Afghan Protest Against Soviet Occupation Looks Familiar In Scarce Posters

by Stephen J. Gertz

A set of nine dramatic anti-Soviet propaganda posters lithographed on thin paper and published in Pakistan c.1980-81 by the Internal Islamic Fronts/Afghanistan is being offered by Bonham's in its Fine Books and Manuscripts sale February 10, 2014.

Each poster (approximately 375 x 250 mm) is ink-stamped with the publisher's imprint in Arabic and English but without captions. They are somewhat crudely printed; on one poster the inky red fingerprints of the pressman are clearly visible. These were printed on the fly under difficult  circumstances and we should not be surprised that the result was less than perfect.

The initial Soviet deployment of its 40th Army in Afghanistan began on December 24, 1979, under then Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. The final troop withdrawal began on May 15, 1988, and ended on February 15, 1989, under the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. The Soviets had been caught in what has been called "the bear trap" and the Soviet war in Afghanistan would become its Vietnam: an intractable morass, a political and military quicksand that sucked Soviet troops deep in over their heads, as it had in the past for every other power that tried to bend Afghanistan to its will. The United States poured billions into the country in military support of the Afghan resistance against the Soviets, the Moujahadin, playing out another Cold War conflict with the U.S.S.R.

In the poster above, Brezhnev is scolding his Afghan parrot, Babrak Karmal, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan and Chairman of the Revolutionary Council. Karmal's policy failures, iffy cooperation, and the stalemate against the Resistance led the Kremlin to become highly critical of its puppet's leadership. Brezhnev appears to be saying, "now, now, repeat after me, 'I will behave, I will behave, I will behave!'" Yet as every parrot caretaker understands but civilians don't, if you wag a finger close to a parrot's beak the bird will treat it as a chew toy on a serving tray and act accordingly. 

Substitute President G.W. Bush or President Obama for Brezhnev and insert current Afghan leader Hamid Karzai for Karmal and the situation has not changed.

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Image courtesy of Bonham's, with our thanks.

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Spectacular Th. Jefferson Letter On Lewis & Clark Est. $500,000-$700,000

by Stephen J. Gertz

A historically rich and highly significant signed autograph letter from Thomas Jefferson to Dr. William Eustis of Massachusetts, a political ally, is being offered by Sotheby's in its Fine Books and Manuscripts, Including Americana sale, December 5, 2013. It is estimated to sell for $500,000-$700,000.

On two pages dated June 25, 1805, Jefferson, three months into his second term as President, refers to politics and the decline of the Federalists, news from Merriweather Lewis, information on the Indians encountered by the Corps of Discovery, receipt of a barge with Indian tribal deputies sent back by Lewis, the new Michigan Territories, trade with the Indians as a means to peace, negotiations with Spain, the French and British navies in American waters; it just goes on. It is a supremely succulent historical document, bountiful Americana, and, further, one of only two letters by Jefferson discussing the Lewis and Clark expedition to come to auction in over sixty years.

The letter was part of the collection of Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady of the United States. Jefferson composed it on a bifolium of wove paper watermarked "J. Larking."

The letter reads in full:

Washington June 25 05

Dear Sir

Your two favors of the 2d & 10th inst. have been duly received with respect to Mr. […], as he was to obtain the testimonies of his character in the Eastern states, & was himself in the same place with Genl Hull in whose gift the office of Marshall for Michigan was, I left him to satisfy General Hull himself on that point, I thought it best to add no bias by expressing any wish of mine to the General. I therefore did not write to him on the subject. - I believe, with you, that the Boston maneuver has secured the death of federalism at the end of the present year. The steady progression of public opinion, aided by the number of candid persons who had voted with them this year, but will be displeased with this measure, cannot fail to join Massachusetts to her sister states at the first election. The arrangement you suggested in your letter of the 10th could not be adopted, because a prior one had been initiated. The person appointed is very distant & will not be here till Autumn. Within a month from this time our annual […] will take place, for the months of Aug & Sep. I have the pleasure to inform you that one of Capt. Lewis's barges returned to St. Louis brings us certain information from him. He wintered with the Mandanes, 1609 miles up the Missouri, Lat. 47 Long. 107 with some additional minutes to both numbers, all well and peculiarly cherished by all the Indian nations. He has sent in his barge 45 deputies from 6 of the principal nations in that quarter who will be joined at St. Louis by those of 3 or 4 nations between the Missouri & Mississippi and will come on here. Whether before our departure or after our return we do not yet know. We shall endeavor to get them to go on as far North as Boston, being desirous of […] them correctly as to our strength and resources. This with kind usage and a commerce advantageous to them, & not losing to us, will better know their & our peace & friendship than an army of thousands.

