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Salvēte!
Hallowe'en blog - on Dr Pretorius
To mark Hallowe'en here's the wonderfully strange actor Ernest Thesiger (1879-1961) as Dr Septimus Pretorius in The Bride of Frankenstein, directed by James Whale in 1935. In this short scene he presents the unsettling results of his quest to create human life "using my own seed". However that got past the censors I can't imagine.
The Bride of Frankenstein is a great film, and a rare example of a sequel bettering a fine original. The camera effects in this sequence are still, eighty years later, utterly astonishing.
Thesiger, brother of the renowned explorer Wilfred, was the most marvellously exotic eccentric who enlisted in the army at the outbreak of the World War 1 hoping to be assigned to a Scottish regiment because he wanted to wear a kilt. Wounded in action he returned to England and when asked at a dinner party what it had been like in France famously replied "Oh, my dear, the noise! and the people!" He was an expert in needlework and in 1941 published a book on the subject, Adventures in Embroidery. I have a tatty copy, stamped "For use of H. M. Forces, not for resale". There's a lost world in that.
I cherish Thesiger's elaborately camp and querulous performance as Horace Femm in The Old Dark House (also directed by James Whale and based on the novel Benighted by J. B. Priestley), in which he repeatedly says "Have a potato", somehow making the word 'potato' seem utterly depraved. At one point he says, with sepulchral relish: "Gin. I like gin". Wonderful.
A memoir written near the end of his life is housed in the Ernest Thesiger Collection at the University of Bristol. Why on earth is it unpublished?
Posted by David J Collard at 07:59 No comments:
Katie Price - a provisional bibliography
Katie Price is a media personality, reality TV star, author, former glamour model (known as Jordan), occasional singer and businesswoman, with a personal fortune (is there such a thing as an impersonal one?) estimated at £45 million. She is also a best-selling author who later this month publishes her fortieth book - Love, Lipstick and Lies. Listed below is, I believe, the first bibliography of her work.
She has so far published four autobiographies:
Being Jordan (2004)
A Whole New World (2006)
Pushed to the Limit (2008)
You Only Live Once (2010).
There are nine novels:
Angel Uncovered (2008)
Sapphire (2009)
Paradise (2010)
The Comeback Girl (2011)
Santa Baby (2011)
In the Name of Love (2012).
Her one non-fiction book is about fashion: Standing Out (2009)
There are two series of books for children, both apparently now complete: Perfect Ponies and Mermaids & Pirates. A complete list of these titles appears at the end of this blog.
All are the work of professional ghost writers and I suspect (without condescension) that the author herself would be hard-pressed to name all of the titles published under her name. This is not a criticism - government ministers rely on slick speech writers to render them intelligible so why shouldn't celebrities employ underlings to write their books? Works attributed to Katie Price no doubt bring pleasure to readers who are presumably aware of the publishing arrangements and approve of them. One doesn't, come to that, expect David Beckham to blend and bottle his own-brand cologne personally.
You're probably wondering why I'm blogging about a writer who isn't a writer. This is not a sneering attack on Katie Price, who I believe has overcome many personal setbacks and insecurities (not all of her own making) to become the public figure she is today. It's her status as a best-selling author that interests me because of what it says about our literary culture in general.
Since the 1980s we've seen the emergence of what can be described as a cultural free market which, like the free market itself, asserts its legitimacy through two important claims: that it's efficient (let's agree not to go there) and that it's non-judgmental. This last claim is of particular interest. A cultural free market insists that no individual or institution can make any legitimate or authoritative claim on behalf of the public as to what is in the best interests of the public. Such a patrician assumption harks back to the days of Lord Reith at the BBC and is simply not to be countenanced. Modern society is made up of countless fragmented constituencies (the argument runs) so how can anyone presume to know what is best for all?
The political right exploit this line of reasoning when it comes to the provision of public services - healthcare, libraries, state housing, arts subsidies - because, they argue, state-sponsored institutions are incapable of reflecting the wide range of needs and expectations to be found in our diverse and complex society. Take this principle, extend it to the arts and by a simple line of unreason say goodbye to critical gatekeepers, custodians of quality, anything to do with informed judgemental values. Who dare proscribe? Who has the authority?
Katie Price's publishing output is the result of a deregulated cultural market and the triumph of populism and celebrity culture. It's hard to talk about her books at all without appearing judgemental and therefore (in that wonky 'therefore' of populist reasoning) indefensibly elitist. As a writer I happen to prefer her to, say, Margaret Atwood, but that's just me.
Defenders of her children's books would claim that 'at least it gets kiddies to read', although by the same token one might argue in favour of McDonalds fast food - "at least it gets them to eat". That her Princess Pony books are cheap and nasty-looking is irrelevant. So are Faber print on demand novels. More alarmingly Katie Price is a reportedly a popular role model for many girls and young women who see her material success as an empowering validation of their own hectic lifestyle choices. That has to be a very bad thing, because there's only one Katie Price.
Children's books attributed to Katie Price are:
Perfect Ponies (2007-2010)
Here Comes the Bride, Little Treasures, Fancy Dress Ponies, Pony Club Weekend, The New Best Friend, Ponies to the Rescue, My Pony Care Book, Star Ponies, Pony 'n' Pooch, Pony in Disguise, Stage Fright!, Secrets and Surprises, Wild West Weekend.
Mermaids & Pirates (2008–10)
Follow the Fish, I Spy, Let's Build a Sandcastle, A Sunny Day, Telescope Overboard, Time for a Picnic, All Around, Hide and Seek, Katie the Mermaid, Katie's Day, Peter's Friends, Pirate Olympics.
My 300th blog
My 300th blog, and by way of celebration here are links to a year's worth of my reviews and commentaries in the Times Literary Supplement. You may think this is a cop-out, and in certain moods I would agree. But this is also a pretext to include my favourite TLS cover (below) featuring Powell and Pressburger's sublime masterpiece A Matter of Life and Death. I'll write about this film some time.
So, in order of publication:
Noriko Smiling - a fine book about Ozu's cinematic masterpiece by Adam Mars-Jones.
The Projection of Britain - an absorbing history of the wonderful GPO Film Unit.
More Worthy than Lark - how the death of T. S. Eliot was reported by the BBC.
Music Wars by Patrick Bade - a fascinating account of musical culture during the Second World War.
A Point of View by Clive James - a collection of essays and postscripts from his Radio 4 series.
The Literary North - wide-ranging academic essays on northern writers.
Lucky in Love Journals - 1946-1995 by Stephen Spender.
I'm a Believer - a short note in defence of Neil Diamond.
London E1 by Robert Poole - the only novel by this forgotten working-class writer.
In every dream home . . . Maynard L Parker: Modern Photography and the American Dream
Blokelore and Blokesongs - Robert Conquest's sprightly collection of poetry.
Gob impressive A Girl is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride. The first review of a book that has now become famous, by an author hailed by Anne Enright of The Guardian as 'a genius'.
On Writing with Photography edited by Liliane Weissberg and Karen Beckman.
Class Difference The Likes of Us - Stories of Five Decades - short stories by Stan Barstow.
Twitter and Brimstone Four novels by Gerald Kersh: Night and the City, The Angel and the Cuckoo, Nightshade and Damnations and Fowlers End.
Why Photography Matters by Jerry Thompson - a little gem of a book.
There are others, I'm afraid, and more to come But this will have to do for now. Tomorrow's blog may be a world first . . .
The Hamlet Doctrine
The Hamlet Doctrine (the title of a recent book by the by the philosopher Simon Critchley and his wife Jamieson Webster, who is a psychoanalyst) comes from Nietzsche, although it puts me in mind of Salman Rushdie's witty idea for the title of a Robert Ludlum version: 'The Elsinore Equivocation'.
It's a collection of short pieces, some brilliantly illuminating (on the subject of mourning conventions, for instance), others thought-provoking, some quite silly. Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, Hegel, Freud, Lacan and Nietzsche are all roped in, but it strikes me that while a psychoanalytical or philosophical approach to the play certainly enriches our knowledge it may not add to our understanding.
In a Guardian article about their book the authors say, rather weirdly "The banal, biscuit-box Shakespeare needs to be broken up and his work made dangerous again."
'Biscuit-box Shakeapeare'? No, me neither. There's a glaring typo on the first page which augers ill - "I say there shall be no mo [sic] marriage. The prose is uneven and there are rather too many threadbare hipster colloquialisms - has Hamlet really 'lost his mojo'? I mention this because I hope the authors would be equally impatient if I blundered into their respective fields and wrote things like "Wittgenstein was a well brainy dude". Tone, see?
A more pervasive weakness is that the authors settle on one entirely conventional interpretation of both Hamlet and Hamlet (although one that only gained currency in the early 20th century), namely that the Prince is banjax'd by indecision and that it is his failure to act that leads to his tragic downfall.
Yet by the final curtain Elsinore is a necropolis, proof that Hamlet is certainly capable of decisive action - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been despatched to their off-stage deaths, Ophelia maddened into self-destruction, her father stabbed (a particularly decisive moment, surely?), Gertrude poisoned, his usurping uncle Claudius both stabbed and poisoned, while Laertes and Hamlet himself are both stabbed with the same poisoned rapier. Practically everyone dies apart from Horatio and Fortinbras. Of course if Hamlet acted immediately on hearing from the ghost of his father that he should avenge murder most foul, the play would be over in ten minutes. Then where would we be?
The Hamlet Doctrine is full of good things, although nothing as memorable as these lines from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in which Rosencrantz (or possibly Guildenstern) consider how best to question the Prince:
"To sum up: your father, whom you love, dies, you are his heir, you come back to find that hardly was the corpse cold before his young brother popped onto his throne and into his sheets, thereby offending both legal and natural practice. Now why exactly are you behaving in this extraordinary manner?"
Noel Gallagher on literary fiction
The rock musician Noel Gallagher recently launched an attack on the art of fiction, and people who read novels and review them, and was widely reported for doing so. He might even be said to have 'sparked off a debate'.
His line of reasoning was developed in conversation with the journalist Danny Wallace in connection with Gallagher's becoming GQ magazine's 'Icon of the Year'. Wallace pulled that age-old reporter's trick of transcribing his interviewee's thoughts with all the repetition, redundancy and inarticulate profanity that journalists usually omit:
