Chart of the Week (1)

 

The Plight of the Musicians

   Most of the music I now listen to comes to my ears, rather miraculously and mysteriously, by way of "Siri", who when consulted, provides it automatically and adds similar tunes without being requested to do so. Occasionally something is actually purchased and downloaded, but trips to 'record' stores and the loading in of CDs rarely happens. The music just streams along. Siri is sometimes asked to skip a song or replay a good one, but I am not asked by 'her' to pay for it. The assumption is made that if a tune is played, the artist receives something and if it is played again and again, the artist receives more and more. 

  How these financial transactions work is also rather mysterious, at least to me, but it does appear from the chart above, that it will be a miraculous thing if many musicians are able to survive. The service behind Siri we are currently using is Apple Music and it appears that if we stream a song 128 times, the musician (and, I guess the whole band) makes a buck.  On Spotify (not included in the chart), the artist receives $1 after the song is streamed 315 times.

   Spotify is currently being criticized for a reason unrelated to the payment of musicians, but it is because of the controversy that I spotted the chart, which is found in this article:

"Why Did Spotify Choose Joe Rogan Over Neil Young? It's Not a Music Company," Travis M. Andrews, Washington Post, Jan. 28, 2022. The chart appears in the section labelled, "Spotify's Strained Relationship With Musicians", and apparently it originates from the rapper T-Pain. 

  It will be clear from what I have written that I don't know much about the music business or the making of money. What is clear is that musicians, like newspapers, will soon disappear if we don't find a better way of supporting them. 

Professor Macksey's Library (Again)

I Should Be Tweeting

   You may recognize the wonderful room above which was at the top of a post I did back when Professor Macksey passed away a couple of years ago (see: Professor Macksey's Library.) If you do recognize it, it is probably not because you ever look at this blog, but because you saw a tweet about it on Twitter. Apparently it went viral and I am sorry to say that it is unlikely that I was the source of this virus, since I don't think the tweeter mentioned MM. Perhaps he would have, but the number of words he can use is limited. Here is the story about it:

"A Library the Internet Can’t Get Enough Of: Why Does This Image Keep Resurfacing On Social Media?" Kate Dwyer, New York Times, Jan. 16, 2022
"On the first Tuesday of the year, the author and political activist Don Winslow tweeted a photograph of an avid reader’s dream library. Bathed in the buttery glow of three table lamps, almost every surface of the room is covered with books. There are books on the tables, books stacked on mahogany ladders, and books atop still more books lining the shelves of the room. “I hope you see the beauty in this that I do,” Mr. Winslow wrote in the tweet, which has been acknowledged with 32,800 hearts."

Apparently, the tweet also garnered 1,700 comments. My post has been read by about 30 people since September, 2019, none of whom chose to comment. Nor did any choose to complain, I might add, and I am not bitter about my lack of popularity. I would like to suggest, however, as all news broadcasters now do, that if you want "BREAKING NEWS" about such things and wish to be the first in your coterie to know about them, you should consult MM. 

  By the way, the article (not the tweet) also included the information below. If you add it to what I provided earlier about Professor Macksey, you will know much more than the Twitter users who just viewed the photograph:

Dr. Macksey’s book collection clocked in at 51,000 titles, according to his son, Alan, excluding magazines and other ephemera. A decade ago, the most valuable pieces — including first editions of “Moby Dick,” T.S. Eliot’s “Prufrock and Other Observations,” and works by Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley — were moved to a “special collections” room on the Hopkins campus. After Dr. Macksey’s death, a S.W.A.T. team-like group of librarians and conservationists spent three weeks combing through his book-filled, 7,400-square-foot house to select 35,000 volumes to add to the university’s libraries.

This all happened at Johns Hopkins, by the way.

Auditing Diversity Everywhere

   

Even in the Stacks

   I occasionally read the Wall Street Journal because one of my sisters reads it regularly. I do so to be prepared when she says something like, “Guess what the idiots have done now?”; the ‘idiots’ being democrats, progressives, etc. And, in fact, much of what she tells me, and what the WSJ reports about those on the left having done or said, does seem often to be somewhat ‘idiotic.’

  Or, perhaps it is better to describe some of the actions and words of the progressives as “Counterproductive.” I have noticed them occurring with more frequency lately and was thinking about constructing a “Counterproductive Index.” I noticed one article just the other day in, unsurprisingly, the WSJ, and was holding it with plans to perhaps make it the first item in the construction of my new index. I knew that the WSJ could be counted upon to continually provide examples of unsmart things done by the progressives. Things that often embarrass those of us who lean left and which are clearly counterproductive if one is interested in furthering the cause. 

   Those in the editorial room at the WSJ certainly lean right, but the paper is full of solid and well-reported stories. Still, I was holding this new article for a few days to see if it could possibly be true, since the action described in it is unsmart and likely to produce more ridicule from those who want to "own the libs", than progress for those who are attempting to change things. I wanted the first example in my forthcoming (maybe) CI to be a solid one. 

   In the title of the article a question is posed: “What Does a Library’s ‘Diversity Auditor’ Do?” (by Faith Bottum, Jan.20.) The answer is found at Bard College, which "recently announced that three undergraduates, funded by the Office of Inclusive Excellence, are working their way through Stevenson Library, "evaluating each book for representations of race/ethnicity, gender, religion, and ability." The conclusion easily reached, is that the stacks were to be culled and the old authors replaced with younger ones (differently coloured, ethnicized and gendered, etc.)