I receive with due sentiments of thankfulness the invitations of my Eastern friends to visit that portion of our country. The expected visit from the deputations of so many distant nations of the Indians, provisional arrangements with Spain in lieu of the permanent ones proposed, in which we are not likely to concur, the presence of English & French fleets in the American seas, which will probably visit & purplex our harbors during the hurricane season will not permit me to be so far from the seat of government this summer. Add to this that should I ever be able to make the visit I would probably be more generally agreeable when there shall be less division of public sentiment than at present among you.

Accept my friendly salutations, & assurances of great esteem & respect.
 
Th. Jefferson.

•  •  •

Jefferson's mention of General William Hull refers to his recent (March 22, 1805) appointment of the soldier-politician as Governor of the newly created Michigan Territory as well as its Indian Agent.

At the time Jefferson wrote to Eustis the Federalists (who lost the presidential election of 1804) were in decline, having little support outside of New England. They would not regain strength until 1812.

Dr. William Eustis.

William Eustis (1753-1825) was an early American physician, politician, and statesman from Massachusetts. A practicing doctor, he served as a military surgeon during the American Revolutionary War (notably at the Battle of Bunker Hill), and resumed his medical career after the war. He soon, however, entered politics, and after several terms in the Massachusetts legislature, Eustis served in the United States House of Representatives March 1801 - March 1805  as a moderate Democratic-Republican, the party of Jefferson.  He later served as Secretary of War 1809-1813 under President James Madison. In 1823 he became the 12th Governor of Massachusetts.

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Images courtesy of Sotheby's, with our thanks.

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A Nation Of Political Fools, 1713 Edition

by Stephen J. Gertz

 

"Although this Island of Folly cannot be found on the map, you will have no difficulty in guessing its real name and location by observing its mores and inhabitants" (Preface).

 In 1713,  A New Voyage to the Island of Fools was published, an  anti-Utopian satire of England's Tory government disguised as a voyage of exploration led by a Venetian nobleman. Pseudonymously written, it has been variously attributed to Jonathan Swift, Edmund Stacey, or Edward Ward. 

By 1713 the Tory party had dominated Parliament for the three preceding years and had made further gains in the current year's elections. Prime Minister Robert Harley, appointed after the downfall of the Whigs in 1710, attempted to pursue a moderate and non-controversial policy, but had  to contend with extremist Tories on the backbenches who were frustrated by the lack of support for their legislation against dissent. 

In five letters, the primativist narrator of ...the Island of Fools observes and reports on the mores of a nation in a sad state of affairs.

The inhabitants of Stultitia, the island of fools, were not "Stultitian [that is, foolish] by nature, but by practice," we are told. Foolishness is considered a moral failure and here refers to the vices that consumed the nation. "Slaves of sentiments, inclinations, interest, avarice, ambition, and desire for vengeance and of 'fantasies,' the Stultitians are suckers for adulation, flattery, false evidence, crime, rebellion, cheating, treason, rioting, prostitution and 'all manner of wickedness and folly'" ((Braga, The Rationalist Critique of Utopian Thinking, University of Bucharest Review, Vol. I. 2011, no. 1, p. 128).

Obsession with superstitions and collective illusions is the cause of human corruption, according to Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, and the Stultitians enjoy a surfeit of superstitions and collective psychoses. "In order to impinge them to riot or rebellion and to any action in general, it is enough to excite their fancy with a few new Notions or Projects that they will embrace without giving the least thought about their Truth, Reason or their Probability." Imaginary “epidemical pseudosciences”  lie at the core of the Stultitian mind-set.