"I only read factual books. I can't think of ... I mean, novels are just a waste of fucking time [...] I can't suspend belief in reality … I just end up thinking, 'This isn't fucking true'."
Gallagher went on to explain his preference for books "about things that have actually happened", giving as an example Ernest R May's The Kennedy Tapes, an account of goings-on in the White House during the Cuban missile crisis:
"I'm reading this book at the minute … Thinking, 'Wow, this actually fucking happened, they came that close to blowing the world up!'"
He takes a particularly dim view of folk like me, because in his view:
"[P]eople who write and read and review books are fucking putting themselves a tiny little bit above the rest of us who fucking make records and write pathetic little songs for a living."
Apart, I suppose, from those who write and read and review the kind of "factual books" that Gallagher admires. Of course, in the case of The Kennedy Tapes what interests the reader is precisely something that never happened, but almost did. That quibble aside, isn't Gallagher, in assuming such a judgemental position, putting himself just a tiny little bit above those of us who happen to find pleasure and fulfilment in reading novels? Can a fabulously wealthy pop star really be so chippy and thin-skinned? Can anyone be so thick?
Isn't, come to that, the kind of music he offers itself a low grade form of escapist fiction? What would he say to a view that his "pathetic little songs" are not only pathetic but also dull, boorish, derivative and pretentious? What would he say if I compared his gormless brand of radio fodder with the work of Bob Dylan, or Bruce Springsteen, or Neil Young, or Leonard Cohen. None of these performers appeal to me especially, but they are, let's agree, pre-eminent in their field. I could be wrong but I have the impression that Gallagher's band, Oasis, are little more then Beatles copyists, churning out humdrum stadium anthems to a blokeish crowd.
The Bookseller's Cathy Retzenbrink believes that Gallagher has made an "incredibly serious point", which is overstating the case. He's merely made an incredibly commonplace observation, and one which could be applied to anything that has minority appeal, including his brand of music. She adds excitedly that: "[h]e's saying what loads of people in this country think, but don't normally have a platform to say. There are vast amounts of people who feel this way, who do feel that people who are comfortable with words look down on them."
This is untrue. People who are 'comfortable with words' (whatever that means) do not as a rule look down on those who are not. Those who are uncomfortable with words may choose to feel that they are looked down upon, but that's their problem, and has more to do with poor self-esteem and a compensating sense of oppression and exclusion. This is understandable, but it's not an argument. I expect Noel Gallagher would find many reasons to look down on me, not least because my taste in music is even more bigoted than his taste in books, and because I don't have a personal fortune estimated at £60 million. If I had I expect I'd be tempted to spout bollocks about things I don't like or understand to attendant journalists.
"He's saying what loads of people in this country think" says Retzenbrink. So is the oafish UKIP leader Nigel Farage, so what's her point?
And what on earth does she mean by ordinary folk not having 'a platform' to express their dislike of literary fiction? They don't need one, in a popular culture that is nothing but one enormous platform championing the counter-literate, marginalising readers and endorsing pampered oafs like Gallagher. You won't see the late Dame Iris Murdoch elected 'Icon of the Year' by GQ magazine, or even, come to that, The Bookseller.
When a fading pop star decides to sway his biddable constituency with such gormless bigotry I feel I should speak up on behalf of those of us who still find a place for fiction in our lives - as writers, as readers, as reviewers. If Gallagher can find no space in his heart or brain for George Eliot or Graham Greene or Iris Murdoch or James Joyce or V. S. Pritchett or even Terry Pratchett - that's his loss. Those authors withstand his contempt. If the laddish readers of GQ find their own counter-literate tendencies articulated by this Icon of the Year (which seems a distinctly short-term honour) they can contentedly carry on being rowdy wankers in bars and pubs and clubs. If Cathy Retzenbrink has qualms about ordinary people not having a platform to whine about those of us who write and read and review fiction perhaps she's in the wrong job.
There are likely to be more readers of fiction in Britain than there are Oasis fans, and there are probably more readers of novels in my part of North London alone than there are Oasis fans world-wide. Yet in one respect I find myself agreeing with Noel Gallagher. When I'm out of sympathy with a writer of fiction (and yes, it does happen), I find myself crossly and sceptically challenging everything they say, however innocuous. Thus when an author writes:
It's a warm Kilburn afternoon when Mr Theodopolus flags down a passing taxi and tells the driver to take him to the Whittington hospital.
My reaction, like Gallagher's, is to say: 'This isn't fucking true' before chucking the book away. Whereas when Orwell writes:
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
Well, I'll read on. And who, apart from Noel Gallagher, wouldn't?
Lady Mondegreen
The American author Sylvia Wright coined the useful term 'Mondegreen' in her essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen," published in Harper's Magazine in November 1954:
When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:
Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl O' Moray,
And Lady Mondegreen.
Wright had misheard the last line, which reads "And laid him on the Green", and 'Mondegreen' has since been available (although not much used) as a descriptor of any confusion that results from close homophonic resemblance between two distinct phrases. I've blogged about this before - when W. H. Auden mischievously suggested 'New Directions' as the name for a publishing house bacause he imagined prim schoolmarms asking bookstore assistants whether they had nude erections.
Another example of a Mondegreen is "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear" (from the line in the hymn Keep Thou My Way by Fanny Crosby and Theodore E. Perkins - "Kept by Thy tender care, gladly the cross I'll bear"). As a child I thought the mournful Jim Reeves lyric was "I love you, big horse, you understand dear...".
Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames by Luis d'Antin van Rooten is a variant, a clever set of English nursery rhymes rendered into plausible French, published in 1967 and once surprisingly popular. An example:
Jacques s'apprête
Coulis nos fête.
Et soif qui dites nos lignes.
Geddit?
A final example of Mondegreen virtuosity is a fondly-remembered 1976 comedy sketch featuring Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker (The Two Ronnies). Written by Barker it's immensely popular in Britiain but may be unknown elsewhere. It's called Four Candles and, apart froma clumsy punch line, is quite a piece of work.
Gynophobia and misogyny
The American playwright Bonnie Greer, speaking in a recent interview about the enduring malignities of racism and sexism, and the relative tolerance that seems to surround the latter, used the term 'gynophobia'. This, she unnecessarily explained, means 'a fear of women'. This fear, she insisted, underlies sexism in all its ghastly manifestations.
Fear? If only. It was Germaine Greer (no relation) who, in The Female Eunuch, memorably wrote: 'Women have very little idea of how much men hate them.'
Bonnie Greer combines such intelligence and eloquence that I was surprised by the uncharacteristically lazy thinking behind her use of the term (and the fact that she found it necessary to gloss its meaning shows how inappropriate it was in the context).
What she labels gynophobia is misogyny. The prefix 'miso-' (as in 'misanthrope') is what's needed to imply hatred, not the suffix '-phobia'. I like to think that hatred is expressed as a prefix because it pre-empts the subject (or rather the object of the hatred) while fear is a suffix because it follows exposure to the thing that's feared - but let's not get too fancy.
Pursuing this theme - use of the phobia suffix is exemplified in the hair-trigger use of the term 'Islamophobia', applied to almost any criticism of certain extreme and unrepresentative aspects of Muslim thinking.
I am not Islamophobic because fear forms no part of my thinking about Islamism (which I know is unrepresentative of the mainstream faith). Not fear, no, but a profound loathing of the misogynistic convictions held by certain religious leaders (invariably male, invariably uneducated), convictions that have no place in any liberal democracy or among true Muslims living within a liberal democracy. My views naturally reflect my belief in secular, democratic and enlightenment values and in equality. I loathe bigotry, and I see it everywhere I look - in politics (and not only among the loons of UKIP), in religion of course, in the media (and not least in the way the Daily Mail treats the Muslim community). I do not fear bigotry. I hate it, but that won't make it go away. Fear (which is to a greater or lesser degree the basis for all religious belief) is not something I do. That (to take one example) woman are forbidden to drive a car in Saudi Arabia, and are severely punished if they dare to do so, tells me a lot about Saudi society and something about the perversion of Islam by misogynist zealots. What I feel about that is not fear, but anger.
Speaking as a fully-paid up bien-pensant I'd hypocritically like to see a little less tolerance afforded those - whatever their background or status - who express views incompatible with the hard-won equalities that underlie our liberal democracy. This applies as much to EDL thugs attacking Islamism as it does to adherents and apologists of this warped and hateful form of the Muslim faith. It applies as much to Paul Dacre (the very nasty editor of the Daily Mail) as it does to the very nasty Abu Qatada. Fear and loathing (when the latter is expressed as a principled opposition to unreason) should not be conflated. One may lead to the other, of course, but that's another blog for another time.
In a recent review I compared the photographs of Walker Evans to the writings of the French poet Frances Ponge. Both artists based their work around the close contemplation of the humble, the quotidian. Ponge perfected a form of prose poem dedicated to such everyday objects as potatoes, oranges and cigarettes. He's not an acquired taste - you 'get' him immediately, in French or in translation.
In 1967 Ponge published Le Savon, a long prose poem about soap. Here's an extract, followed by my attempt at an English version:
Si je m'en frotte les mains, le savon écume, jubile...
Plus il les rend complaisantes, souples,
liantes, ductiles, plus il bave, plus
sa rage devient volumineuse et nacrée...
Pierre magique!
Plus il forme avec l'air et l'eau
des grappes explosives de raisins
parfumés...
L'eau, l'air et le savon
se chevauchent, jouent
à saute-mouton, forment des
combinaisons moins chimiques que
physiques, gymnastiques, acrobatiques...
Rhétoriques?
If I lather my hands, the soap suds, joyously...
The more it smothers them - supple,
slick, ductile - the more it slathers, the more
its wrath gains volume, pearl-like...
A wonder stone!
The more it forms with air and water
explosive clusters, grapes of aromatic froth...
Water, air, soap
blend and play,
leapfrog to form
combinations less chemical than
physical, gymnastic, acrobatic...
Rhetorical?
French original © The Estate of Francis Ponge
Posted by David J Collard at 07:27 1 comment:
