history repeats

I present this item without comment, other than to note that today is Day Two of the Great American Government Shutdown of 2013, and a little reminder that the politics surrounding FDR and the New Deal era were also, what's the polite word? Oh, yes; "polarizing." 

Misc. MS illustration, c. 1944; Records of the American Jewish Committee; RG 347.17.12; Box 189; Folder 1; YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

today is brought to you by the letter 'h'

Oh you one little letter; what a happy surprise.  Where are you going, tiny friend?  Perhaps in search  of the "l," lost from the line above...

victory belles

So.  Returning from SAA in New Orleans with a head full of fog (literally, some kind of swamp-virus humidity/excessive air-conditioning thing, AND figuratively, so overstimulated and jumbled with ideas)... the most clear detail I can recall is this strange scene from the "all-attendee reception" on the last night.

The event was held in the National WWII Museum, which is, for some reason, in New Orleans.  Before heading down to the conference, I had been interested in visiting the museum, because who doesn't love WWII?  It's obviously the BEST WAR ever.  Anyway, there wasn't really enough time, and after I had seen all the billboards advertising the museum around town I felt a little turned off by the super-hetero-masculine yay-big-machines-and-weapons vibe.  What the hell is a 4-D movie anyway?  (That's rhetorical; I don't actually want to know.)  And when did Tom Hanks become America's official WWII ambassador?  (No offense intended to Mr. Hanks.)  But then it turned out all the archivists would get to play in the museum at night, so great, I would get to see it after all. 

And... the part of the museum we were in for the reception was basically an airplane hangar full of tanks and torpedoes (I think it's called "the Freedom Pavilion"?), but okay, we were a very large group of increasingly drunk weirdos so it might have been the only space that could hold us all.  I eventually noticed a lot of hot pin-up girls emblazoned around, in their iconic 40s hair-styles, and realized that a number of these were posters for, quote, "The National WWII Museum’s charming vocal trio, the Victory Belles," who will take you on a "nostalgic journey" down "memory lane" with "spirited performances" of "timeless" musical classics, blarf blarrrf blarghhhff.

Now I know I started the week with a feminist archivist symposium, but I'm pretty sure this would have set off my alarms anyway.  You know what IS a timeless classic?  Tone-deaf misogynistic tokenism!  You can purchase their music and other souvenirs here, but my favorite pick is the Precious Moments Dolls.  Just like in real life, you can choose "Blonde, Brunette, Redhead, or collect all three!"

And seriously, don't even get me started on WWII Monopoly.  My co-workers and I converged on this item in a corner of the hangar that was set up as a makeshift gift shop.  Probably Jewish-history archivists who spend a lot of time with Holocaust-era documents are NOT Hasbro's intended audience for this game, but we can't be the only people confused by the idea that the goal is to build "camps" instead of hotels...?

Back to the Belles.  This is the part that kills me.  I'm chatting with the bartender at one of the tables serving drinks.  She's about my age; maybe a little younger, but not by a lot.  I notice she's got a really great nail-art manicure, with stencils of stripes and anchors and stars.  Oh, it's patriotic, I think.
     "Did you get them done like that for this job?" I ask.  "So cute."
     "Thanks," she says.  "No.  Well, I usually work in the restaurant here, so I guess so.  They go with the dresses."
     "What dresses?" I ask, because she is wearing the basic-black outfit of all catered events.
     "They have us wear the dresses from the shop, like the vintage style ones."
     "REALLY?"  My mouth is actually hanging open slack-jawed.  Where am I and how did I get here?  "You have to wear a fancy dress to serve food at a restaurant?  That seems like a terrible idea!" I laugh.  (It is probably a good thing that I laugh at myself a lot when I talk because otherwise people would realize what a total jerk I am.) 
     "Well, I'm the hostess," she says.  "But I love them!  It's like totally my fashion era.  Sometimes I think I should have been around back then."
     I don't even think before I open my mouth and say, "You know it was a really horrible time to be alive, right?"
     She laughs and says, "Yeah, I guess so!"
     Oh, we laugh and laugh and everyone lives happily ever after.

Really.  I just don't.  I can't.  It's not this girl.  I like a bunch of stuff about 1940's fashion, too.  It's just the whole scene.  The whole point of what we're doing.  Why are we preserving history anyway, if it's not to learn anything from it?  This is the NATIONAL WORLD WAR TWO museum.  Presumably, in some part, funded by the government, and run by educated people who've at least taken high-school level history courses and have access to our country's collective knowledge bank of archives and artifacts and documentary evidence and really?  REALLY?  The best we can do is package it up with some 4-D "dazzling special effects," some platitudes about "freedom" and "glory," and wrap it all in a red-white-and-blue polyester dress made in China? 

Well, America, I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. 


 

cities and the dead

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans.  Established August 14, 1789; exactly 224 years ago.