"During the 17th-18th centuries, the pressure exercised by combined critiques due to religious ideology and later on by rationalist mentality rendered utopias suspect to the eyes of many authors. Christian counter-utopists, ranging from Joseph Hall to Jonathan Swift, accepted and adopted the dogmas related to the Lost Earthly Paradise and Man’s Cursed City, transforming the utopian space into hell on earth, into monstrous kingdoms that would rival Dante’s circles.

"In turn, humanist counter-utopists, skeptical regarding man’s capacity of establishing a perfect society, found other means of expressing their incredulity as well as sarcasms. They imagined madmen islands and kingdoms of fools, demonstrating, by reductio ab absurdum, that the application of the ideals of reason to social programs would only lead to nightmarish societies" (Ibid.).

Slings and arrows from satirists skewering the Tories did not change a thing. Their government remained popular with the electorate for its effort to end the War of the Spanish Succession and ratify the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. 

As for Jonathan Swift being the author of this pamphlet, not true. At this point, Swift, who, as a political pamphleteer simultaneously played tennis on both sides of the net, had permanently moved from the Whig to the Tory party, joining its inner circle: he was a one-issue voter and found Tory policy on the Irish clergy in agreement with his own sympathies as an Irishman. Edmund Stacey, author of The Parliament of Birds (1712), also published by John Morphew, is the likeliest suspect, though Edward Ward is given credit in a manuscript annotation.

Those on the Right or Left seeking ammo in this satire will find it; Right and Left politics as we understand it today did not exist at that time - ideology was fluid and not as sharply defined as now -  It was in the post-Revolution French Assembly that those political directions were established: monarchists sat on the right, republicans on the left side of the Assembly's aisle. Contemporary American Conservatives may plotz to learn that in the 18th and 19th centuries Liberal Conservatism was, far from an oxymoron, a recognized, respected and viable political viewpoint.

The enduring lesson here is that utopias look good on paper but are a disaster in practice, no matter the ideology. Heaven on earth is an impossibility, whether as an ideal society in which government plays no role at all in the lives of its citizens and taxes are non-existent, or an ideal where the government will help the vulnerable from birth to death if necessary at a price shared by all good citizens. It's always a fool's game. People tend to get in the way when a perfect world is pursued; your perfection is my purgatory. One man's sage is another man's fool.

The population of the Island of Fools is exploding yet it's a protean destination resort and can accommodate all who wish to vacation in folly and call it wisdom.

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[UTOPIAN SATIRE]. A New Voyage to the Island of Fools, Representing the Policy, Government, and Present State of the Stultitians. By a Noble Venetian. Inscib'd to the Right Honorable The Lord Fernando. Translated from the Italian. London: John Morphew, [September] 1713. Attributed to Swift (in Wrenn catalogue) but not in Teerink.  Octavo (188 x 118 mm). [2], 62 pp. Wrappers.

A second edition was issued in 1715.

Claeys, Utopias of the British Enlightenment, p. xxix. Letellier, The English Novel 1700-1740, p. 336.

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Image courtesy of Christie's, which is offering this title in its Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts sale November 15, 2013. With our thanks. 

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Book Illustrator Ben Shahn Does Posters

by Stephen J. Gertz

WE WANT PEACE / REGISTER - VOTE. (1946).

"His codified signature neatly scribbled under any of his images conjures up a peerless world of visual and emotional realism" (Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, 1988).

Born in Lithuania in 1898, artist Ben Shahn immigrated to New York with his family in 1906. He apprenticed with a commercial lithographer in 1911 while still a high-school student, and earned his living in the trade until the early 1930s, when he began to receive recognition as a fine artist.

In 1934, after exhibitions of his series of paintings about the Dreyfus and Sacco-Vanzetti affairs, he was commissioned to produce a mural by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The following year, Rexford Tugwell, a prominent member of Roosevelt's "brain trust," invited Shahn to join the Resettlement Administration. He worked as an artist in the agency's Special Skills Division and was an unofficial, part-time member of Roy Stryker's photographic section.

