PERIODICAL RAMBLINGS (1)

The Sewanee Review

    I said I would be rambling on about magazines and it is fitting to start with a literary one that has been around a long time. Founded in 1892 it is “the longest-running literary quarterly in America.” In the fall it will publish its 500th edition. It issues from Sewanee which is more formally known as the University of the South which, by the way, is ten years older than Canada. It is fitting, as well, that the issue displayed has flowers on the cover since Sewanee is situated in a bucolic ‘Domain’ occupying 13,000 acres. Sewanee is about an hour from Chattanooga. If at this point you are humming “Old Folks at Home” you are thinking about the Suwannee River which begins in another state farther south.

  My selection of this serial as the first in this series can be explained partially (perhaps even largely) by the fact that some of the work I was going to do has already been done. A new Yankee editor has been hired and he and the journal are the subjects of a recent article in The New York Times, making my job easier.

   Although The Sewanee Review would have been described by some as “moribund” the new editor, Adam Ross, thought it “a magazine with some of the greatest DNA in the American literary ecosystem” and that it “seemed worth slowing my literary career down for.” Great writers have always been associated with the journal and Ross is bringing in some great new ones. The website has been made more robust and the subscription numbers now have four digits.

    If you visit the site of The Sewanee Review you will find that $35 are required to breach the paywall. You can, however, sample some material from the archives where you will find pieces by such writers as Joyce Carol Oates, Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O’Connor. You can also access the associated blog - The Conglomerate - and read for free some essays and interviews.

    The article in The New York Times notes some other literary revivals and I will include the section here and strike these serials from those to be considered in future rambles.

    “The Sewanee Review is one of a handful of pedigreed literary journals to be given a second life. The Evergreen Review, a journal founded in 1957 that published work by Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, John-Paul Sartre and Samuel Beckett, was reinstated online this year, with the novelist and critic Dale Peck as editor in chief. Granta, founded in 1889, was revived by Bill Buford in 1979 and now has an estimated readership of 37,000 an issue. And The Paris Review, whose future seemed uncertain after the death of its longtime editor George Plimpton, is thriving, with 20,000 paid print subscribers, up from just under 12,000 a decade ago, according to the review’s editor, Lorin Stein.”

Sources:

“New Life for a 125-Year-Old Literary Journal,” Alexandra Alter, The New York Times, June 4, 2017.

Locally (here in London) the London Public Library does not appear to have a subscription.

If you wander up to Western University you will find a complete run of The Sewanee Review from 1892. It appears that the last print issue is from 2007 and after that the electronic version is available on a few different platforms.

Bonus hint: JSTOR is a huge digital library accessible from many university libraries and The Sewanee Review is available in it. Individuals can also pay for access. BUT, if you go to the JSTOR site and search for the journal you will find that issues of The Sewanee Review BEFORE 1923 (and copyright concerns) can be read for free. Newer articles cost around $25 or you can pay a fee for access.

CANCON Considerations.

   That is a joke; I don’t think unread blogs like this one are subject to Canadian content laws, but, if so, here you go:

Canadian poet William Wilfred Campbell is discussed in the Oct. 1900 issue and “Canadian Novels and Novelists” are covered in 1903. Both articles are by the Canadian Lawrence J. Burpee and both can be accessed for free.  

If you want to read some fiction with a local Ontario setting you will have to pay since the piece was published in 1968. See: “The Coast of Erie,” by George Lanning in the Winter, 1968 issue.

P.S. In a recent post I discussed retiring and university towns. Have a look at the Sewanee site and see what you think. http://www.sewanee.edu/

HEADLINES

Extra Extra Read All About It

(Tabloid Trash Headlines  are not Considered Below, but I Couldn’t Resist This One)

    The other day there was a headline in the London Free Press that caught my attention, so today our subject is ‘Headlines’. That subject is further restricted to the type of headlines one sees in newspapers; the ones that are constructed to grab your attention and provide a hint about the topic being covered. Internet headline spam, the spawn of clickbait, is not considered.

    The need for brevity, the lack of punctuation and the often odd arrangement of words can create confusing headlines, but also unintentional humour: “Criminally Insane Bill Passes”; “Sharks Stop Search for Span Collapse Victims”. The need to meet a deadline sometimes results in ones that are just incorrect: “Dewey Defeats Truman”. If you have your own deadline you can jump right to the lists of examples provided below.