Kevin Coyne is the most intense and troubling performer I've ever seen. Here he is performing House on the Hill on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1973, with guitarist Gordon Smith and percussionist Chilli Charles. Such a voice.
His British career was erratic and blighted by drink and mental illness until a move to Nuremberg in 1985 led to a wonderful creative and personal recovery - his late recordings are slowly being released.
My favourite Coyne song is the grim two-minute epic Marjory Razorblade - you won't have heard anything like this before so keep the lights on.
Marjory Razorblade has haunted me for forty years and there was a time when, in my cups and unhappy, I'd sing along like there was no tomorrow. If he has any counterparts they wouldn't be singers at all but Weimar-era actors such as Peter Lorre and Conrad Veidt.
Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road
Not sure who sings this beautifully mournful version of Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road - Harry Champion, perhaps. The subtitles may come in handy.
Noël Coward taught Marlene Dietrich the same song. Imagine that. Or rather don't imagine that - hear her massacre the ditty here. Very unusual, this.
Had enough? You can find Shirley Temple performing this song on YouTube (but I can't be bothered to add the link. Please do so, if only to savour what follows in today's blog.)
It was Twentieth Century Fox lawyers who sued the English magazine Night and Day following its publication of Graham Greene's shrewd 1937 review of Wee Willie Winkie. The paragraph which caused all the fuss is worth repeating:
The owners of a child star are like leaseholders--their property diminishes in value every year.
Time's chariot is at their back; before them acres of anonymity. Miss Shirley Temple's case, though, has a peculiar interest: infancy is her disguise, her appeal is more secret and more adult. Already two years ago she was a fancy little piece (real childhood, I think, went out after The Littlest Rebel). In Captain January she wore trousers with the mature suggestiveness of a Dietrich: her neat and well-developed rump twisted in the tap-dance: her eyes had a sidelong searching coquetry. Now in Wee Willie Winkie, wearing short kilts, she is completely totsy. Watch her swaggering stride across the Indian barrack-square: hear the gasp of excited expectation from her antique audience when the sergeant's palm is raised: watch the way she measures a man with agile studio eyes, with dimpled depravity. Adult emotions of love and grief glissade across the mask of childhood, a childhood that is only skin-deep. It is clever, but it cannot last. Her admirers--middle-aged men and clergymen--respond to her dubious coquetry, to the sight of her well-shaped and desirable little body, packed with enormous vitality, only because the safety curtain of story and dialogue drops between their intelligence and their desire.
The trial was held on 22 March 1938. Greene had left for Mexico on 29 January and did not return to Britain until May. The judge fined the magazine a bankrupting £3,500. Greene went on to write one of his greatest novels, about a whiskey-priest in Mexico - The Power and the Glory.
Temple was the biggest child star of all time and there will never be another. She's still with us, aged 85 and living in Santa Monica, California. What an extraordinary life.
Extract © The Estate of Graham Greene
Rainbow Dance and A Colour Box
From 1936 here's Rainbow Dance, a very short advertising film by Len Lye, made for the General Post Office.
The dancer is Rupert Doone, partner of the theatre director Robert Medley. Together the two men ran the avant-garde Group Theatre which staged, among many other noteworthy plays. Auden's Dance of Death and the Auden / Isherwood collaboration The Ascent of F6. As a fellow Gresham's schoolboy it was Medley who, on a Sunday afternoon walk, had asked Auden whether he wrote poetry at all. As Auden later recalled in Letter to Lord Byron:
I never had, and said so, but I knew
That very moment what I wished to do.
Doone appears as a tennis player and hitchhiker (both quintessential 1930s activities) and Lye does extraordinary things with colour.
Len Lye was a prodigiously gifted artist from New Zealand who went on in later life to make the most extraordinary kinetic sculptures - look on the internet for his amazing Wind Wand and other constructions.
But back to Rainbow Dance. It's lovely, but not as lovely as the pure abstract films Lye made around the same time. One of these used to be screened on a loop in Tate Modern, although not in a suitably darkened room so the brilliant colours were washed out. These films were made without a camera, Lye painstakingly painting each frame by hand using a variety of techniques - twenty four frames per second. It's tempting always to freeze a Lye film and enjoy each frame as a unique (and highly desirable) abstract artwork. You'll see what I mean in A Colour Box (1935) with catchy music by Don Baretto and his Cuban Orchestra.
Still © British Film Institute / The Estate of Len Lye
Breaking America
Now here's a thing. For the past month (and for the first time in this blog's short history) I have had more readers in the United States than here on my dim little island.
This prompts two questions. Should this blog reflect such a this demographic shift, and if so how?
The Times Literary Supplement apparently sells more issues in the U.S. than the U.K. and this is to an extent reflected in the choice of books under consideration and the style and content of the reviews. So for instance, when writing in their pages about Gerald Kersh recently I avoided references that might baffle a non-British reader, while at the same time striving to write in a style that one admirer once described as 'readable'.
Perhaps any appeal this blog has for American readers, whoever you lovely people are, is that it's essentially British, like Monty Python or The Avengers or Downton Abbey - all those PSB series that attract small but discriminating Anglophile audiences and which have nothing whatever in common with Britain as experienced by those who live here.
But here's another thing. Looking back over past blogs I see that the lowest-ever readership was for something I posted on (and indirectly about) the Fourth of July. I really hate to repeat myself (as I've said on countless occasions) but to mark this demographic watershed there's a three-minute clip here. Enjoy!
On Rube Goldberg
Almost 42,000,000 people have already seen this short film, and marvelled at it, and then watched it again and perhaps again. But it's new to me, and I expect many of my readers will be unaware of it.
So, here is an American (?) band called OK Go performing (or given the context presumably miming along to) their song This Too Shall Pass. The music is humdrum but the fabulously elaborate Rube Goldberg device synchronised to their performance is quite marvellous in its ramshackle kinetic ingenuity - it really beggars belief. Was it all done in one continuous take? I find that very hard to believe, but what the hell. Click here and wonder.
Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor and the American equivalent to Britain's Heath Robinson. Goldberg's forte was the design and construction of complex contraptions to perform simple, mundane tasks.
In 1987 the Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss applied Goldberg's approach in the art film Der Lauf der Dinge (The Way Things Go), an epic thirty-minute chain reaction involving tyres, chairs, tables ladders, soap, oil drums, old shoes, chemicals, fire and water. It's an hypnotically watchable study in causality (although it does appear to have multiple edits to create an illusion of continuity). Unlike the OK Go video this has been seen by a few thousand viewers only. You can watch it here.
Favourite snatches (14)
Here's another favourite snatch - an extract from Experience, the biographical memoir by Martin Amis, in which he recalls his father Kingsley's extraordinary talent as a mimic:
This is my father doing Lord David Cecil, the handsome, theatrical, effortlessly affected and above all aristocratic English don (who among other distinctions failed Kingsley's B. Litt at Oxford):
"Laze . . . laze and gentlemen, when we say a man looks like a poet . . . dough mean . . . looks like Chauthah . . . dough mean looks like Dryden . . . dough mean . . . looks like Theckthpyum [or something barely recognisable as 'Shakespeare'] . . . Mean looks like Shelley [pronounced 'Thellem' or thereabouts]. Matthew Arnold [then prestissimo] called Shelley beautiful ineffectual angel. Matthew Arnold had face [rallentando] like a horth. But my subject this morning is not the poet Shelley. Jane . . . Austen . . ."
Matthew Arnold
Amis fils goes on to say that whenever he thinks of what a poet looks like, he thinks of Robert Graves, whom he met in Mallorca as a boy when the Amis family visited Deià, where Graves lived.
I saw Graves in person only once, at a poetry reading in the Royal Festival Hall in, I think, 1975. I was with a school group. He was almost completely gaga and looked terrific in a sand-coloured linen suit, yellow shirt and chocolate-brown suede shoes, his tanned and nobel head with a corona of snow-white hair. He hobbled suavely onto the stage with a sheaf of papers from which he began immediately, before reaching the microphone, to read. Once he'd worked through the sheaf he started again from the beginning, and got as far as the middle of the second poem for the second time when somebody gently ushered him off.
Here's a favourite Graves poem - one that I have read many times to my wide-eyed son. It's called Welsh Incident:
'But that was nothing to what things came out
From the sea-caves of Criccieth yonder.'
'What were they? Mermaids? dragons? ghosts?'
'Nothing at all of any things like that.'
'What were they, then?'
'All sorts of queer things,
Things never seen or heard or written about,
Very strange, un-Welsh, utterly peculiar
Things. Oh, solid enough they seemed to touch,
Had anyone dared it. Marvellous creation,
All various shapes and sizes, and no sizes,
All new, each perfectly unlike his neighbour,
Though all came moving slowly out together.'
'Describe just one of them.'
'I am unable.'
'What were their colours?'
'Mostly nameless colours,
Colours you'd like to see; but one was puce
Or perhaps more like crimson, but not purplish.
Some had no colour.'
'Tell me, had they legs?'
'Not a leg or foot among them that I saw.'
'But did these things come out in any order?'
What o'clock was it? What was the day of the week?
Who else was present? How was the weather?'
'I was coming to that. It was half-past three
On Easter Tuesday last. The sun was shining.
The Harlech Silver Band played Marchog Jesu
On thrity-seven shimmering instruments
Collecting for Caernarvon's (Fever) Hospital Fund.
The populations of Pwllheli, Criccieth,
Portmadoc, Borth, Tremadoc, Penrhyndeudraeth,
Were all assembled. Criccieth's mayor addressed them
First in good Welsh and then in fluent English,
Twisting his fingers in his chain of office,
Welcoming the things. They came out on the sand,
Not keeping time to the band, moving seaward
Silently at a snail's pace. But at last
The most odd, indescribable thing of all
Which hardly one man there could see for wonder
Did something recognisably a something.'
'Well, what?'
'It made a noise.'
'A frightening noise?'
'No, no.'
'A musical noise? A noise of scuffling?'
'No, but a very loud, respectable noise ---
Like groaning to oneself on Sunday morning
In Chapel, close before the second psalm.'
'What did the mayor do?'
'I was coming to that.'
I'll admit I'm not a great admirer of Graves's poetry in general, preferring the work of his wife Laura Riding. But Welsh Incident is wonderful. How many poems leave you, desperately, wanting more?
Welsh Incident © The Estate of Robert Graves / Faber and Faber Ltd
On Grayson Perry
