For his contributions to popular culture and current affairs as a skilled editor and publisher.”

Post Script:
    I did not know that Carter was the editor of the short-lived periodical Canadian Review which was published between 1974-1977. I see that the university nearby has most of the run (although the issues are in storage). Perhaps I will have them pulled in the new year and include them among my “Periodical Ramblings”.

Speaking of Statues

  Relax, I said about all I had to say on this subject in my year-end rant where I suggested that there should be a statute of limitations on the elimination of statues. Perhaps I should also have suggested that we should no longer construct any at all. I say this now because I had forgotten about the controversy over the memorial to the Vietnam War, but was reminded of it because of a new book on this subject. I will put down a few words which may serve to help me not forget again.

     The new book is James Reston Jr.’s “A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial”, in which he “recounts the bitter debate over Lin’s design and the contest between Lin and Frederick Hart, who was commissioned to make the memorial more appealing to traditionalists with the addition of a bronze statue known as “Three Soldiers.”
Apparently I am not the only one who forgot about all this since one reviewer notes;  “Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial has been so successful that one almost forgets the ugly storms of racism and misogyny with which opponents of the design fought the young architect more than 35 years ago.” (One opponent said it “was designed by a gook.”)

     Perhaps future statues should be virtual rather than concrete so they can be more easily deleted.

Post Script:
For a couple of reviews of the book see: “Fighting a War Over a War Memorial,” Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, Dec. 1, 2017 and “The Right Way to Memorialize an Unpopular War,” by Michael J. Lewis, New York Times, Sept. 11, 2017.

There are at least two more books on the subject: To Heal a Nation, by Jan Scruggs and Joel Swerdlow and Robert Doubek’s, Creating the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

In my year-end jeremiad relating to political correctness and STATUES I also considered WORDS, particularly those which should no longer be used. One of them is MASTER. You will be pleased to learn that that odious word has now received Canadian censure: “York University Scraps 'College Master' Academic Title to Cut Association to Discrimination and Racism”, National Post, Dec. 18, 2017.
Although Canadians were slightly slower than Americans in banning “Master”, it looks like we may be taking the lead in banning words that are not offensive, but sound like they might be:

“A Simon Fraser University (SFU) professor has launched a petition urging officials to change the school’s team name from The Clan, suggesting it could offend U.S.-based opponents and potentially put student athletes at risk.The university’s teams are known as The Clan, formerly the Clansmen, in honour of the Scottish heritage of the man the school is named after.”
No doubt as this is being written hundreds of bowdlerizers are scouring lengthy lists of homonyms, homographs and heterographs looking for new words to ban. I do suppose, however, that the rather dramatic loss of words from our vocabulary may be more than offset by the addition of new gender pronouns.

My rant was cleverly concealed, but if you wish to know what I said see here since I have made the early resolution to abandon things controversial and contemporary in the coming year.

Christmas Shopping for Historians

(Clio - Muse of History)

Cundill History Prize

     I happened to notice recently this headline: “British Historian Daniel Beer Wins 2017 Cundill History Prize” (by Chris Hampton in the Globe and Mail, Nov. 16, 2017). I did not know about this prize, nor did I know that it is the richest one in the world that is awarded for a work of non-fiction ($75,000 real dollars). Since it is the 10th anniversary of the award and since we should all be shopping I thought I would learn a little more about it while perhaps finding out about some good history books to buy as gifts.

     McGill University administers the Cundill History Prize which “recognizes and rewards the best history writing in English.” At the site linked above you will find a list of the past prize winners as well as the other contenders. The winner this year is The House of the Dead: Siberian Exile Under the Tsars by Daniel Beer. The runners-up are: Vietnam: A New History and The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century.

     F. Peter Cundill graduated from McGill and was a successful investor. He died in 2011. If you are more interested in Mr. Cundill and investing than in history you could have a look for his intriguingly titled biography: Routines and Orgies: The Life of Peter Cundill by Christopher Risso-Gill.  Mr. Risso-Gill also wrote, There's Always Something to Do: The Peter Cundill Investment Approach.