   While "Decanonize the Stacks" or even "Decolonize the Stacks"  is not nearly as upsetting to some as "Defund the Police," it bothered me. Although librarians at many universities are discarding books, it is usually done simply because the university administration thinks the space is better used as an area to entertain students. That librarians could be involved in getting rid of ‘bad’ books is troubling since they are usually enlisted to defend them. 

   I figured that even a WSJ article could go viral and that it would not take long for the conservative magazines and Fox News (not readily available up here) to call our attention to this one. Among other things, they would note the irony in the fact that school librarians and those on the left who wish to introduce young children to books to which parents object, are at least protecting their grown children from having access to books that make them feel unsafe. 

   Luckily for me, the first reaction I found to all of this, provides you with the information you need. You will find the original Bard Library newsletter which discusses the initiative to “decanonize’ the stacks.” I typed ‘original’ because apparently Bard backtracked a bit when all of this came to light. The WSJ article is also discussed and a critique of it all is offered. 
Read this: Bard College Begins “decolonizing” its Library as Pecksniffs Comb the Stacks Searching for Bad Representations of “race/ethnicity, gender, religion, and ability”

Sources: 

The WSJ article is cited in the post. 
The Bard College website is here. 

The critique is from: Why Evolution is True. The blogger is the author, Jerry A. Coyne,  Emeritus Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, whose website is here. 

The Bonus:

The WSJ article mentioned that Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles also “undertook a similar project.” Although I was not able to find a “project” there, I would not be surprised. This is from the LMU Library "DEIA Statement of Commitment":  

Our vision for the William H. Hannon Library inspires us to create a brave and welcoming space for the students, faculty, and staff of Loyola Marymount University. For that goal to become fully manifest at LMU, we must commit ourselves to the principles of diversity, equity, inclusivity, and anti-racism (DEIA) in our collections, our spaces, our operations, and throughout all our work.
We recognize that structures of power and privilege remain largely in the hands of a few, and that we are part of a system, specifically academia, that perpetuates white supremacy. As librarians, information professionals, researchers, teachers, and practitioners, we aim to redress social and historical injustices through critical examinations of our operations, the development of diverse collections, the creation of inclusive spaces, and by centralizing the voices of historically oppressed and/or marginalized communities. These groups include, but are not limited to, Black, Indigenous, persons of color, LGBTQ+ people, and those with differing abilities, as well as those at the intersectionality of these communities.

Post Script:
   As an aside, the DEIA people at LMU deserve some credit for creating a new "brave" space, since most other libraries are creating only "safe" ones. 

  As for the proposed "Counterproductive Index", I am thinking about using the British spelling and calling it the "Counter Productive Index", since CPI would increase traffic to this blog. My earlier creation, "The Human Suffering Index" (HSI), has failed to gain much attention, which is why I am shamelessly mentioning it here. 

 Those of you who wonder if enough Canadian counterproductive examples can be found to satisfy those who want more Canadian content, I think the answer is "Yes." Tentatively being considered is the "Widdowson Affair." The tenured Professor Widdowson was fired by a university that "unequivocally supports academic debate and will always defend the rights of faculty related to academic freedom." Ex-professor Widdowson has criticized the Black Lives Matter movement and attempted to Disrobe the Aboriginal Industry, so her prospects are dim. Still her firing is likely to be costly for the university and is counterproductive because it will serve to increase resentment and not help, at all, the cause for reconciliation.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

 

Riding Off Into The Sunset

  You will probably not be surprised that the statue of the old Rough Rider is being removed from the pavement around the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Although he was the governor of New York and the 26th president of the United States, the behaviour of this Roosevelt is a little too robust for our time. As well, he is flanked above by an Indigenous man and an African American. A study of the statue yielded a report and in it is this: “Height is power in public art, and Roosevelt’s stature on his noble steed visibly expresses dominance and superiority over the Native American and African figures..."

  

   The "Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt" was at the museum, not because Roosevelt was the governor or the president, but because his father was one of the founders of the Museum and Roosevelt himself was a naturalist. The statue has been in place for over 80 years, but in more recent ones has been criticized. An attempt was made to "contextualize" it and soften the statue with some signage, but after the George Floyd incident in 2020, it was "abundantly clear that this approach is not sufficient."

Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

   You will be surprised that a new home for President Roosevelt has been found on the grounds of the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota. It is scheduled to open in 2026 and the people associated with it think "The World Needs Theodore Roosevelt Now More Than Ever."  In addition, they think: "We can embrace his flaws, understand T.R. as a human being, and discover what we can learn from him, not just about him. We can embrace immersive storytelling, new technologies, and build a digital library for an analog president; this museum can be a platform for embracing civic dialogue, thoughtful debate, and inspiration around the globe." Seems reasonable to me. 

   Although Theodore Roosevelt is being sent into exile, at least the statue will still exist. It should be comfortable there since Roosevelt spend a lot of time in the west and owned a ranch in the Dakotas. It will also be both a cleaner and quieter location. 

   As I mentioned, I think it clear that the old Rough Rider is too rambunctious for our time and even out west he may face some difficulties given that almost 100 acres of land is being devoted to him. It was already owned by the U.S.Forest Service, but still there are many out there who don't think the government should own any land at all.  The subtitle of one Roosevelt biography calls him a "Many Sided American" and wherever he ends up in the United States, there will be one side, speaking loudly and carrying big sticks, who thinks he should not be around. 

Sources:

"New York City's Natural History Museum Has Removed a Theodore Roosevelt Statue," Rachael Treisman,  NPR, January 20, 2022.