His first significant contact with graphic design, however, came in 1942 when he was hired to work in the Office of War Information. Shahn later told biographer Selden Rodman that his chief duty was "to explain in posters to the people who need it what is being done for them and to the others what they are paying for."

This image above  was "used by the CIO in a voter registration drive. [And] it represents, perhaps, the best of Shahn's poster work. One cannot soon erase the memory of the hollow-eyed young face begging for peace. Nowhere is Shahn's genius for drawing more evident than in the thrust of the pleading hand...Using the image of this child in the context of an election campaign seems to say that in a democracy the first step toward healing the ravages of war is to exercise one's right to vote" (Kenneth W. Prescott, The Complete Graphic Works of Ben Shahn, p. 132).

Based upon his painting Hunger, Shahn recalled, in 1964, that he told Roy Stryker that a certain photograph of soil erosion would not have a strong impact on viewers. "Look Roy," Shahn said, "you're not going to move anybody with this eroded soil - but the effect this eroded soil has on a kid who looks starved, this is going to move people."

WARNING! INFLATION MEANS DEPRESSION. (1946).

This poster, another for the CIO, "of a farmer, whose seeming integrity and strength greatly impressed Shahn" (Prescott p. 132),  is based on a photograph Shahn took during the 1930s while traveling through Arkansas as a member of the Resettlement Administration and Stryker's photography unit.  It is a haunting image of a troubled working man, memories of the Great Depression fresh and alarming,  yet with an optimistic message to allay his fears : "Register - Vote."

BREAK REACTION'S GRIP / REGISTER VOTE. (c. 1946).

In the years after World War II, Shahn took on a new threat, anti-Labor, Establishment radicals. "The one arm, dressed in coat sleeve and shirt cuff, with hand clasping a colorful map of the United States, represents the country's supposedly small, but powerful, reactionary forces. The poster suggests that however strong, their power could be broken by the greater strength of the progressive forces, as represented by the larger, sleeveless arm" (Prescott, p. 131).

OUR FRIEND. (1944.)

Shahn's political orientation was patent, his views powerful. "This poster was used in the hotly contested 1944 campaign in support of Franklin D. Roosevelt's fourth term. Shahn presented Roosevelt as a warmly sympathetic man whose visage looms father-like above the crowd" (Prescott p. 128). The image, in retrospect, is a bit disconcerting, the obvious influence of Social Realism suggesting the cult of personality exploited by Stalin in Soviet propaganda. You can, in fact, substitute Stalin's image for Roosevelt's and wind up with a typical 1930s Soviet poster celebrating Papa Joe.

Be that as it may, his work here (and, ultimately, most of his work) was infused with a strong concern regarding the forces that undermine the common man, each a visual editorial protesting social injustice. Shahn was always a champion of the less fortunate.

Shahn's uncle was a bookbinder; he allayed Shahn's childhood hunger for books by bringing him volumes from his shop. After World War II he was chosen by Look magazine as one of the "World's Ten Best Artists." He abandoned painting for good and adopted graphic work for better. The book dust jackets he created (amongst other celebrated graphic designs) during the 1950s and 1960s remain classics.

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Images courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries, with our thanks.
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JFK, The Stripper, The Cuban Missile Crisis And Lincoln Bedroom

by Stephen J. Gertz

Two signed autograph letters from burlesque queen Blaze Starr (born 1932 as Fannie Belle Fleming) to an unknown correspondent are being auctioned by Nate D. Sanders Auctions this Thursday, February 28, 2013. Within, Blaze makes a clean breast of events and bares all, providing an intimate view of the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 and a once upon a mattress reminisce about paranormal activity in the Lincoln bedroom .