The artist Grayson Perry is delivering the 2013 Reith Lectures, a series of radio talks that commemorates the stern and high-minded Director General of the BBC in the 1930s, Lord Reith. I listened to the first one yesterday.
Grayson is a likeable, accomplished and amusing speaker - informal, bright, eloquent and droll. His flamboyant transvestite alter ego is rather a tiresome distraction but that hardly matters on the radio.
Anyway - the first lecture began with lots of gossipy insider-talk about the art world. The tone might best be described as 'debunking'. I particularly liked this extract (as it appeared in transcript in the Financial Times):
I did a bit of research myself and I think I have found the 21st-century version of the Venetian secret [the 19th century hoax that fooled Benjamin West, president of the Royal Academy] and it is a mathematical formula. What you do, you get a half-decent, non-offensive kind of idea, then you times it by the number of studio assistants, and then you divide it with an ambitious art dealer, and that equals the number of oligarchs and hedge fund managers in the world.
Nicely put. But elsewhere, if engagingly, Perry is only doing what everybody involved in public art has been doing for as long as I can remember. He sets out (with the best intentions) to "demystify" the subject (and the art world of curators and dealers and suchlike). Yet most contemporary art, and most curating, has been aggressively dedicated to this popularising agenda for as long as I can remember, or at least since the 1980s when the Victoria and Albert Museum branded itself as "an ace caff with quite a nice museum attached".
Demystification - making stuff more accessible - has been going on for so long (and to so little effect) that I'd like to call a moratorium.
What I'd like to see is a re-mystification of art. Not a move to obscurity and pretension but an end to the chirpy debunking and irreverent register that characterises most arts reporting and too much museum and gallery curating. I'd like to see a return to seriousness.
Kenneth Clarke set a high bar in his ground-breaking television series Civilisation - urbane, cultivated, judgemental and (needless to add) wholly assured in his value judgements (which are the only judgements of any value). His approach was high-minded and unashamedly (or unselfconsciously) elitist - though without a trace of condescension - and he made connoisseurs of us all.
Make it new, as Pound said. Make it strange. But what do we get?
Ask the Family
Watch this short clip of Ask the Family, a popular early evening BBC Television parlour game from the 1970s (when families had parlours and played games in them). The type of families that used to appear on it are nowadays routinely mocked - tweedy polytechnic lecturer dads, mumsy homebound mums, their geeky bespectacled nine-year-old sons and (sometimes) their startlingly fruity teenage daughters. They came from places like Truro and Catterick and Uttoxeter and were quite unlike my own family, or any family I knew. They were always absolutely nuclear - questions would be directed at "Father and eldest child only" or "Mother and daughter only". These days such kinship assumptions are no longer possible. "Birth father and elder surrogate only."
The question master (no other title will do) was the eloquent and erudite Robert Robinson, he of the mellifluous and chiding tone, lounge suits and combover starting at the hip. He was a feature of my childhood and adolescence and I remember regularly watching Call My Bluff with my grandmother on Monday evenings, another enjoyable low-budget quiz hosted by Robinson and featuring two teams of resting actor types, led by the humorist Frank Muir (of fond memory) and journalist Patrick Campbell, with his extraordinary stammer. Would he be employed by the BBC today?
But returning to Ask the Family - what sort of family would the producers dig up today? And what would future viewers make of them in forty years' time? There were no prizes, at least I don't remember any. Taking part was its own reward. And one could hear a sound now lost - that of reasonable people quietly conferring together before coming up with a consensually-negotiated answer. It was possible, then, to be right or wrong about something without a raucous audience's wild applause or jeering censure. There were no flashing lights or snatches of electronic music. Today's television quiz shows have a jittery, fruit machine aesthetic - the 1970s versions were mostly oatmeal-coloured (see above).
And returning to Robert Robinson. He wrote a superb comic novel set in Oxford (Landscape with Dead Dons, published in 1956). It features a journalist called Mr. Bum and has one of the most brilliant clues I've ever missed in a detective story. Imagine Tom Sharpe with real brains. I'd like to read it again.
Bob (as I am not entitled to call him) was also behind the very best television documentary about a writer I've ever seen. The Auden Landscape, broadcast (by the BBC) in 1982, was written and narrated by Robinson and prompted my lifelong interest in the poet and his works. I'd love to see it again.
Ice cream vans
Ice cream vans! We'll miss them when they finally disappear forever, wiped out by parental scepticism, home refrigeration and health inspectors. The fairground liveries, the windows thick with stickers, the generous strap line FRESHLY MADE - JUST FOR YOU and the cautionary legend on the back MIND THAT CHILD. The raucous rasping chimes, the taste of stale wafers and cones, the amateur graphics (approximating Disney characters), the slight whiff of the unreliable.
Collard and Collard
This blog is only incidentally about my family name. It's actually about the piano manufacturers Collard & Collard, to whom we are distantly related. Few piano makers, I'm pleased to report, have a more distinguished literary pedigree.
From The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith, originally appearing in Punch magazine from 1888 and published in book form in 1892:
After my work in the City, I like to be at home. What's the good of a home, if you are never in it? "Home, Sweet Home," that's my motto. I am always in of an evening. Our old friend Gowing may drop in without ceremony; so may Cummings, who lives opposite. My dear wife Caroline and I are pleased to see them, if they like to drop in on us. But Carrie and I can manage to pass our evenings together without friends. There is always something to be done: a tin-tack here, a Venetian blind to put straight, a fan to nail up, or part of a carpet to nail down—all of which I can do with my pipe in my mouth; while Carrie is not above putting a button on a shirt, mending a pillow-case, or practising the "Sylvia Gavotte" on our new cottage piano (on the three years' system), manufactured by W. Bilkson (in small letters), from Collard and Collard (in very large letters).
Thus begins what may well be the funniest comic novel in the language (unless you have a grumpy resistance to this kind of thing). Mr. Pooter is an ancestor of Leopold Bloom - lower middle class, of modest means and prone to pomposity. 'The three year's system' was a form of payment by instalment, what in my childhood was known, disparagingly, as 'the never-never'. The Grossmiths skewer the pretension of "W. Bilkson", a fictitious firm, with connotations of "bilking" or fraud, whose inferior quality pianos bear the more reputable manufacturer's brand. Nothing changes.
Collard and Collard upright (1874)
Speaking of Bloom I'm pleased to note that there's also a Collard and Collard piano in Ulysses. In the Sirens chapter (the one with a musical theme set in the Ormond Hotel that begins "Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing Imperthnthn thnthnthn.") It features the two barmaids Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy, who strain to see the viceregal cavalcade passing by:
Miss Douce's brave eyes, unregarded, turned from the crossblind, smitten by sunlight. Gone. Pensive (who knows?), smitten (the smiting light), she lowered the dropblind with a sliding cord. She drew down pensive (why did he go so quick when I?) about her bronze, over the bar where bald stood by sister gold, inexquisite contrast, contrast inexquisite nonexquisite, slow cool dim seagreen sliding depth of shadow, eau de Nil.
—Poor old Goodwin was the pianist that night, Father Cowley reminded them. There was a slight difference of opinion between himself and the Collard grand.
There was.
—A symposium all his own, Mr Dedalus said. The devil wouldn't stop him. He was a crotchety old fellow in the primary stage of drink.
—God, do you remember? Ben bulky Dollard said, turning from the punished keyboard. And by Japers I had no wedding garment.
'A slight difference of opinion' with a grand piano? And is Joyce adding to the musical theme by the near homophonic rhyme of Dollard and Collard (& Collard)?
Now, with a faint stink of the lamp, here's the history bit:
F. W. Collard was a director of the company Clementi & Co., a well respected piano manufacturer of the late 18th century. Collard was apparently a mechanical genius, and awarded several patents for piano design and construction. When Muzio Clementi retired in 1815 the name of the firm was changed to the noble and euphonious 'Collard & Collard', becoming one of the great British piano makers of the 19th century. The 'cottage style' as acquired by the Pooters were small uprights, although the company also made concert grands.
In 1929, the firm was sold to the Chappell Piano Company of London, but pianos bearing the Collard & Collard name were produced until about 1960. They're rather baroque objects for today's tastes - lots of ornate transfers and candelabra and what-not - can be picked up today on eBay for next to nothing. I'm tempted - but there's no space here, not even for a baby grand.
Camden was home in the 19th century to many piano-makers, as easy access to the canal network meant that materials could be brought in and the finished instruments could be shipped out around the country. The Collard & Collard factory and showroom can still be seen - it's the distinctive circular building in Oval Road.
Waiting for G'deau
Watch Beckett's American publisher, Barney Rosset of the Grove Press, introducing a 1961 television production of Waiting for Godot with a cast including Zero Mostel and Burgess Meredith. Click here but be warned - you may want to stay for the whole show, which runs for a brisk ninety minutes.
Mostel (as Estragon) has clearly modelled his vocal delivery on Oliver Hardy, which seems right to me as Stan and Ollie were certainly prototypes for Vladimir and Estragon, not least in their shabby bourgeoise headgear. There are some surprising direct addresses to the audience (or at least the camera) and there's no shortage of mugging - but it was produced for a large popular audience. Fat chance of that happening now.
As ever I marvel at the U.S. pronunciation of a play's title. Everywhere else, including in the original French, it's pronounced with a stress on the first syllable of the last word of the title i.e. Godot. Quite why Rosset of all people should say "G'deau" is beyond me, unless there's a wish to avoid a whiff of blasphemy by saying God, even as a blameless syllable. That wouldn't astonish me, in a nation that (attractively, I think) has produced such euphemisms as "Jumping Jehoshaphat!" and "Jiminy Cricket!".
But the absent Godot, let's remember, was not God. As Beckett himself said, wearily one suspects: "If by Godot I had meant God I would have said God, and not Godot."
By way of conclusive proof that Godot should be pronounced Godot consider the scene between the two tramps and the newly-arrived Pozzo:
ESTRAGON: (undertone). Is that him?
VLADIMIR: Who?
ESTRAGON: (trying to remember the name). Er . . .
VLADIMIR: Godot?
ESTRAGON: Yes.
POZZO: I present myself: Pozzo.
VLADIMIR: (to Estragon). Not at all!
ESTRAGON: He said Godot.
VLADIMIR: Not at all!
ESTRAGON: (timidly, to Pozzo). You're not Mr. Godot, Sir?