"Roosevelt Statue to Head to Presidential Library in North Dakota: The American Museum of Natural History’s memorial, which has stirred objections as a symbol of colonialism and racism, is planned for display at a library opening in 2026. NYT, Sarah Bahr Nov. 19, 2021.

The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. 

The Bonus:

   If you don't mind seeing lots of trophy mounts, take the virtual tour of Roosevelt's place on Long Island: The Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, Oyster Bay, NY.

Periodical Ramblings (11)

 

A New Book About LOOK

  Although you would have to be over fifty to have read this magazine when it was still being published, you will probably have seen a copy and surely some of the photographs published within it. It was an important magazine in the United States and that is why Andrew Yarrow has written a book about it. Here is a description of the book:

"Andrew L. Yarrow tells the story of Look magazine, one of the greatest mass-circulation publications in American history, and the very different United States in which it existed. The all-but-forgotten magazine had an extraordinary influence on mid-twentieth-century America, not only by telling powerful, thoughtful stories and printing outstanding photographs but also by helping to create a national conversation around a common set of ideas and ideals. Yarrow describes how the magazine covered the United States and the world, telling stories of people and trends, injustices and triumphs, and included essays by prominent Americans such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Margaret Mead. It did not shy away from exposing the country’s problems, but it always believed that those problems could be solved. Look, which was published from 1937 to 1971 and had about 35 million readers at its peak, was an astute observer with a distinctive take on one of the greatest eras in U.S. history—from winning World War II and building immense, increasingly inclusive prosperity to celebrating grand achievements and advancing the rights of Black and female citizens. Because the magazine shaped Americans’ beliefs while guiding the country through a period of profound social and cultural change, this is also a story about how a long-gone form of journalism helped make America better and assured readers it could be better still."

The Photographs
   This new book, Look: How A Highly Influential Magazine Helped Define Mid-20th-Century America, contains some photographs and more can be found on the Internet, offered mostly by people trying to sell old issues of the magazine. The Library of Congress has over four million of them which were donated when the magazine folded. They remain, at this point, undigitized. The Museum of the City of New York has some relating to that city and a few of those can be viewed here and here. 

The Last of LOOK
   Look ceased publication in 1971 and, as Yarrow notes: 
"The end of Look (and Life a year later, on December 29, 1972) marked the end of the mass- circulation, general-interest magazine and the greatest days of photojournalism. News magazines like Time and Newsweek could still appeal to the nation's opinion leaders and much of middle America, but their content was more limited, and photos were mostly an afterthought."

Sources: 

   An e-version of the book is available in the Western Libraries for those fortunate enough to have access. Western also has this earlier book: The Forgotten Fifties: America's Decade From the Archives of Look Magazine, by James Conaway. 

  My last ramble was about the magazines held in The Steven Lamazow Collection of American Periodicals. 

The Bonus:
   The director Stanley Kubrick was a photojournalist at Look. Western also has a book about that: Stanley Kubrick at Look Magazine: Authorship and Genre in Photojournalism.

The National Road

 

Travelling Tom

      The title of this post may look familiar to MM readers because in an earlier one I mentioned The National Road, by Philip D. Jordan (see American Trails Book Series.) That one was about the actual 'National Road' that headed west out of Cumberland, Md. This new book by Tom Zoellner is about more than that. 

   I picked it up probably because of my interest in roads and trails and also because, right now, we can't easily strike out on them. At least we can read about travelling, however, and if you are interested in doing so, I encourage you to have a look at Mr. Zoellner's book.

   This will be a quick review since my copy from the London Public Library has been recalled and I have to return it this morning. You can recall it from the person who recalled it from me, buy a hard copy, or wait for the paperback which is already available in the United States. Here is the author's website and Penguin's.  I will go quickly through the fourteen essays which can be read independently of one another. You will enjoy them all if you appreciate good prose and a bit of pondering.

  The first dispatch is "Your Land", across which Americans often wander, and the tone of the whole tome is set in these two short sentences. "Resentment builds." "National cohesiveness frays."

   If you recognize the first part of the first sentence of the next essay - "And it came to pass...," you will know that it is about Mormons, which it is: "Morman Historical Sites At Night." The author doesn't know why he visits such places and often does so on impulse, but that doesn't really matter because Mormon sites would be interesting even during the day. The first one he visits is near where the golden book was buried and another is where Joseph Smith was killed by a mob.

   "Drive" reveals a lot about Mr. Zoellner's driving and why he motors about: "There is little I love more than the spell of a motorized land journey, a languorous day, a vague forward-looking destination in mind and a full tank of gas." His first drive happened when he was a freshman and his longest one "went through twenty-nine major cities, totaling eleven thousand miles in a conversion van, tracing a grand arc around the country: starting in Tucson, through the Mojave to Las Vegas, then to L.A. and up the West Coast to Seattle, across to Montana and down to Salt Lake City, over the Rockies and through the Midwest... to Chicago, New York, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, then back to Tucson again." He has taken other such trips, often sleeps outside and doesn't particularly care what kind of vehicle he is driving.

   "Spillville is the next destination and the opening sentence may be enough to get you to buy the hardback: "In the summer of 1893, the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak took his wife and six children to the frontier town of Spillville, Iowa, for a three month stay. This was not a random choice." I will just say that things were better then in Spillville.

   The next essay is the titular one, but it is more about the "little-box" chain, Dollar General, than it is about the 'National Road'.  There are now more of them than there are McDonalds and that is not a good thing. For the reasons why, read this essay and these more recent ones: "The True Cost of Dollar Stores: Discount Chains Are Thriving. But, What Do They Do To Poor Communities," by Alec MacGillis, The New Yorker, June 29, 2020, or "How Dollar Stores Became Magnets for Crime and Killing," Alec MacGillis, ProPublica, June 29, 2020. 