The first letter reads in full:

''...Just a line to answer your letter. Oh yes there was a lot of things I didn't tell in my book or the movie 'Blaze.' After Governor Earl K. Long passed away I renewed my friendship with then president J.F.K. C.B.S. newsman Paul Niven was a friend of J.F.K. he would pick me up at my home, about twenty minutes from D.C., and we would meet at Paul's home in Georgetown. As we entered Paul's home the phone rang. It was J.F.K. Plans had changed and he told Paul to bring me to a certain office in the Capitol. I wore a head scarf, sunglasses, and carried Paul's briefcase. As we walked by the Oval Office the door was open. There was loads of people all around. Robert Kennedy stood in the open door. Vice President L.B.J. stood in the hall with his arms folded. We entered an office and J.F.K. was right behind us. As Paul left we closed the door. After a short time, (very short), J.F.K. jumped up and said he was very, very, sorry but he had to leave. While he was dressing he said Boy, if Fidel Castro had something like you, he would think more about making Love, and less about making war. I said, why did you say that? J.F.K. said oh, I was just thinking out loud. Me and Paul left I didn't realize until I saw the evening news on T.V. that the President had left the Cuban Missile Crisis meeting to spend a short time with me. I felt very proud of myself I did my part for my country that day..."

You read correctly: Blaze Starr served her country with a patriot act decades before the Patriot Act was signed into law and Sybil Liberties, the Bill of Right's ecdysiast mascot with the mostess, got screwed. Left unspoken is what fascinating turn history might have taken had JFK sent Blaze into the Bay of Pigs and arms of Fidel Castro with a bump-bump here, a bump-bump there, and a shimmy and a shake instead of Cuban exiles ashore.

In the second letter - it, too, written on Blaze's bodacious letterhead - she recounts a mysterious rendezvous with JFK in the Lincoln bedroom,  the ghost of the Great Emancipator in attendance as a voyeur from the great beyond:

''Just a line to answer your letter. Oh yes there was a lot of things I didn't tell in my book or the movie 'Blaze.' Jackie Kennedy was my idol. After Governor Earl Long passed away I renewed my friendship with then President J.F.K. I had known him since 1952. He was a regular on weekends, at a club I worked in D.C. C.B.S. newsman Paul Niven was a good friend of J.F.K. He would pick me up at my house in Maryland, about twenty minutes from D.C., and we would meet at Paul's house in Georgetown. I told J.F.K. about my fantasy with the Lincoln bedroom. He said lets go. Jackie was away on a cruise. After about an hour, J.F.K. had to leave for a meeting. Paul was to come for me. I got dressed and was redoing my makeup, when I noticed a life size statue, (I thought) of Lincoln in a corner. He was wearing a tall black hat, a dark suit and a white shirt. Paul arrived and as I was leaving, I turned and jokingly said, thank you President Lincoln for use of your bedroom. There was nothing there. I froze in my tracks. Paul said lots of people have seen him there. Queen Nora [?] once ran from that room in her panties, bra, and a towel. That was his ghost as sure as I live. Queen Nora never returned to that room again and neither did I. Maybe Old 'Abe' liked to watch...''

Oh, yes there were a lot of things she didn't tell in her book or the movie 'Blaze'; you need her letters, each, apparently, beginning with the same hush-hush entre-nous opening, to get the secret history. Her sapphic ménage à trois, for instance, with Mamie Eisenhower and Eleanor Roosevelt; the ménage à oy with Earl Long and Martin Short; with young Mick Jagger and old Herbert Hoover; with George M. Cohan and a grand old flagpole. The list goes on but discretion and Blaze's fecund imagination preclude further disclosure of apocryphal events.

Each letter is signed ''Blaze Starr'' with hearts and a star around her name. Her lip-prints appear genuine and not rubber stamped. The letters measure 8.5'' x 11'' and are in near fine condition. The minimum bid for each is $500.

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Letter images courtesy of Nate D. Sanders Auctions, with our thanks.

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Women are Children: Don't Let Them Vote

by Stephen J. Gertz

"The Militant" by G.T. (?), c. 1910-1912.

This political cartoon, in ink and watercolor, was likely inspired by and in sympathy with the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League (1908-1918) which opposed granting women the vote in Parliamentary elections within the United Kingdom.

The same sort of battle against women's suffrage was occurring simultaneously in the United States, ongoing since the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 proclaimed voting rights for women.

Here, a little girl is arrested by two bemused policemen. She's in tears holding a can of oil, the prime suspect of arson to the house ablaze at right in the background.  On the house's fence the girl has chalked the demand, "Voats fer Wimmen."