     The headline in the London Free Press (on July 17) is: “13th Doctor Who is a Woman”. As one who is not paying much attention to popular culture, I assumed the article was about females who were having a hard time cracking the glass ceilings in medical clinics.

     The former editor-in-chief of the LFP, Paul Berton, who now has the same position at the Hamilton Spectator, wrote about headlines a while back after some readers complained about the use of a pun in a headline in that paper: “The Prince of Wails”. Here are some samples from his piece:

“Federal agents raid gun shop, find weapons”

“Marijuana issue sent to a joint committee”

“Homicide victims rarely talk to police”

“17 remain dead in morgue shooting spree”

“Bridges help people cross rivers”

“City unsure why the sewer smells”

“Meeting on open meetings is closed”

“Caskets found as workers demolish mausoleum”

“Meat head resigns”

“Man with 8 DUIs blames drinking problem”

“Parents keep kids home to protest school closure”

He concludes by reminding us that the headline writer has to generate very quickly a lot of short headlines to summarize long articles.

Columbia Journalism Review

    If you are looking for other sources, this publication is the place to begin. I used to grab copies of this magazine off the shelves and turn immediately to the inside of the back cover where one found the “Lower Case”. The entire page was full of reproduced headlines that were sent in by readers (they are all ‘real’ and were accompanied by the actual source - unlike the ‘fake’ ones I will provide below). One of my all-time favorites (which is now marginally politically correct): “Jesse Owens Dies; His Feats Live On”.

“Smoking warning labels will help save lives”

“Research finds club improves children”

“Dad says diplomat had passion for foreign affairs”

“Mother arrested after drowning”

“173 animals seized; 2 face cruelty charges”

“Chimpanzees get pregnant despite vasectomies”

“Shark bites land surfer in hospital”

“Plans made for east side crime wave”

“Army school suspends female head”

“Endangered fish holds up water plant”

“Middletown man hides crack in his buttocks”

“Man charged in electrocutions”

“Rangers' Hamilton to get shot for sore knee”

“Mrs. Ghandi stoned at rally in India”

“Nixon To Stand Pat On Watergate Tapes”

“Juvenile court to try shooting defendant”

“Shouting Match Ends Teacher's Hearing”

“Prostitutes appeal to Pope”

“High court OKs extra time for sex crimes”

“Stud tires out” (about banned studded tires)

“Experts suggest education standards might be to lofty”

Additional examples from the CJR are to be found in some sources provided below. The “Lower Case” no longer exists, but if you go to the digital Columbia Journalism Review you will still find examples under this heading: “Headlines Editors Probably Wish They Could Take Back”.

The Saturday Review of Literature

    

     This magazine is no longer published, but is still a good source for headline bloopers. Actually, bloopers were also reported from deeper within articles and readers often sent in pictures of signs and such things as examples from memos. One of the funny sign examples from back in 1969 has now become almost a sign cliché and was spotted at the neighborhood pub just last week: HAVE YOUR NEXT AFFAIR HERE. (One of my favorite business names was noticed on a hair salon somewhere in the interior of British Columbia; THE WACK AND YACK.

   Samples in The Saturday Review are found in two sections of the magazine: 1) In the column “Trade Winds” during the 1960s and 1970s (often written by  Bennett Cerf) and 2) in the section “Curmudgeon-at-Large” in the 1970s when Cleveland Amory was usually the curmudgeon.

  Examples of journalistic mistakes and oddities are often written about in other publications as well. Punch recorded this example from South Africa back in 1980: “When a man saw someone dash into a sugar plantation carrying a pair of human feet and legs, he suspected that something sinister was  happening the Durban Criminal Sessions heard yesterday” The New Yorker sometimes sprinkles samples at the page bottom under headlines like “Block That Metaphor”.