   "The Whole Hoop of the World" is about the Highpointer Club which consists of those who want to climb the highest peak in all of the states. It's not as hard as it sounds. The Ebright Azimuth in Delaware is only 448 feet and one can almost drive to the top of some higher ones. The value of such an exercise for Mr. Zoellner, is explained here: To engage in this odd pursuit is to drive obscure rural roads far away from interstates, eat in small town diners, sleep in rarely visited forests and motels, and see quotidian parts of the nation where only locals and a flock of eccentric alpinists regularly venture." 

   I just did a post about "News Deserts" and the loss of local newspapers and to it, "Late City Final" should be added. The author was a local reporter for many different newspapers and he notes with irony: "For a trade dedicated to the pursuit of truth and the discovery of uncomfortable facts, the newspaper business missed one hell of a story flying right in its face."

   "The Villages" is about the author's time in New York City and "The Valley" is about "the other Hollywood", which consists of mansions where porn films are shot. "Welcome to Dirtytown" is about "venomous little towns" and corrupt municipalities, where the public purses are filled by fines collected from the motorists passing through. Within the space of a few blocks or miles one can move from one principality to another and be stopped repeatedly by the members of a completely different constabulary.

   "Searchlight" is a town in Nevada and you will enjoy this essay immensely unless you are a member of the Nevada Chamber of Commerce. Zoellner knows the state well and takes you through mining towns, as well as cat houses and casinos. As well, he provides us with this very useful strategy if you are going to play blackjack: stand even on garbage when the dealer shows a two through a six; don't split anything but aces and eights; hit on anything lower than a seven if the dealer has paint; double down on an ace even if it involves reaching into reserves; walk away after doubling or losing a previously determined kitty."

  "King Philip's Shadow" is about King Philip's War and the consequences. "Home Ground" is about Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles and in it you will find buried, this sentence: "The pandemic only exacerbated an American solitude that was already there, already growing stronger, not just in an era when social media and computerized entertainment were pulling the national garment thinner but as trust in old principles and institutions was faltering under fevered hallucinations creeping even deeper into the country's amygdala. Civil servants had become the deep state, once valued immigrants had been cast as an invasion, straight-laced information sources were fake news, experts were frauds, doctors were greedy liars, the killing of the virus itself was some kind of hoax." 

    Perhaps as sad as those sentences is the title of the last essay, "At The End There Will Be Strangers," which is about the purchase and destruction of his grandmother's house in Paradise Valley, Arizona. And, to end with some Canadian content, I will note that the strangers who bought the house are wealthy Canadians.  I have to get to the library and return this book, which I really enjoyed.

Knights of the Maccabees

 

ASTRA CASTRA NUMEN LUMEN

  The title and sub-title are mysterious (at least to me), but our subject today is a mundane one - Insurance. The KOTM was a fraternal organization and the motto translates as: "The Stars My Camp, The Deity My Light." The reason for this post is explained by the receipt pictured below. 

   One of my sisters found the receipt among the few belongings left behind by our grandfather. I was asked if I could have a look at it and determine the purpose for which the 70 cents were spent. It did not take me long to do so, not because I am a particularly good researcher, but because also on the receipt (but not shown above), is the Latin motto: Astra Castra Numen Lumen. I am even less good at languages, but if you simply google that phrase, you will be led directly to the KOTM.

   "So what?", you are thinking. Well, it is interesting, at least to the small number of remaining family members, (which is a larger number than the one that would be used to indicate the number reading this blog), that the receipt issued in Somerset County, Maryland in 1903, was for the purchase of insurance from the Knights of the Maccabees, which was founded in London, Ontario in 1878. London is the home of this blog. Small world, isn't it?

   It is slightly odd that my grandfather purchased insurance in 1903 in the town of Princess Anne, where I grew up, from a company in London, Ontario, where I now live. I did not know that and I did not know that fraternal organizations such as the KOTM offered sickness and death insurance, well before the 'real' insurance companies came into being. I also didn't know that such an exotically named organization started right here. 

Sources:

  If you are more interested than I, in insurance and local history, carry on. You can find these two books in Weldon Library at Western:

Historical Sketches of the Ancient and Modern Knights of the Maccabees ;with Biographical Sketches of some of the Principal Officers of the Order. -. Port Huron, Mich. : Huronia, 1889:.

History of the Maccabees, Ancient and Modern,Together with Extracts from Papers, Speeches and Poems regarding the Order 1881 to 1896. Port, Huron, Mich.: Riverside printing co., 1896.

There is little about the London origin and I will provide the text here:

1889 version - p.19

“In the year of 1878, a few gentlemen in the city of London, Ont., familiar with the history of our ancient namesakes, but lacking business qualifications so necessary to manage the affairs of as society like the K.O.T.M., conceived the idea of organizing a fraternal and beneficiary society, founded upon the noble traditions of that noble band of warriors who followed the fortunes of that valiant leader, Judas Maccabeus. A constitution was framed, rituals prepared and the new Order was born. It started out ostensibly to care for the widows and orphans of those who joined its ranks. It grew rapidly: in fact it grew too fast to be healthy. Inside of two years from its birth it had spread all through the provinces of Canada, reached over into several of the States in this country, and by the first of the year 1881, over 10,000 certificates had been issued, and Subordinate Tents sprang up everywhere like mushrooms.”