POZZO: (terrifying voice). I am Pozzo! (Silence.) Pozzo! (Silence.) Does that name mean nothing to you? (Silence.) I say does that name mean nothing to you?
To confuse Godot with Pozzo (which is always pronounced POT-zo) would hardly happen if Godot were G'deau. Plus - am I alone in finding "G'deau" incredibly camp?
Extract from Waiting for Godot © The Estate of Samuel Beckett
Beckett and slapstick
Slapstick (inverted)
The other evening I listened to the author Mark Billingham on Radio 4's Pick of the Week, a selection of the preceding seven days' broadcasting.
Something he said made me scribble a note - the basis of this blog. Speaking after a clip from a documentary about film music he somehow got on to Samuel Beckett and, in the chortling stand-up comic register that seems to be the default setting for Radio 4 presenters, said: "[Beckett] was rubbish at slapstick, which is why they cut the custard pie scene from Waiting for Godot."
Billingham was wrong. Beckett was supremely adept at slapstick, as any reading of his novels and plays will confirm. There was, to be sure, no custard pie scene in an early draft of Godot but the mechanics of slapstick are certainly there. The term 'mechanics' is the mot juste. Here's an extract from Henri Bergson's Le Rire. Essai sur la signification du comique (Laughter, an essay on the meaning of the comic), first published in 1900:
Laughter can be caused by ugliness, but ugliness is not always comic. To laugh about ugliness, we need to have a naive, immediate, original approach, not to think. We also have to focus on a specific feature of the person and to associate the person with this feature. It is the same with cartoonists, who exaggerate physical and natural features of people. Our imagination sees in everyone the efforts of the soul to dynamise materiality, the soul or the mind give flexibility, agility and animation to the rigid body and to materiality. However the body tend to rigidify itself, and it produces a comic effect: When materiality succeeds in fixing the movement of the soul, in hindering its grace, it obtains a comic effect. To define comic in comparison to its contrary, we should oppose it to grace instead of beauty. It is stiffness rather than ugliness.
Henri Bergson (1859-1941)
So - as Bergson goes on to argue - humans are comic to the extent that they embody the mechanical. Hence Wyndham Lewis in his comic masterpiece Tarr describing one character as 'a bag of pickled rods' . . .
Bergson's phrase ' the efforts of the soul to dynamise materiality' applies to Vladimir and Estragon and their desperate exchanges. The music-hall syncopations of their speech combine with their physical gestures to incarnate the slapstick. Waiting for Godot contains a wonderful stage direction in which Vladimir and Estragon exchange three hats (one of which was abandoned by Lucky in the first act):
Estragon takes Vladimir's hat. Vladimir adjusts Lucky's hat on his head. Estragon puts on Vladimir's hat in place of his own which he hands to Vladimir. Vladimir takes Estragon's hat. Estragon adjusts Vladimir's hat on his head. Vladimir puts on Estragon's hat in place of Lucky's which he hands to Estragon. Estragon takes Lucky's hat. Vladimir adjusts Estragon's hat on his head. Estragon puts on Lucky's hat in place of Vladimir's which he hands to Vladimir. Vladimir takes his hat, Estragon adjusts Lucky's hat on his head. Vladimir puts on his hat in place of Estragon's which he hands to Estragon. Estragon takes his hat. Vladimir adjusts his hat on his head. Estragon puts on his hat in place of Lucky's which he hands to Vladimir. Vladimir takes Lucky's hat. Estragon adjusts his hat on his head. Vladimir puts on Lucky's hat in place of his own which he hands to Estragon. Estragon takes Vladimir's hat. Vladimir adjusts Lucky's hat on his head. Estragon hands Vladimir's hat back to Vladimir who takes it and hands it back to Estragon who takes it and hands it back to Vladimir who takes it and throws it down.
You can see Beckett's mechanistic slapstick schtick performed here. Then watch Chico and Harpo Marx do the same kind of routine with Edgar Kennedy (master of 'the slow burn') in Duck Soup (1933), twenty years before Beckett recycled it in Godot. Nothing new under the sun.
Stage directions from Waiting for Godot © The Estate of Samuel Beckett
Here's Don Van Vliet (1941-2010), better known, of course, as Captain Beefheart.
The twenty-eight songs comprising his 1969 masterpiece Trout Mask Replica were written in an intensely creative eight-hour burst after which The Magic Band (consisting of the Captain himself and Zoot Horn Rollo, Antennae Jimmy Semens, The Mascara Snake, Rockette Morton and Drumbo) rehearsed non-stop for a year. The whole double album - dense, erratic, overwhelmingly original and without equal in modern music - was recorded in a single six-hour session. I love the whole record and I love this song. It's completely American. Click on the title and sing along.
The dust blows forward 'n the dust blows back
Once or twice each year the mood takes me to play the whole record straight through (now of course as a single dinky compact disc), but I've held on to my original vinyl in the gatefold sleeve. It's the Burgess Shale of avant-garde music. Dig it.
© Columbia records/Don Van Vliet
Here's an extract from Canto XII, which appears in A draft of XXX Cantos by Ezra Pound (1930).
When I read this I hear in my mind's ear the voice of Jimmy Durante. So after you've read Pound's wonderful verses to see The Great Schnozzola himself perform his immortal Inka Dinka Doo.
There once was a pore honest sailor, a heavy drinker,
A hell of a cuss, a rowster, a boozer, and
The drink finally sent him to hospital,
And they operated, and there was a poor whore in
The woman's ward had a kid, while
They were fixing the sailor, and they brought him the kid
When he came to, and said:
"Here! this is what we took out of you."
An' he looked at it, an' he got better,
And when he left the hospital, quit the drink,
And when he was well enough
signed on with another ship
And saved up his pay money,
and kept on savin' his pay money,
And bought a share in the ship,
and finally had half shares,
Then a ship
and in time a whole line of steamers;
And educated the kid,
and when the kid was in college,
The ole sailor was again taken bad
and the doctors said he was dying,
And the boy came to the bedside,
and the old sailor said:
"Boy, I'm sorry I can't hang on a bit longer,
"You're young yet,
I leave you re-sponsa-bilities.
"Wish I could ha' waited till you were older,
"More fit to take over the bisness..."
"But, father,
"Don't, don't talk about me, I'm all right,
"It's you, father,"
"That's it, boy, you said it.
"You called me your father, and I ain't.
"I ain't your dad, no,
"I am not your fader but your moder," quod he,
"Your fader was a rich merchant in Stambouli."
© The Estate of Ezra Pound. The Cantos published by Faber and Faber
Best. Sellers. Ever.
In the history of publishing only six works of fiction have sold more than 100 million copies. Can you guess what they are?
Six clues, one per book:
1. The main character of this, easily the biggest-selling novel of all time, is a dissipated English barrister.
2. W. H. Auden said that the author of this epic had in some cases outdone Milton's achievement in Paradise Lost.
3. Written by an intrepid aviator whose exploits inspired a French parfumier.
4. First published in serial form in the Daily Express, this story was originally set on Nigger Island and featured characters named Lawrence Wargrave, Vera Claythorne, Philip Lombard, General John Macarthur, Emily Brent, Anthony Marston, Dr Edward Armstrong and William Blore.
5. An 18th century dynastic tale by an author who died in alcoholic poverty.
6. An earlier book by the author of one other novel on this list
Intrigued? Scroll down for the list (courtesy of Wikepdia), followed by some thoughts.
Approximate sales
A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens English 1859 200 million
The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien English 1954–1955 150 million
Le Petit Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry French 1943 140 million
(aka Ten Little Niggers) Agatha Christie English 1939 100 million
紅樓夢/红楼梦 (aka Dream of the Red Chamber) Cao Xueqin Chinese 1754]–1791 100 million
The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien English 1937 100 million
Like you I've read them all - apart from 紅樓夢/红楼梦 (entirely unknown to me) and . . . er . . . A Tale of Two Cities. Never got around to it for some reason. I haven't, come to that, read Martin Chuzzlewit or Barnaby Rudge, but we all have our gaps. Dickens is a double surprise - for the truly astonishing sales and for the fact that A Tale of Two Cities, with its French revolutionary setting, is such an unDickensian novel.
I read And Then There Were None during a damp holiday in the Channel Islands, aged 13, in an edition that carried its unfortunate original title (see below). I associate Agatha Christie's books with musty hotel lounges and the smell of fruit cocktail in heavy syrup. Her combined sales are simply mind-boggling - her 85 books have sold between 2 and 4 billion copies. The only author to outsell her is Shakespeare, although he's had four centuries to build up an audience.
Once you get way from individual books and look at the career totals for the most popular novelists (and Shakespeare) the mind begins to reel - both at the numbers and at the absolute nullity and fatuity of all but two of the writers in the top fifteen. The table below shows, from left to right, the author's name, their estimated minimum and maximum sales, the language in which they first appeared, the genre with which they are most associated and their nationality. Read this and wonder.
William Shakespeare 2 billion 4 billion English Plays and poetry British
Agatha Christie 2 billion 4 billion English Whodunits including the Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot series 85 British
Barbara Cartland 500 million 1 billion English Romance 723 British
Danielle Steel 500 million 800 million English Romance 120 American
Harold Robbins 750 million 750 million English Adventure 23 American
Georges Simenon 500 million 700 million French Detectives, Maigret 570 Belgian
Sidney Sheldon 370 million 600 million English Suspense 21 American
Enid Blyton 300 million 600 million English Children's literature, Noddy, The Famous Five 800 British
Dr. Seuss 100 million 500 million English Children's literature 44 American
Gilbert Patten 125 million 500 million English Adolescent adventures 209 American
J. K. Rowling 350 million 450 million English Harry Potter 11 British
Leo Tolstoy 413 million Russian Anna Karenina, War and Peace, philosophical works 48 Russian
Jackie Collins 250 million 400 million English Romance 25 British
Horatio Alger, Jr. 200 million 400 million English Dime novels 135 American
R. L. Stine 100 million 400 million English Goosebumps series, Fear Street series, Horror, Comedy 430+ American
Corín Tellado 400 million 400 million Spanish Romance 4,000 Spanish
Dean Koontz 325 million 400 million English Horror, Thriller, Science fiction 91 America
I've left in most of the links so you can, if you're so inclined, learn more about these authors - several of them, such as Danielle Steele and Sidney Sheldon, entirely unknown to me.
One other thing that strikes me is the approximate parity between male and female writers; of the top seventeen - seven are female. Make sense of that who will.
An do, please, take a closer look at Corin Tellado (1927 - 2009) who published, as you can see above, 4,000 romantic novels. That's right - four thousand. Most of these were only 76 pages long and issued weekly (as required under her draconian contract with the Barcelona publishers Braguera), but she still makes Georges Simenon look like a workshy dabbler.
The Goldsmiths Prize
Punchdrunk - The Drowned Man
What's so good about modernism?
David J Collard
Copyright David Collard 2013. Simple theme. Powered by Blogger.