Sometimes, actually a lot of times, it is hard for me to explain my job to people.  What it is to do the things that I do every day that add up to being "an archivist" versus what it means, why it matters, to be an archivist.  So, like I do, I try to find metaphors.

Then, is this not an archive?

In Maurilia, the traveler is invited to visit the city and, at the same time, to examine some old post cards that show it as it used to be:  the same identical square with a hen in the place of the bus station, a bandstand in the place of the overpass, two young ladies with white parasols in the place of the munitions factory.  If the traveler does not wish to disappoint the inhabitants, he must praise the post card city and prefer it to the present one, though he must be careful to contain his regret at the changes within definite limits:  admitting that the magnificence and prosperity of the metropolis Maurilia, when compared to the old, provincial Maurilia, cannot compensate for a certain lost grace, which, however, can be appreciated only now in the old post cards ...

... whereas before, when that provincial Maurilia was before one's eyes, one saw absolutely nothing graceful and would see it even less today, if Maurilia had remained unchanged; and in any case the metropolis has the added attraction that, through what it has become, one can look back with nostalgia at what it was.

Beware of saying to them that sometimes different cities follow one another on the same site and under the same name, born and dying without knowing one another, without communicating among themselves.  At times even the names of the inhabitants remain the same, and their voices' accent, and also the features of the faces; but the gods who live beneath names and above places have gone off without a word and outsiders have settled in their place.  It is pointless to ask whether the new ones are better or worse than the old, since there is no connection between them, just as the old post cards do not depict Maurilia as it was, but a different city which, by chance, was called Maurilia, like this one.

-- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (Cities & Memory 5)

 

 

oh, Animalerica

I'm sure there's some reason why the Republicans and Democrats got their respective spirit-animals/mascots... but, um, I'm not sure I get it.  And I really like elephants.  No offense, donkeys, 'cause I really love you too.  I'm pretty much pro-animals in general.

archival encounters

The collection I'm processing now is mostly research files and institutional records from a large civil rights organization.  They had files on everyone and everything, so it's not really surprising to find a JFK folder or come across a few letters from Senator Kennedy.  I meant only to flip through this little booklet containing his inaugural speech, but I ended up reading it carefully a few times.  I know that the famous line from this speech is the "ask not what your country can do for you" bit, which is a great turn of phrase, but other moments in this address struck me as much more beautiful.  And maybe a little bit heart-breaking.  There is, of course, the obvious, great tragedy of JFK's unfulfilled promise (as a president and as a person), but the fact that his death was followed not long after by MLK's and Bobby Kennedy's compounds the tragedy into this whole, massive death of American idealism...  And the kind of America Kennedy portrays with these words, it's an America I can really feel proud of and also feel I am a part of.  Because the point of it, the idea of Liberty and Justice for All, is that it demands our engagement, even when we feel weary and disenfranchised.

These words: 

... man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe -- the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. 

To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required -- not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. 

... bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors.

Let both sides unite to heed, in all corners of the earth, the command of Isaiah -- to "undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free."

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.

One of my favorite things about this speech, now that I've looked into it a bit, is that he (JFK) actually wrote it himself.  Politicians just don't do that anymore.  You can see a draft in his crazy messy handwriting here (courtesy of NARA):  http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals_iv/sections/jfk_inaugural_address.html#

Text of the speech, video and audio here:  http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkinaugural.htm

 

in honor of National Donut Day...

Apparently, this is a thing.  (At least, it is celebrated at NYC-area Dunkin Donuts shops.)

But I guess it used to be National Donut Month?  And that month was October?

Anyway, that Doughnut Corporation of America logo is pretty great.

stereotypes = sometimes true?

So, this is the dictionary's example of a sentence using "peevish."  This is me not surprised.

how to look at books

...this was the title of tonight's Fales Library lecture at NYU given by Michael F. Suarez.

How to Look at Books: 

Objects, Systems, Sequences, Series, and Constellations 

Um, you had me at 'hello.'

Although I am not a bibliographer, nor even exactly a librarian, nor am I in school any longer, I'm really glad I nerded out and made it to this talk.  I heard two men discussing the talk afterwards, as we lined up to leave the library, and one kept saying to the other that it was a "virtuoso performance!" which is a bit much.  But in fact true in this case.  So many librarian/academic/techie types are TERRIBLE public speakers, which is a fact I had to just start accepting (... in contrast to my previous life as a writer/MFA student, attending readings and literary events regularly).

First, it is probably important to note that Michael Suarez is not just an academic, book-ish person; he is a poet, editor, curator, English professor, director of the Rare Book School, has like four master degrees and a PhD, and is a Jesuit PRIEST.  What?  Anyways, he is an excellent and compelling public speaker.

He was ostensibly discussing a "fully engraved" version of the works of Horace produced by John Pine in the 1730s (something like this, I imagine) but really who cares?  It was dazzling.