    If you require more choices for good history books, or if you are, like me, simply trying to avoid shopping then go to this omnibus site where you can spend the rest of your day: American Historical Association Announces 2017 Winners. Here are some of the awards listed along with the historical category:

The Herbert Baxter Adams Prize for an author’s first book in European history from 1815 through the 20th century

The George Louis Beer Prize in European international history since 1895

The Jerry Bentley Prize in world history

The Albert J. Beveridge Award on the history of the United States, Latin America, or Canada, from 1492 to the present

The James Henry Breasted Prize in any field of history prior to CE 1000

The John H. Dunning Prize for an author’s first or second book on any subject relating to United States history

The Morris D. Forkosch Prize in the field of British, British imperial, or British Commonwealth history since 1485

The Leo Gershoy Award in the fields of 17th- and 18th-century western European history

The John K. Fairbank Prize for East Asian history since 1800

    The winner of this prize is Vietnam: A New History by Christopher Goscha (Univ. du Québec à Montréal). As noted, this book was a Cundill finalist this year.

Post Script:

   Apart from the usual sources see also:

“Peter Cundill, a Canadian investment star, dies at 72:The Cundill Value Fund, started in 1974, still boasts a double-digit return after a lost decade for global stocks.” by Ellen Roseman, Toronto Star, Jan 28, 2011.

“Peter Cundill found wealth where others feared to tread,” Philip Fine, G&M, Feb. 17, 2011.

 And here is the usual bonus information:

Mr. Cundill was a proponent of ‘Value Investing’, a subject of interest to some at the Ivey Business  School at Western University where you can find a video by Mr. Cundill. 

And if you think it unusual that someone in commerce could be interested in history, see my earlier post about the “Schulich-Woolf Rare Book Collection”.

THE NOBEL PRIZES

    It is Nobel Prize time and there are many related news stories to be found. One of the latest indicates that President Trump will break with tradition and not invite to the White House the eight American laureates. I am sure everyone involved is relieved.

    Naturally given that the Nobel Prizes are much in the news I choose to focus on the Ig Nobel ones. If it is as dreary where you are as it is here, or if you failed to win a Nobel, then you might need a little humour.

The Ig Nobel Prizes

    

    I will keep this short. You probably know about Wikipedia where you can go straight away to learn about both the Nobels and the Igs. You rely on me for more and better information so here is where you should go to learn about the origin of the Ig Nobel Prizes - The Annals of Improbable Research. After you stop laughing and again start feeling depressed, move on to The Journal of Irreproducible Results: The Science Humor Magazine which will make you “Laugh!, “Chortle!” and “Guffaw!”

Post Script:

   This bonus information is only available to subscribers; the rest of you are not allowed to read it.

   A while back I read Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond, by Robert R. Provine. Don’t be too dismissive. It is published by Harvard University Press. In it, he gives a good explanation of what the Ig Nobel prizes are all about and provides two examples. One of them even has some Canadian content which allows me to meet the CRTC quota.

About the IP, Provine says (p.235): “The annual Ig Nobel Prizes are not a dishonor, but typically a good-humored recognition of the unusual, imaginative, and funny in science, medicine and technology.”

p. 130-131 of Curious Behavior... in the Chapter on “Hiccupping”
In discussing a potential cure for hiccupping he notes:
“The most creative cure is offered by a physician, Dr. Francis M. Fesmire of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, in a memorable paper in the Annals of Emergency Medicine: “Termination of Intractable Hiccups by Digital Rectal Massage”. “The approach of a rubber-gloved Dr. Fesmire would disrupt any number of physiological patterns. His discovery earned him the gratitude of thankful patients and a 2006 Ig Nobel Prize.”

A Canadian example is found in the chapter on “Farting and Belching”, on p. 197:

“Having made the case that farting could provide a novel though limited channel of communication, we can question whether any animals actually exploit this unlikely aural niche. So far, signaling by fart is reported only in certain herring. The breakthrough research appears in a paper cryptically titled “Pacific and Atlantic Herring Produce Burst Pulse Sounds.” The work earned Ben Wilson and colleagues at the Bamfield Marine Science Centre in British Columbia, Canada, the 2004 Ig Nobel Prize in biology. The scientists became curious about the origin of strange rasping noises produced at night by captive herring under observation in a tank, and discovered that they were fish farts. The fish gulp air at the surface, store it in their swim bladder, and release it from a duct in their anus, producing a high-frequency burst up to 22,000Hz. (Human hearing ranges from 20Hz to 20,000Hz.) Their next insight was that the farts are signals that may bring fish together and assist in evading predators. But signaling may have a price: predators such as killer whales may also be listening to flatulent herring and home in on the signal. The herring fart by night, but not by day, when they rely on visual instead of auditory information.”

PS:
If you are old enough you may remember the “Order of the Golden Fleece” and Senator Proxmire. The Golden Fleece Awards were a little different in that they typically ridiculed seemingly ludicrous studies that received government funding. Often such subjects yield useful results.