text:
Italy: Monuments Past and Present
Choose a variant Italy: Monuments Past and Present - $22.50
Title Italy: Monuments Past and Present
R. A. Staccioli, A. De Franciscis-Bragantini, E. Greco, G. Messineo
Italy: Monuments Past and Present surveys the most important buildings and monuments of Italian antiquity. Ancient landmarks are illustrated as they appear today, and through the use of plastic overlays, as they likely appeared when still intact.
The book tours several geographic areas, including Rome, Sicily, Pompeii, and Herculaneum. The authors offer a brief history of each region and an overview of its significant buildings and monuments. These introductions are followed by a close examination of individual sites such as the Colosseum and the Forum in Rome, Hadrian's Villa, the Temple of Ceres in Paestum, and the Temple of Apollo in Pompeii. An accessible and handy guide, Italy: Monuments Past and Present is an excellent resource for travelers and students alike.
R.A. Staccioli is the author of Ancient Rome: Monuments Past and Present. A. De Franciscis-Bragantini is the author of Pompeii: Monuments Past and Present. G. Messineo is the superintendent of antiquities for Sicily.
108 color illustrations
16 color overlays
Series: Monuments Past and Present

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


School Name : N.M.NOOTAN SARVA VIDYALAYA,VISNAGAR.
Mothers Maiden Place : Unjha,rusat.
Profession Details : Development Officer, LIC of India, Udhana Branch,SURAT.
Collage/University Name : Government Polytechnic For Girls,Surat.
Education : M.A B. Ed.


The table was lit by an overhead spotlight, otherwise the room was in darkness. Tension cut through the cigarette smoke. Mr Red's coffee was long finished, but some whisky still remained in each of Mr Green's and Mr Yellow's glasses. Mr Blue stuck to water.
And it was Blue's turn. He blew on the dice for luck, shook it in his cupped hand for several seconds – then the dice made its fateful roll.
They all gasped. Blue carefully lifted his disc, counted five squares forward and set it down.
'Snake,' he hissed. 'Back to square 23.' The others smirked.
High up on the cliff ledge, she studied her evening meal. She'd dispatched it quickly enough, and now she'd begun to dismember it, tearing open the black and white furred skin from the throat all the way downwards. Fury drove her to rip the carcass apart into largish pieces as she remembered her chicks from the previous year, each taken by this very same animal from their ground-nest. Never underestimate the memory of a white-tailed eagle.
She waited, looking around to check she was alone, away from scavengers such as gulls and crows. Revenge was a cat best served cold.
The chequered calm of alternate light and dark green squared fields was suddenly thrown into chaos as drafted soldiers jack-booted their way across the terrain. Shrieks of despair could be heard as clergymen scurried diagonally for safety, castles retreated into corners, queens raced for cover –while their husbands cowered behind their peasant subjects.
Suddenly our four heroes – two black, two white – appeared on horseback. Limited in range, they nevertheless used supreme skill and courage to outmanoeuvre the enemy.
Unable to turn, the drafted troops were routed; everyone was saved. Great cheers went up and the king came out of hiding.