         

The NEWSEUM

    More examples will be found at the Newseum, a museum in Washington where apparently media mistakes are sprawled like graffiti on the bathroom walls. You can also find there a book full of them: Correct Me If I'm Wrong: Press Bloopers as Seen in the Newseum. “The snippets featured in the collection include errant headlines -- "Asteroid Nearly Misses Earth" (The Washington Post, June 24, 2002) -- and questionable photo captions, messed-up weather maps, curious copy and even some regrettably incorrect corrections, such as this one from the Sept. 2, 1976, Evening Herald of Rock Hill, S.C.: "Chief Blue, the last full-blooded Catawba Indian Chief died in 1959. The Evening Herald incorrectly said Wednesday that he died three years ago due to a reporting error."

FAKE HEADLINES

  Given that the news from the lamestream media is said to be mostly fake, I might as well include some samples of completely made-up and untrue headlines. They are found in abundance at “America’s Finest News Source” - The Onion.

“Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeros”

“Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia”

“Man With Heart Disease Eagerly Awaits Young Boy’s Death”

“NRA Shifts Focus From Guns to Penmanship”

“Desperate Vegetarians Declare Cows Plants”

“Black Box Reveals TWA Flight 800 Passengers Missed End of Dragonheart”

“Nation’s Educators Alarmed by Poorly Written Teen Suicide Notes”

“Massive Oil Spill Results in Improved Wildlife Viscosity”

“Tractor Pulls Now Number-One Use For U.S. Tractors”

“Viagra Giving Hope to Thousands of Struggling Stand-up Comedians”

“Colorado Judge Imposes Ban on Same-Sex Friendships”

“Who Will Kill the Roaches After the Apocalypse?”

“Great Books of Western Civilization Used to Accent Den”

“Taco Bell Launches New ‘Morning After’ Burrito”

“‘Midwest’ Discovered Between East, West Coasts”

“Islamic Fundamentalists Condemn Casual Day”

“New Remote Control Can be Operated By Remote”

P.S.

Some bonus headlines for those who read this far:

Here are two that are rather unclear: “Climber Who Cut Off Arm to Escape Speaking at MSU” AP August 29, 2011. (about the guy who cut off his arm to escape from a cave);

“Garbage Truck Lands on Saturn”, CBC May 28, 2012. (the Saturn was a car in Edmonton)

Others:

“For Towns Hold Elections”

Times-Record, Denton, Md. April 27, 2011.

“Pedestrian Deaths Largely Flat in U.S., Maryland”

Baltimore Sun, May 7, 2013

“Bishops Agree Sex Abuse Rules”

Sunday Business Post, Dublin, April 3, 2011

“Women’s Body Seeks Member”

Montreal Gazette, July 30, 1981

“Church Member Donates Organ to St. Aloysius”

“6 Year Old Girl Just Found After 26 Years”

“Northfield Plans to Plan Strategic Plan”

“Amnesty Champions Tortured Girl”

“Defendant's Speech Ends in Long Sentence”

Sources:

“Writing headlines is an art ... ... Unfortunately, not everyone who writes them is a Rembrandt,” Paul Berton, The Hamilton Spectator, August 3, 2013.

He also covered the subject in: “We regret the error; Mistakes inevitably happen, but we do our best,” Paul Berton,  The Hamilton Spectator, May 14,  2011.

“Crash Blossoms,” by Ben Zimmer, NYT Magazine, Jan. 27, 2010.

(See also the website Crash Blossoms).

True journalists will appreciate: “Headlines: The Unappreciated Art,” by Lynn Ludlow,

In ETC: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Fall 1988), pp. 236-245

Books:

In addition to the book mentioned in the Newseum section above see the following:
For two collections of headlines from the Columbia Journalism Review see:

Red Tape Holds up New Bridge

Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim, and Other Flubs from the Nation's Press

Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech, by Craig Silverman.

Double Bonus Source - A place where you can read lots of old magazines like The Saturday Review of Literature. http://www.unz.org/ (Don’t tell everyone).

Many are hoping for a headline in the very near future that will look somewhat like this one:

Dawkins Not Talking

Berkeley: Home of the Free Speech Movement

     Richard Dawkins was scheduled to talk about his new book, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist, on Aug. 9 in Berkeley at radio station KPFA. The talk has been cancelled because Mr. Dawkins has made critical remarks about Islam.

   I am sure it is correct to say that he has been critical of every religion. He is, after all, a “passionate rationalist.” He should be allowed to speak.