   Also, if you google KOTM and London you get this information which is taken from a book by Barbara Matthews - Whispering Mountains: A History of Lewis, New York:

“ The Knights of the Maccabees was the brain child of two enterprising Canadians: John R. Riel and W.H. Gloughton, who felt there was a need for at least one more fraternal organization. The name came from Judas Maccabee, who in the second century BC was a great leader. On August 7, 1878, the first tent was instituted in London, Ontario. They soon had a Maccabee temple in Port Huron, Michigan.” p.58 - no source is given. (I got this from google books).

   There is, of course, a Wikipedia entry and a member of the History Department at Western University wrote a book on the subject (although there is nothing much about the KOTM) - A Young Man's Benefit: The Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Sickness Insurance in the United States and Canada, 1860-1929, George Emery. 

"Friendly societies were the major source of sickness insurance in the United States and Canada before the great depression of the 1930s. Historically the chief cost of sickness had been loss of the family head's earnings, and the friendly society's sick benefit provided a partial re-placement for this lost income. Conditions have changed since the 1920s. The provision of healthcare for all family members, not loss of the family head's income, has become the chief cost of sickness."

The Bonus:
There is a Museum of Fezology. 

Headline for the Week (1)

 

Some Good News For a Change

  Admittedly, this is a cheap way to create a post, since post-worthy headlines are found daily. But, we really do need some good news, and it is that luxury car sales are up. I do suppose there is some corresponding bad news, in that if you wish to buy a new Bentley Bentayga, you may be too late. Perhaps there might still be a few left with the steering wheel on that side. The headline:
                        "As the World Reels, Bentley Sales Skyrocket."

  It is found at the top of an article in the Globe & Mail on Jan. 12 which was written by Andrew Clark. He adds: 

"If you’re looking to sum up the economic side of the COVID-19 pandemic in one sentence, look no further: “Luxury British car maker Bentley cruised to a record year in 2021 as global sales jumped 31 per cent amid strong demand for high-end vehicles, the Volkswagen AG unit said on Thursday.”

That’s from Reuters. As the world reeled from the worst pandemic in more than 100 years, Bentley sales rose to 14,659 in 2021 from 11,206 units in 2020. Bentley’s top-selling vehicle was the Bentayga luxury SUV, which starts at more than $200,000.

There you have it – as the plague raged, members of the moneyed class were forced to spend their hard-earned millions on luxury vehicles. How fortunate they had the outlet."

   Other luxury cars were in high demand.

"Bentley isn’t the sole luxury vehicle in high demand since the pandemic swept the planet, leaving millions of people dead, unemployed and/or depressed. In April, 2021, Rolls-Royce chalked up the best quarter in its history. The company sold 1,380 cars in the first quarter (up 62 per cent from the same period in 2020). In 2021, Lamborghini registered the best six months in its history, selling 4,853 vehicles. Porsche North America sold 70,000, up from its record sales in 2020."

His concluding line:

"Kind of makes you wonder: if Nero were around today, would he fiddle as Rome burned, or would he head down to the nearest Bentley chariot dealership?"

The Bonus:

   Since I confessed that that was a fairly easy post to create, here are a couple more headlines, noticed recently. They are not necessarily in the 'good news' category, but they are ones that will be easily identifiable as representative of the current zeitgeist. 

"California Will Require Large Retailers to Provide Gender Neutral Toy Sections" (the L.A. Times, Oct.10, 2021)

"Any Abuse That Anybody Talks About, It's True." (CTV News, London, June 25, 2021)

For a whole bunch more: "Extra Extra, Read All About It."

Long Way Up

 

Blokes on Bikes

   To help you through these dark days, I have been providing you with reading recommendations. Here is a viewing one. I will spare you a lot of writing and provide links which you can watch to determine if you wish to devote time to about a dozen episodes of Long Way Up.
   Long Way Up is a series that you can watch on Apple TV+. It is a travelogue that takes you from the very bottom of South America to Los Angeles. The blokes are Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. The bikes are Harleys. The boys have done this before in Long Way Round (from London to New York) and Long Way Down (Scotland to South Africa) on BMWs and these shows were mainly seen on the BBC. I have not seen either of those, but I watched all of Long Way Up and recommend it.

  At this point, those of you not interested in guys riding motorcycles, should know that a lot of interesting scenery is to be seen in the 13,000 miles covered. The guys are not wankers and this is "reality TV" at its best, since most of it seems "real". The logistics are interesting, particularly since the motorcycles and the support vehicles are electric. The Harley-Davidson LiveWires are prototypes as are the Rivian pickups. The trip begins and ends in snow and there are not a lot of sockets along the way. 

Sources:

  For background reading there are Wikipedia entries for both gentlemen and for all of the series. To watch:

The website for the series. 

The Apple promo. 

The Harley LiveWire site. 

Rivian has just gone public. Watch here, a YouTube video of another 7,700 mile trip Rivians made on the TransAmerica Trail. 

The Bonus:

  You will know Ewan McGregor (even if it is only as Obi-Wan Kenobi), but Charley is also an actor. His earliest role was likely in Deliverance, as John Voight's son. His dad, John Boorman was the director. 

  If you are interested in a LiveWire, have a look:

Donald Culross Peattie (1898 - 1964)

 

  Mr. Peattie is an interesting fellow and if you are the type of person who enjoys books about nature, and writing that is a bit philosophical and poetic, then you should give him a try. Rather than rely on me and suffer through whatever I am about to write, go directly to the Wikipedia entry, where you will find a list of his books and from it you can determine if you want to carry on. 