The gist is that standard bibliographic analysis has no way of approaching such a work, since it is essentially unique and can't be described in terms of edition, issue, impression, or state.  Here's just a few of the random notes typed furiously into my phone while he spoke:

"the remit of bibliographical inquiry is:  how did this book come to be as it is?"

"our historical knowledge will always be limited by the questions we ask."

in German, there is a distinction between the two words erklären and verstehen — one verb describes a causal explanation of events and one describes an interpretive understanding... so how do we get to the state of verstehen?

the word made flesh:
the library = the church
the reliquary = the book

tradition of printing/reprinting as "vehicle for the display of virtuosity" and creation of nationalist sentiment... display of gratuitous consumption also.

book production has always taken place in a "constellation" of craftsmen and artisans, a whole community (economics)

our goal is "intellectual humility" !!!

Shelley —"we must learn to imagine what we know"

This last quote, which was the closing presentation slide, is something Suarez has apparently discussed elsewhere.  He elaborates on its meaning (among other things) in the closing plenary address for the 2012 RBMS Preconference, audio-recorded and available here (Suarez begins speaking around the 43min mark).  Also, further development of the Book-As-Body-As-Relic idea, and this definition of the Library:  it is about the Subject-Object Relationship, about the interaction between subjects and objects, a site for the construction of subjectivities and the mediation of objects. (!!!!!)

new york society library

Founded in 1754 (!!!) this is a delightful little private library that I got to visit today with a group from work (yay!).  Architectural details and lovely collection highlights aside (I'm talking incunables like the Nuremberg Chronicle), it was really great to have some shop talk with professionals who also struggle with resources and changing parameters of cultural/community relevancy, and a complex relationship with the obligations of a long history...  (Etc.)

http://www.nysoclib.org/about/peluso-family-exhibition-gallery

http://www.nysoclib.org/blog/vault-john-h-caswell's-collection-civil-war-envelopes

Civil War-era printed envelope featuring BABE LINCOLN, what?

where are your papers?

The recent article about Zosa Szajkowski has been rolling around in my brain for weeks, and my friend (P.) did the work of articulating why in her email, quoted below:

Thank you very much for passing along the Zosa Szajkowski article. I have long been interested in the intersection of archives, recordkeeping, and identity within cultures that are dissident to parent states – you need the record to function in society so it’s who you are, yet it’s not who you are. Where are your papers?

As for whether Szajkowski was a hero or a criminal I think it’s pretty clear that he was both. But no matter what his work was meaningful and yours is, also...

(Thank you, my fine archivist friend.)

Proper citation:

Leff, Lisa Moses.  (2012).  Rescue or theft? Zosa Szajkowski and the salvaging of French Jewish history after World War II.  Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society, Vol. 18 (No. 2), 1-39.

Update: an online version of this article then appeared in Tablet Magazine.  My favorite quote from Leff:

"The ambiguity that sits at the heart of the story of Zosa Szajkowski also points us to an aspect of the very nature of archives. On the one hand, the creators of archives rescue the past for us. They gather together and preserve records from the past, making it possible for historians to study them. On the other hand, there is also violence in the project of archiving. The very process of making an archive re-contextualizes documents and—in subtle or not-so-subtle ways—changes their meaning. Rather than the work of the powerful, some archives, at least, are actually the work of the powerless. If our understanding of archives in general is broadened to include all those who shaped their histories, these institutions look less and less like a coherent monument and more and more like a salvage heap."

the frick

Gilt-Brass Table Clock with Astronomical 
and Calendrical Dials (Munich, 1554)

Went to see the clock show with T., hoping he might explain to me how a) clocks work, and also possibly b) how time works.  Not sure if I figured anything out, but it was all quite beautiful, as usual...

I was, for some reason, especially struck by the distinction made (in the exhibit introduction) between a) time-finding, b) time-measuring, and c) time-keeping devices.  In technological terms, this is the evolution from sundials, to water clocks, to mechanical clocks or watches with pendulums, springs, escapements, etc.  There is some kind of analogy here, I think, to the progress of map-making and cartographic data and to the whole idea of information standardization...  It's always good to remember how much of what we think the world "is" and how it "works" is simply a matter of convention.

oh morgan, how i love thee

It's like my own personal archives week/"stay-cation" with these midweek holidays.  PLUS, P.'s in town, so someone will nerd out with me.  The Morgan Library is one of my favorite places in the world... and she had never been!

We saw the Proust exhibit (100th anniversary of Swann's Way), and Drawing Surrealism.

There was also something called "Treasures from the Vault" in the beautiful original library: letters from Virginia Woolf, John Steinbeck, JRR Tolkien, MICHAELANGELO's father, manuscript copies of Beethoven's symphonies in his own handwriting... and a crazy bedazzled bible.