A Page From: The Passion of Saint Alexander, Pope and Martyr, (Passio Sancti Alexandri martyris papae) circa 975-1075. Reused To Strengthen The Cover Of Flos testamnetorum By Rolandinus, de Passageriis, Published In Padua In 1482. (Images Courtesy Of The Lillian Goldman Law Library Rare Book Collection, Yale University.)The last weekend of April 2010 saw celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Citizens of the world were urged to "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," to help save our imperiled planet. An exhibit at the Yale University's Lillian Goldman Law Library proves that, as fine an idea as this is, it is hardly...
Got The Blues, The Mean Reds, Or The Evil Yellows?
Holly Golightly Battles "The Mean Reds" At Tiffany'sTruman Capote's Breakfast At Tiffany's should be required reading for psychiatrists. Nobody ever painted a more terse and pithy picture of clinical depression than Holly Golightly: "You know those days when you've got the mean reds... the blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long. You're sad, that's all. But the mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don't know what it is." The National Library Of...
Don Draper Eats A Naked Lunch
Portrait Of The Artist As A Psychotic Junkie.Self-Portrait By William S. Burroughs, 1959.(Image Courtesy Of Columbia University Library.)There are a lot of weird parallels, or at least perpendiculars, between junkie hipster supreme William S. Burroughs (and/or his literary doppelganger William Lee), and Mad Men's Don Draper. I couldn't get that idea out of my head after looking over an April 2010 online exhibit: Naked Lunch: The First Fifty Years. Columbia University curator, Gerald W. Cloud created the virtual show to commemorate the celebrations held at Columbia's libraries in 2009, marking the half-century since the 1959 Paris publication of Burrough's most...
Kaplan Boxing Archive: From Contender To Champ
Poster For An Exhibit of Materials From The Hank Kaplan Boxing Archive.(All Images Courtesy Of Hank Kaplan Boxing Archive At Brooklyn College.)The rags to riches story behind Brooklyn College's Hank Kaplan Boxing Archive just got a little richer: on April 16, 2010 the collection's chief archivist, Professor Anthony Cucchiara, became the winner of a $315,000 endowment from the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) to organize the largest and most extensive boxing collection in the world. "This two-year grant will allow us to process and preserve this invaluable collection that spans two centuries of boxing history," says Prof. Cucchiara.Finding the...
Peake Archive Takes British Library To New Heights
Mervyn Peake, Self-portrait, submitted to the Royal Academyin 1931. Now in the National Portrait Gallery.(All Images Courtesy of the Mervyn Peake Estate, mervynpeake.org )He's been been likened to Tolkien, Dickens, Kafka, and Poe, but the work of poet, painter, playwright, author, and illustrator Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) defies comparison. Anthony Burgess wrote in his introduction to the first volume of the Gormenghast Trilogy, Peake's most famous work: "There really is no close relative to it in all our prose literature. It is uniquely brilliant..." Now scholars and readers have a chance to see the creative process of such a singular talent....