  
  He wrote a lot and was quite popular, so used copies of his books are easy to get and if you have access to Western University libraries, you will find about ten. I have sometimes written about university presses and one of them, Trinity University Press, has chosen to reprint nine of his works. Four are pictured above. This Trinity University Press, by the way, is in San Antonio, Texas. One of the books shown is, A Book of Hours, which has 24 essays, one for each hour. Another not shone, An Almanac for Moderns, has a short essay for every day of the year.  I have not read them, but I have a copy of A Natural History of North American Trees.

  The Trinity edition is a paperback consolidation of his two volume work:  A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America (1950) and A Natural History of Western Trees (1953). You will enjoy it if you like a sentence like this: ''Where the deer bound, where the trout rise, where your horse stops to slather a drink from icy water while the sun is warm on the back of your neck, where every breath you draw is exhilaration -- that is where the aspens grow."

   If you do bother now to look at the Wikipedia entry, you may be put off by the brief statement that suggests that Peattie may have written some sentences which could now be considered regressive, in terms of race. It does note, however, that they "were mercifully brief and hardly malicious." I think it highly likely that Peattie was a good man and as proof, here is what his son has to say in the Foreword to The Natural History of Trees:

"Before I leave you to scroll among these leafy pages, I should make some last observations about my father, Donald Culross Peattie, renowned naturalist and acclaimed writer. He worked as hard as any man I know; he was a devoted husband to his life's soul mate, and a caring and thoughtful parent to all his children. But the quality that stands out above all others was his serenity in the face of trouble and the chaos of an unruly planet. The trivia, the selfishness, and the vulgar noise that fills much of our world never shook him, fixed as he was on listening to "the roar of a mountain river, and a higher frailer sound above the churning water, the singing of a forest in the night wind."

Sources: 
  To get his 'new' books: Trinity University Press. 
   If you are interested in the natural history of the Great Lakes area, Peattie wrote: Flora of the Indiana Dunes, a Handbook of the Flowering Plants and Ferns of the Lake Michigan Coast of Indiana and of the Calumet District. There is a copy in the Western Libraries, probably because a former president of the university Sherwood Fox, was a naturalist as well as a classicist. Earlier I recommended reading Edwin Way Teale and he also wrote about the Indiana Dunes. Those subjects are covered here: Edwin Way Teale and here: Parks Along the Great Lakes.

The Bonus:

  Peattie and his wife spent a few years living in Europe and he also wrote a history of the village in which they lived: Vence: The Story of a Provincial Town, which was also reprinted as Vence-Immortal Village. (I am a careless reader and thought it was 'Venice'.) Western Libraries have a couple of copies. BUT, you can also read it online. I happened to stumble across an American Europhile blogger who now lives in Vence. He decided, for good non-profit reasons to make his copy available and you can read it here: Steve and Carole in Vence: Immortal Village. 

The Biodiversity Heritage Library

 

   In an attempt to be more useful this year, I will introduce you to the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The image above was borrowed from it and the BHL will be of some interest to just about everyone. It consists of the digitized contents of other botanical, biological and natural history libraries from around the world. The link provided above is all you need.

Women in Natural History

   To illustrate the size and comprehensiveness of the BHL, look at this sub-set which relates to the contributions women have made to natural history. There are almost a half million pages, digitized from over 1000 volumes. I chose just one title which will appeal to birders and just about anyone else with a modicum of curiosity. 

Ms Merriam was an early bird protector who later became Mrs. Bailey and also wrote Birds Through an Opera Glass which is also available in the BHL.

The Cold Turkey Question

 

 We are six days into the new year and I am not my usual garrulous self, since I have "gone cold turkey." Finding myself in a situation where such a term is applicable, I thought I would try to find out what it meant.  Basically, going ""Cold turkey" refers to the abrupt cessation of a substance dependence and the resulting unpleasant experience, as opposed to gradually easing the process through reduction over time or by using replacement medication. That is the first sentence from the Wikipedia entry and I agree that it is an "unpleasant experience." The entry is a good one, including a bit about the etymology of the words and I will say no more about it, except that it can also be a term of exclusion, as in "giving someone the cold turkey treatment."
   The question is, when you go cold turkey, are you on or off the wagon? I knew what "cold turkey" meant, although I wasn't sure where the expression came from. I was less sure about the wagon issue and also didn't know about its origin. Since I am sober, I will keep this short: if you are "on the wagon", you are sober; if you are "off the wagon" you are drinking. Perhaps thinking of it this way, will help: "A cold turkey is on the wagon."
   I am not talking turkey here (i.e speaking with little preparation) and will say a bit more about now being on the wagon since there was no Wikipedia entry for that expression. Here is an explanation straight from the horse's mouth (Hendrickson's, The Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins:
The original version of this expression, 'on the water wagon' or 'water cart,' which isn't heard anymore, best explains the phrase. During the late 19th century, water carts drawn by horses wet down dusty roads in the summer. At the height of the Prohibition crusade in the 1890s men who vowed to stop drinking would say that they were thirsty indeed but would rather climb aboard the water cart to get a drink than break their pledges. From this sentiment came the expression 'I'm on the water cart,' I'm trying to stop drinking, which is first recorded in, of all places, Alice Caldwell Rice's Mrs. Wiggs of the Caggage Patch [1901], where the consumptive Mr. Dick says it to old Mrs. Wiggs. The more alliterative 'wagon' soon replaced cart in the expression and it was eventually shortened to 'on the wagon.' 'Fall off the (water) wagon' made its entry into the language almost immediately after its abstinent sister."