text:
Fostering social determinants of health transdisciplinary research: The collaborative research center for American Indian health
Amy J. Elliott, Emily R. White Hat, Jyoti Angal, Victoria Grey Owl, Susan E. Puumala, Den Yelle Baete Kenyon
The Collaborative Research Center for American Indian Health (CRCAIH) was established in September 2012 as a unifying structure to bring together tribal communities and health researchers across South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota to address American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) health disparities. CRCAIH is based on the core values of transdisciplinary research, sustainability and tribal sovereignty. All CRCAIH resources and activities revolve around the central aim of assisting tribes with establishing and advancing their own research infrastructures and agendas, as well as increasing AI/AN health research. CRCAIH is comprised of three divisions (administrative; community engagement and innovation; research projects), three technical cores (culture, science and bioethics; regulatory knowledge; and methodology), six tribal partners and supports numerous multi-year and one-year pilot research projects. Under the ultimate goal of improving health for AI/AN, this paper describes the overarching vision and structure of CRCAIH, highlighting lessons learned in the first three years.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13010024
10.3390/ijerph13010024
Fingerprint Dive into the research topics of 'Fostering social determinants of health transdisciplinary research: The collaborative research center for American Indian health'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
Social Determinants of Health Medicine & Life Sciences
Interdisciplinary Research Medicine & Life Sciences
Foster Home Care Medicine & Life Sciences
North American Indians Medicine & Life Sciences
Alaska Natives Medicine & Life Sciences
Bioethics Medicine & Life Sciences
Health Resources Medicine & Life Sciences
Elliott, A. J., White Hat, E. R., Angal, J., Owl, V. G., Puumala, S. E., & Baete Kenyon, D. Y. (2015). Fostering social determinants of health transdisciplinary research: The collaborative research center for American Indian health. International journal of environmental research and public health, 13(1), [24]. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13010024
Fostering social determinants of health transdisciplinary research : The collaborative research center for American Indian health. / Elliott, Amy J.; White Hat, Emily R.; Angal, Jyoti; Owl, Victoria Grey; Puumala, Susan E.; Baete Kenyon, Den Yelle.
In: International journal of environmental research and public health, Vol. 13, No. 1, 24, 22.12.2015.
Elliott, AJ, White Hat, ER, Angal, J, Owl, VG, Puumala, SE & Baete Kenyon, DY 2015, 'Fostering social determinants of health transdisciplinary research: The collaborative research center for American Indian health', International journal of environmental research and public health, vol. 13, no. 1, 24. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13010024
Elliott AJ, White Hat ER, Angal J, Owl VG, Puumala SE, Baete Kenyon DY. Fostering social determinants of health transdisciplinary research: The collaborative research center for American Indian health. International journal of environmental research and public health. 2015 Dec 22;13(1). 24. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13010024
Elliott, Amy J. ; White Hat, Emily R. ; Angal, Jyoti ; Owl, Victoria Grey ; Puumala, Susan E. ; Baete Kenyon, Den Yelle. / Fostering social determinants of health transdisciplinary research : The collaborative research center for American Indian health. In: International journal of environmental research and public health. 2015 ; Vol. 13, No. 1.
@article{1051311924b44ed3bd79179c1c3b775b,
title = "Fostering social determinants of health transdisciplinary research: The collaborative research center for American Indian health",
abstract = "The Collaborative Research Center for American Indian Health (CRCAIH) was established in September 2012 as a unifying structure to bring together tribal communities and health researchers across South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota to address American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) health disparities. CRCAIH is based on the core values of transdisciplinary research, sustainability and tribal sovereignty. All CRCAIH resources and activities revolve around the central aim of assisting tribes with establishing and advancing their own research infrastructures and agendas, as well as increasing AI/AN health research. CRCAIH is comprised of three divisions (administrative; community engagement and innovation; research projects), three technical cores (culture, science and bioethics; regulatory knowledge; and methodology), six tribal partners and supports numerous multi-year and one-year pilot research projects. Under the ultimate goal of improving health for AI/AN, this paper describes the overarching vision and structure of CRCAIH, highlighting lessons learned in the first three years.",
keywords = "American Indian, Social determinants of health, Transdisciplinary",
author = "Elliott, {Amy J.} and {White Hat}, {Emily R.} and Jyoti Angal and Owl, {Victoria Grey} and Puumala, {Susan E.} and {Baete Kenyon}, {Den Yelle}",
doi = "10.3390/ijerph13010024",
journal = "International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health",
T1 - Fostering social determinants of health transdisciplinary research
T2 - The collaborative research center for American Indian health
AU - Elliott, Amy J.
AU - White Hat, Emily R.
AU - Angal, Jyoti
AU - Owl, Victoria Grey
AU - Puumala, Susan E.
AU - Baete Kenyon, Den Yelle
N2 - The Collaborative Research Center for American Indian Health (CRCAIH) was established in September 2012 as a unifying structure to bring together tribal communities and health researchers across South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota to address American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) health disparities. CRCAIH is based on the core values of transdisciplinary research, sustainability and tribal sovereignty. All CRCAIH resources and activities revolve around the central aim of assisting tribes with establishing and advancing their own research infrastructures and agendas, as well as increasing AI/AN health research. CRCAIH is comprised of three divisions (administrative; community engagement and innovation; research projects), three technical cores (culture, science and bioethics; regulatory knowledge; and methodology), six tribal partners and supports numerous multi-year and one-year pilot research projects. Under the ultimate goal of improving health for AI/AN, this paper describes the overarching vision and structure of CRCAIH, highlighting lessons learned in the first three years.
AB - The Collaborative Research Center for American Indian Health (CRCAIH) was established in September 2012 as a unifying structure to bring together tribal communities and health researchers across South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota to address American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) health disparities. CRCAIH is based on the core values of transdisciplinary research, sustainability and tribal sovereignty. All CRCAIH resources and activities revolve around the central aim of assisting tribes with establishing and advancing their own research infrastructures and agendas, as well as increasing AI/AN health research. CRCAIH is comprised of three divisions (administrative; community engagement and innovation; research projects), three technical cores (culture, science and bioethics; regulatory knowledge; and methodology), six tribal partners and supports numerous multi-year and one-year pilot research projects. Under the ultimate goal of improving health for AI/AN, this paper describes the overarching vision and structure of CRCAIH, highlighting lessons learned in the first three years.
KW - American Indian
KW - Social determinants of health
KW - Transdisciplinary
U2 - 10.3390/ijerph13010024
DO - 10.3390/ijerph13010024
JO - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health


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Q: Lookup Field to ALSO include choice field I have a field called "Client" and a field called "InsuranceCompany" is a custom list. The "InsuranceCompany" field is a Drop-Down Choice field. In another custom list I am performing a lookup against "Client" field in my first list, however I want to include the "InsuranceCompany" so it is displayed as well.
Is this possible?
I am using O365/SharePoint Online

A: No, choice columns can not be pulled over as an additional column when setting a lookup column. Your option would be in this case to create a workflow that fires on item creation/change to look up the InsuranceCompany field and set a field in your list to that value.
Another alternative would be to convert your choice column to a single line of text, then it could be used in that fashion. You would then have to put some validation rules in place or come up with a JavaScript/jQuery solution to enforce data integrity so you don't get things like State Farm or Statefarm or statfarm.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Atypical Presentation of Cat-Scratch Diseaseresource center
Atypical Presentation of Cat-Scratch Disease
Monica Liao Chang, MD, and Roberto P. Santos, MD
Bernard and Millie Duker Children's Hospital,
M. Kristina Subik, MD
Albany Medical Center, Albany, New York
Volume 14 - Issue 11 - November 2015
Bernard and Millie Duker Children's Hospital, Albany, New York
Chang ML, Santos RP, Subik MK. Atypical presentation of cat-scratch disease. Consultant for Pediatricians. 2011;14(11):527-528.
A previously healthy 11-year-old boy presented with a 6-week history of fever and abdominal pain with alternating diarrhea and constipation. He had no sick contacts, recent travel history, or household pets.
Earlier in the course of the illness, he had been evaluated by several medical providers at an urgent care center and an emergency department. He had had three chest radiographs, an abdominal ultrasonography scan, and two computed tomography scans of his abdomen, the latter of which showed an appendicolith and thickening of the terminal ileum (A). He was admitted on the sixth week of illness for fever of unknown origin.
On physical examination, he had a fever (37.8° to 38.3°C) without changes in sensorium, rash, lymphadenopathy, or hepatosplenomegaly. He had right lower quadrant tenderness on palpation. Inflammatory markers were elevated (C-reactive protein, 153 mg/dL; erythrocyte sedimentation rate, 120 mm/h). Blood, stool, and urine cultures were negative for pathogens. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and colonoscopy results were normal. Further history revealed that the family had 6 cats.
The boy was started empirically on doxycycline while awaiting serologic test results for Bartonella henselae, which eventually showed an immunoglobulin G titer of 1:256, four times above baseline. Biopsy results of the terminal ileum showed a necrotizing granuloma (B). His symptoms improved after 2 weeks of doxycycline.
Repeated history and physical examination is the cornerstone in the evaluation of fever of unknown origin (FUO). B henselae infection is the third leading infectious cause of FUO, after Epstein-Barr virus infection and osteomyelitis. A history of exposure to cats is not found uniformly among those with bartonellosis, which should be considered in the initial evaluation of FUO regardless of known exposure to cats.1
B henselae infections can affect many organs and can cause a broad range of clinical syndromes, including FUO, cat-scratch disease (CSD), and hepatosplenic disease. Typical CSD is characterized by fever and localized lymphadenopathy. Bacillary angiomatosis lesions may be seen in immunocompromised patients.1,2 Our patient had an atypical presentation; one other similar case has been reported in an adolescent boy with a sustained fever for 3 weeks, anorexia, weight loss, and right lower quadrant pain.3 Ultrasonography showed that the boy in that case had increased thickness of the terminal ileum that was confirmed to be associated with B henselae infection.
A high index of clinical suspicion is needed in diagnosing FUO associated with CSD. Laboratory tests that may be helpful include polymerase chain reaction (PCR), serology tests for B henselae antibodies, and biopsy with histopathology. PCR may be useful, but B henselae is detected in the blood during the first 6 weeks from onset, whereas most patients often are investigated several weeks after the onset of disease. Antibody titers greater than 1:64 are suggestive of B henselae infection.2 The histologic hallmarks include granulomatous lesions with central stellate microabscess.4
Treatment of mild infections is supportive, while severe infections are treated with antibiotics. Doxycycline is the preferred antibiotic for atypical and more serious infections due to its excellent intracellular penetration.1 Other agents known to be effective include azithromycin, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, rifampin, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. The optimal duration of treatment may be several weeks for systemic disease.5
1. Florin TA, Zaoutis TE, Zaoutis LB. Beyond cat scratch disease: widening spectrum of Bartonella henselae infection. Pediatrics. 2008;121(5):e1413-1425.
2. Massei F, Gori L, Macchia P, Maggiore G. The expanded spectrum of bartonellosis in children. Infect Dis Clin North Am. 2005;19(3):691-711.
3. Massei F, Massimetti M, Messina F, Macchia P, Maggiore G. Bartonella henselae and inflammatory bowel disease. Lancet. 2000;356(9237):1245-1246.
4. Lamps LW, Scott MA. Cat-scratch disease: historic, clinical, and pathologic perspectives. Am J Clin Pathol. 2004;121(suppl1):S71-S80.
5. Cat scratch disease (Bartonella henselae). In: Kimberlin DW, Brady MT, Jackson MA, Long SL, eds. Red Book: 2015 Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases. 30th ed. Elk Grove Village, IL: American Academy of Pediatrics; 2015:280-283.