  You will find here, the rationale for the cancellation offered by KPFA. You will find here, the response offered by Mr. Dawkins.

    I agree with Professor Pinker:

“Harvard professor and author Steven Pinker came out in support of Dawkins, writing to KPFA that their decision was “intolerant, ill-reasoned, and ignorant”. “Dawkins is one of the great thinkers of the 20th and 21st century. He has criticised doctrines of Islam, together with doctrines of other religions, but criticism is not ‘abuse’,” said Pinker. “People may get offended and hurt by honest criticism, but that cannot possibly be a justification for censoring the critic, or KPFA would be shut down because of all the people it has hurt and offended over the decades.”

“Pinker said that the move “handed a precious gift to the political right, who can say that left-leaning media outlets enforce mindless conformity to narrow dogma, and are no longer capable of thinking through basic intellectual distinctions”.

Sources:

The Pinker quote is found in:  “Richard Dawkins Event Cancelled Over His 'Abusive Speech Against Islam',” The Guardian, July 24, 2017.

“Richard Dawkins Event Canceled Over Past Comments About Islam,” Janice Fortin, The New York Times, July 24, 2017.

For a good background report on how grim things now are in Berkeley see: “Fighting Words: A Battle in Berkeley Over Free Speech,” Katy Steinmetz, Time, June 1, 2017.

Periodical Ramblings (The Series)

Periodical Ramblings

    It does not matter if they are called, ‘periodicals’, ‘magazines’, ‘serials’ or ‘journals’, I have always enjoyed and been interested in them. Genes may be involved. One of my sisters had an entire sunroom full of magazines, with stacks of them almost as high as the piles of those found in her basement. Those who do not share this trait generally lack the ability to recognize the value of, say a May 2004 issue of Coastal Living or even a small stack of Harpers from the last century. That is the case especially when the magazines are not, in fact, worth anything and the archive is free online. Those of us who do, have a more refined sense of the intrinsic worth of those stacks of serials even when they remain dormant and undusted.

    It is not a good thing these days to put too much emphasis on the ‘nature’ side of the ledger, so let me add some support for the ‘nurture’ side as an explanation for my/our interest in reading and keeping bundles of bound paper. Perhaps it starts with the magazine rack in the front of our parent’s restaurant. I do remember thumbing through publications like Collier’s, the Saturday Evening Post and,The Hit Parader, which should give you some indication of both my adolescent interests back then  and my age now.

The Periodical Room

     

     Exposure in later life to many many magazines, serials, journals and newspapers in the Periodical Reading Room of a university ensured that I would end up perusing periodicals rather than studying. Later still, as an employee in such a room, I was able to stack piles of such publications around me and then wait for students to ask me questions about them. There were so many journals that there were journals that did nothing but provide you with the table of contents of journals. If you were serious you could simply grab one issue of Current Contents: Arts and Humanities and see if there were any new articles about dipthongs in hundreds of journals. If you were really serious you could look in Current Contents: Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences and learn about something molecularly complex. Or if you were merely intellectually adventurous you could wander about until you were distracted by a nice cover or the pictures in Paris Match.

    Having rambled on long enough about the origin of my interest in journals  and magazines I will now turn to the purpose of Periodical Ramblings. In it, I plan to sally forth among the serials and see what I find. Many old magazines ceased publication or changed titles. Others simply disappeared. Many new ones exist primarily in electronic form. For that reason the ‘Periodical Rooms’ in many libraries have also disappeared and the spaces that once housed paper periodicals and the old bound issues have been ‘re-purposed’. The serials are now likely out-of sight and off-sight in a storage facility. Perhaps you will enjoy ‘browsing’ through some of them again here.

P.S.

    In periodical rooms of old, students were actually employed to put paper newspapers on poles.

The Saturday Evening Post

    Although many magazines have folded, you may be surprised to learn that this one continues. I found this out a few years ago when visiting the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA.

Here is the link for The Saturday Evening Post.

The Norman Rockwell Museum is here.

For a Canadian article about this publication see:

'Timing is right for this'; All-but-forgotten Saturday Evening Post to Undergo Major OverhauL,” Janet Whitman, Financial Post, May 17, 2008,