Six days is a long time and I am sure that soon I will be three sheets to the wind. 

Sources:
  It was unfair to end it there. Those of you interested in idioms should look at the U.K.s,  The Phrase Finder, or read this short explanation for, "three sheets to the wind."
The term comes from sailing ships and refers to the sheet, or rope, that controls the sail. If a sheet is allowed to flap freely in the wind, the sail also flaps about and the vessel proceeds on a tottering course, like that of an intoxicated person. The more sheets are loose, the shakier the course. Dickens used the expression figuratively in Dombey and Son (1848): “Captain Cuttle, looking . . . at Bunsby more attentively, perceived that he was three sheets in the wind, or in plain words, drunk."

Valuable Business Books

 Although many people no longer care much about printed books, occasionally one reads about some books that are highly valued and which fetch a great deal of money when offered for sale. Usually they are first editions, or are very rare, and mainly they are literary or historical works, or ones that are well illustrated and beautifully printed. Business books are not typically seen to be a good investment, unless one is actually interested in, say, investing.

    I thought about this recently when AbeBook published their most expensive sales for 2021. On it was a business book that was purchased for a high price and not because of the information it contained.  A facsimile of an ornithological work is number two on the AbeBook list and an image from it is seen above. It was sold for $36,635. The most expensive book they have ever sold was also a bird book and it went for $191,000. Our business book came in at number six, at $29,000 and a description of it is here:

   This reminded me of another business book that was perceived to be much more valuable than its cover price. At the time, I was the director of a business library and we had a copy of the book in the stacks. I decided that we had better pull the book and put it under controlled circulation before it disappeared.

    The book is Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman.  A limited number of copies were published in 1991 and by 2007, copies were being sold for over $1000, or filched from libraries. Copies are still difficult to come by and expensive. There is a Wikipedia entry for the book and there are other ways to learn about it. (There is also an entry for the concept, "margin of safety.")

   Seth Klarman is a very clever fellow and there is a Wikipedia entry for him as well. If you really want a good return on your investment, put your money with him, rather than in book collecting.

  A newsletter was produced by me and it probably had less readers than this blog. I wrote a bit about all of this in The Bottom Feeder, and from it you will learn a little more about the book and Mr. Klarman. The first sentence, in what follows, refers to another interesting book that was in high demand. In this case library staff were getting lending requests as well as late night email queries, many of which were from India. They were for an "unauthorized biography" of Dhirubhai Ambani and the title of the book is The Polyester Prince. It was unavailable in India and apparently there was a "brisk trade in samizdat copies." It was pulled from the stacks as well. I wrote about this, but will spare you the details, except to say that Mr. Ambani was the founder of Reliance Industries and you see its trucks on the streets of London.

Note: The information directly below was written in 2007.
From The Bottom Feeder, Dec. 2007
"What is The Margin of Safety?"
This episode reminded us of another, involving a book that was out of print and which was, consequently, fetching very high prices over the internet. The book, Margin of Safety, by Seth Klarman has also been put on short loan to ensure that it does not “go missing”. Note this description from the Wharton Journal:

“ If Benjamin Graham were alive today, he might, at first blush, be more impressed by the appreciated value of Seth Klarman's book Margin of Safety, than with the performance of his investment fund ….that's at first blush. Seth Klarman is a value investor and Portfolio Manager of the investment partnership The Baupost Group, and when Klarman first published Margin of Safety it had an original cover price of $25. The book is now out of print, and today sells on eBay for $1,145 [that was in 2005]. That's an increase of 4580%. But you can't deploy billions of dollars of capital on the purchase of a single book, so Klarman has done it in the stock market through The Baupost Group. Founded in 1982, The Baupost Group now manages $5.4 billion, and had you put $1 in the fund at inception, you would have $55 today. That's a whopping increase of 5500% … alas, first blushes are just that.”
For more discussions about this book see” “Investing Secrets That You Won’t Find at Your Local Bookstore,” Avner Mandelman, The Globe and Mail, Aug. 12, 2006 and “The $700 Used Book” Why All the Buzz About Seth Klarman’s Out-of-Print Investing Classic?”, Roben Farzad, Business Week, Aug. 7, 2006. [ 2007]

The Bonus:
   As I indicated, Mr. Klarman is a clever fellow, interested in many things. One of them was a mega-quarry that was to be in Melancthon Township north of Toronto. Aggregates were (are) needed and Highland Companies was going to extract them. Baupost Group was a major backer. There was considerable opposition and the project never proceeded. ("Highland Companies Withdraws Mega-Quarry Proposal for North of Toronto," Heather Loney, Global News, Mach 23, 2012.) There is also a brief mention of this incident in the Wikipedia entry for the Baupost Group. 
  You noted, perhaps that the Graham book referred to in the review of the one by Klarman is Security Analysis, which is the one that just sold for a high price. It is interesting also, that the business school (Ivey) in which the library was located, now has a Ben Graham Centre For Value Investing. 
  I was pleased to see that the library still has copies of all of these books.
  When you think of "AbeBooks" you probably think of the words, 'old', 'used', 'antiquarian' or 'rare'. AbeBooks is owned by Amazon. The headquarters of AbeBooks is in Victoria, B.C. There is no Abe. 

Speaking of Injections

   We face many complications and challenges during the current pandemic, but we should not overlook the very real concerns of those who need cosmetic surgery. Many of them had to attend holiday celebrations wearing their real lips, which were very noticeable under the mistletoe. Even those working alone at home had the wrinkles not covered by sweatpants, exposed on ZOOM. 