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Q: How can I get genie lamp parts besides from the Squeal of Fortune? The Lamp of the Djinn update says that genie lamp parts can be earned from the Squeal of Fortune, and from skilling and combat drops. However, I have not gotten a single part from skilling or combat. Do I need to do certain skilling activities or kill certain monsters to get the lamp parts? Do some drop lamp parts more often than others?

A: I believe it is pure luck, and it is extremely rare. My stats aren't that great, but while I was slaying, I managed to get a drop. Taking into account that this was after like 10 hours of training in 2 days. It is pretty rare, and None of my mates have gotten anything yet, and they are more "intense" players than me.

A: When that update was released the most common way to get the lamp parts was slayer. Attacking demons, dragons, or aberrant specters gave the highest chance or these lamp drops.


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$6.5M price drop for former SF Decorator Showcase Home
Real Estate // On the Block
Emily Landes
May 18, 2020 Updated: May 19, 2020 5:28 p.m.
In 2005, the owners of 2820 Scott Street bought the hundred-year-old property with the goal of turning it from a 30-room boarding house back into a single-family mansion. The multiyear renovation required an almost complete rebuild, from the structural steel beams needed to support the home to the elevator that now goes all the way up to the 2,000-square-foot rooftop terrace.
The owners got a major assist in the redesign when the home was selected for the 2008 San Francisco Decorator Showcase. There was a lot for designers like Ann Getty to work with in the over-16,000-square-foot home, which features seven bedrooms and 11 bathrooms.
In fact, the size could sometimes be a deterrent when showing it to buyers, according to listing agent Olivia Hsu Decker. "Some buyers used to complain that 2820 Scott has far more space than they would ever need," she said.
The home has been on and off the market several times since 2016, at anywhere from $29.5 million to $27.5 million in 2019.
They had a $25 million offer in escrow at the end of last year that fell through, she said, through no fault of the property. In the spring, when shelter-in-place restrictions went into effect, Decker said her owners could see the writing on the wall and quickly agreed to a price cut, chopping the price by a whopping $6.5 million to $21 million.
That new price point has generated a lot of interest, said Decker. "For this extremely high quality home and amazing views, this new price makes this home the best deal in San Francisco," she said.
Plus, with people sheltering in place, they suddenly have ideas about what to do with all that extra room. "A very large mansion such as 2820 Scott has gotten more inquiries since shelter-in-place started because buyers are looking for larger homes now that they have to work from home and school the children at home. They need more spaces and amenities at home," she said.
The home was built in 1905. A few years later, ironwork with a Romanian eagle crest was added in anticipation of a visit from the Queen of Romania during the 1914 Pan Pacific International Exposition.
The formal entry has a Tiffany glass fountain with lighting, white marble floors and a marble staircase, and a telephone booth with cast bronze panels.
The kitchen has marble countertops, a braided stone backsplash, and two of almost every major appliance, including two Sub-Zero refrigerators and two Miele dishwashers.
Thomas Bartlett designed the dining room as part of the 2008 Showcase and it features wall-to-wall hand-painted maps, a huge wood-burning fireplace and French doors that lead out to a terrace to take in the bay and Alcatraz views.
Will Wick took on the library, which has floor-to-ceiling bookcases, a barrel-domed ceiling, steel shelves and a textural wall covering.


Channeling our inner 70's dream queen in these high-waisted corduroy flare pants. On trend and ready to be paired with your fav neutral turtleneck or t. These pants are a staff favorite! Model is wearing a size small.
Channeling our inner 70's dream queen in these high-waisted corduroy flare pants. On trend and ready to be paired with your fav neutral turtleneck or t. These pants are a staff favorite!


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Refinancing means $420,000 annual savings on Bass Pro bonds
Rick Kelley
HARLINGEN — The city's economic development agency has approved the refinancing of its Bass Pro Shop bonds at a more favorable rate which should save $420,000 a year.
The Harlingen Economic Development Corp. has been exploring the refinancing deal for several months. It is made possible by rules which allow an option to have such bonds refinanced every 10 years.
These bonds, issued in 2010, totaled around $32 million and went to construct the Bass Pro Shop facility. The refunding of the bonds will generate a savings of about $420,000 per year in interest costs, or $5.5 million in gross savings, without extending the maturity date of the bonds, HEDC officials said this week.
The HEDC still owes $21.3 million on the Bass Pro bonds as well as on a $4 million loan that will be paid off in two years.
The HEDC took advantage of a more favorable bond market to have the firm Hilltop Securities explore the refinancing.
Currently, the HEDC rating is rated at A-plus with several positive variables, officials said, and that rating could go up, making the bonds more attractive to investors.
The HEDC now pays about $3.2 million a year in annual debt service, but with the refunding of bonds, the debt service would be reduced by about $420,000 per year. Of the $3.2 million in debt service, $2.287 million is for the bond indebtedness.
The new annual debt service would be below $2.3 million per year, with HEDC revenues of slightly over $6 million, the agency said.


Make a LASTING Impression!! Our Lamborghini LP560 comes fully loaded from the factory, featuring: E.gear tiptronic transmission (clutch is operated automatically) Navigation Back up Camera Three-layer 'pearlescent' Pearl White paint Red brake calipers Beige interior stitching & inserts Power seats Heated wing mirrors On-board trip computer Xenon (HID) headlights And our warning still applies: This car makes everything else on the road look boring, and its exotic look doesn't only turn heads - it stops traffic so be careful!
New to our fleet is the award winning Bentley Continental GTC Convertible. The GTC has a unique look from the GT coupe upon which it is based, if only slightly so. It has a longer rear deck to stow the top, which opens or closes in under 25 seconds. Powered by a 6.0 liter W12 twin-turbo engine, good for 552 horsepower at 6, 100 rpm and 479 lb-ft of torque at 1, 600 rpm. With a top speed of 195 mph. This power is transferred to all four wheels via a six-speed automatic transmission with fuel economy estimated by the EPA to be 10 mpg in the city and 17 mpg on the highway.
The luxurious Bentley is quipmened with twin HID headlights with washer jets, 19-inch wheels and tires, a tire pressure monitoring system, cruise control, keyless entry and ignition, rain-sensing windshield wipers and steering-column mounted shift paddles.
This newly restored Classic 1966 Mustang Convertible is one of the most popular Ford Mustang model years in the history of the car. The Ford Mustang was known to be the car with power and performance. It was the car to have if you needed a daily driver and it was the car to have if you needed a weekend cruiser with a sporty edge. This 1966 Ford Mustang conv. is equipped with Auto. P/S, Power Top, Center Console, AM/FM Cassette Radio. The special High Performance 289 engine produced a hefty 271 horsepower.
Mountain Goat is a bus operator in Cumbria, England established in 1972, providing local bus services and minibuses to the more remote parts of the Lake District.
All the bus routes undertaken by Mountain Goat are private, with daily tours, exclusive hire, and UK holidays.
Below is a list of tours.


National Magazine Award-winning journalist Alex Hutchinson is writing his third book, The Unforgiving Minute, an exploration of the science of human endurance. William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins USA, acquired world rights. Hutchinson`s previous book, Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights, examined the science underlying common fitness questions. It was also published by HarperCollins in the United States.