  Although you think you probably know all there is to know about COVID and Omicron, you may not be aware of the fact that, if you are in urgent need of forehead filler, you should wait a bit if you are also reluctantly giving some thought to getting a vaccine. It surely is a stressful time, particularly for wealthy Republican matrons. 

  You have good reasons, I’m sure, for not believing me, and you are tired of reading about this whole pandemic mess, so I will direct you directly to the sources. The first reference comes from a Republican one, so I am sure it has some substance and in it medical authorities are cited. 

“Botox Shot or Covid Boost? The Combo Causes Some Seasonal Wrinkles:

Doctors Advise Patients Seeking Cosmetic Treatments Not to Get a Vaccine Shot Two Weeks Before or After Their Procedure to Avoid the Risk of Swelling,” Alina Dizik, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 27, 2021. I think it is worth providing the first couple of sentences and then I will skip to the medical concerns:

Amanda Madison wanted to look fresh in time for her 50th birthday this winter. The Covid-19 vaccine booster threw a wrinkle into her plan.

She had time to add more volume to her lips and cheeks before her birthday bash, but needed to wait two weeks before and a further two weeks after getting her Covid booster shot before adding additional treatments to achieve "a fresh new start" for the New Year.

Spas and dermatology practices dealing with the holiday injections rush have an unexpected challenge this year: helping patients navigate Covid-19 boosters…

Many dermatologists advise clients to put time between vaccinations and injections of fillers -- gel-like substances used to plump up skin. In rare cases, mRNA vaccines have been linked to an inflammatory reaction to hyaluronic acid-based dermal fillers, the most common kind, according to case reports and research published in the Archives of Dermatological Research earlier this year. That can complicate holiday-season treatments, especially as Omicron increases the need for boosters.

People should wait two to three weeks between fillers and the Covid-19 vaccine to avoid a risk of swelling in areas where facial fillers were injected, says Gregory Greco, president-elect of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. He encourages patients not to put off the vaccine due to fillers. "We don't want people to delay boosters for fillers," he says.

 I was somewhat surprised that those interviewed apparently did not mind using their real names and that they are relatively young. I have since learned that there is a “Botox Boom”, partially propelled by youthful clients. Once again, directly to the source:

“Botox Sales Erupt With Younger Patients: Botox Sales Have Never Been Higher,” Bob Herman, AXIOS, Dec.28, 2021

The big picture: The pandemic drastically reduced the number of people getting cosmetic skin treatments. But the rollout of the COVID vaccines and a larger, younger crowd willing to try Botox injections have led to swelling demand in dermatology offices and medical spas.

By the numbers: U.S. sales of Botox — just the cosmetic version that is used to smooth out face wrinkles and not the version that is used to treat conditions like migraines and neck spasms — surpassed $1 billion in the first nine months of 2021, compared with $600 million in the first nine months of 2020.

Canadian Content

   Those of you who insist on more Canadian material, or those of you here who want your surgery done on home soil, should know that one of the sources in the WSJ is in our nation’s capital: 

The chances of unwanted side effects as a result of facial fillers and the vaccine are extremely small, says physician Alain Michon. He has seen two patients experience this type of swelling in his Ottawa-based aesthetic practice and published research in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology earlier this year. He estimates that less than 1% of patients experience vaccine-associated posttreatment swelling in areas where they have had injections.

The Bonus:

This is not directly related, although it does involve injections. I find puzzling, the Republican/conservative vaccine views which, I think, generally are not in favour of government mandates - or the government at all. On the other hand Republican Rick Perry, a former Governor of Texas (of all places), once mandated a vaccine for girls going into grade six, for a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer (by the way, the vaccine, Gardasil, works.) Opposition was met, partially because some felt that it might encourage sexual promiscuity. That may be true and it was probably particularly worrisome for those parents who had gotten plastic surgery for their daughters, because they wanted them to do well in beauty pageants and look better under the Friday night lights.

Post Script: Rick Perry still looks rather well. Meg Ryan, not so much.

Quote of the Week (1)

 It has been sad to see our local newspapers disappear. The loss is not ours alone. As Tom Zoellner points out in the quotation below this map, those who follow will know much less about us. 

News Deserts

“What were we doing with all those shorter items we slammed into the paper, however imperfectly, was logging a record of events into the permanent memory of the nation. Crack open any civic history at the bibliography, and odds are excellent that most of the details are sourced from the local paper. If we didn’t publish it, it might as well have never happened, so far as future consciousness is concerned. Now that a daily record of happenings is vanishing from America’s towns and cities, so with it will come amnesia. The stack of newspapers that mattered most, and which we spent no time thinking about, was delivered to the library archives. Future urban historians will come across an abundance of detail about virtually every town and city in the U.S. up until the first decade of the twenty-first century, when the record starts to trail off and the permanent record of what happened across America begins to disappear like brain cells under attack. How far this new Dark Age will last is, as yet, unknown. The COVID-19 lockdown and recession tore through an already feeble business, killing dozens of newspapers that had served their towns for more than a hundred years and leaving the civic lights dimmed, perhaps permanently.”

From: “Late City Final,” in The National Road, by Tom Zoellner, pp.133-134.

The answer here in London, for the London Free Press, is the Postmedia Network, and much of the content in it looks very much like that found in other Postmedia papers across the country.

The Bonus:

The maps above relate to the U.S., but the situation is similar in Canada. A good source for data is the Local News Research Project at Ryerson University's School of Journalism.