The message is clear: English domestic life is threatened by immature women demanding the vote. Militants are particularly irresponsible and dangerous; the whole of society will go up in flames if women stuff the ballot box with their foolishness. A more condescending view of the issue is difficult to imagine. It was not, however, unusual. Casting women suffragettes as little children was a standard weapon in the anti-suffragette arsenal.

In the United States, a similar anti-suffragette theme was expressed at the very same time by Ten Little Suffragettes, a scarce eleven-page comic based upon the folk-song, Ten Little Indians. Ten little girls in pinafores carry protest signs supporting women's suffrage but are undone by their pre-pubescent behavior until only one remains and, petulant, she breaks her doll's head.

That women are children and incapable of making informed decisions about things they care about is a sentiment that remains amongst many to this day. Why should adults cede power to emotionally labile kids?

Particularly female children who are now increasingly dominating college enrollment, often out-earning their husbands and boyfriends, and are members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Cabinet.

Next thing you know, there'll be a female President of the United States. Somehow, the United States will survive - though a segment of the male voting population may feel their manhood whither and retract into their gut to disappear with their last vestige of superiority in everything except, perhaps, the ability to fix a toaster - a skill that many men have yet to master, this writer included whose grand philosophy regarding broken small household appliances boils down to, Buy a new one.
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[ANTI-SUFFRAGETTE ORIGINAL CARTOON]. G.T. [?]. The Militant. [London?]: c. 1910-1912. 39 x 35 cm original ink and watercolor drawing.
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Image courtesy of John Drury Rare Books, currently offering this item, with our thanks.
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Of related interest:

Ten Little, Nine Little, Eight Little Suffragettes...(And Then There Were None).
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Politics, Astrology, And The Weather: A Guide To The 2012 Election

by Stephen J. Gertz

Because of its topical nature, Booktryst revisits a book we first took a look at in 2010, here with an updated slant.

 

Action in the sky = Politics on the ground.
Frontispiece to Meteorologia Philosophico-Politica.

"The more things change the more they stay the same" 

(Alphonse Karr, Les Guêpes, 1849).

Every four years American Presidential politics plays out an ancient non-partisan script: Virtue is stained, throw the bum out.

In 1698, Francisco Reinzler published Meteorologia, Philisophico-Politica, a tract on the influence of weather and astrology on politics and guide to reading meteorological omens via astrology so that correct political decisions can be made.

If this seems outlandish, consider that politicians routinely stick a moistened finger in the air to discern the direction of the wind. Perhaps "you don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows," but no politician says or does a thing until atmospheric conditions are considered. We all know what happened to President Bush when he misinterpreted the omen that hurricane Katrina augered.

One of the last of the great emblem books - those popular volumes from the 16th-17th century that instructed through symbolic illustrations - Meteorologia, Philisophico-Politica remains as fresh today as when originally published.

In the tableau above, for instance, the bright, shining city on a hill is under assault by a meteor shower, i.e. the opposition party. It's time to drive the snakes out.

Above, we learn that, not only is it lonely at the top, it's dangerous when the sky thunders and lightning strikes the tower of power. The President may wish to hunker-down and spend the weekend at Camp David away from the tumult.

 

It's an all-out assault on Congress, the pillars of the Capitol struck by angry citizens who strike as bolts of lightning.

 

Meanwhile, inside the House of Representatives all is not well. The primaries have decimated incumbents, slaying careers on the floor of that venerable chamber. As Zeus hurling thunderbolts, the people are pissed-off and no one is safe.

But never fear, Virtue, suppressed for the last four years, will rise and conquer after the election. Then, Virtue will slowly and inevitably be corrupted until, four years later, she resembles a  Gorgon and must be cleansed anew through another wash, rinse, and spin cycle. Afterward, of course, she'll be hung out to dry.

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REINZER, Francisco. Meteorologia Philosophico-Politica, in duodecim Dissertationes per Quaestiones Meteorologicas & conclusiones Politicas divisa, appositisque Symbolis illustrata... Ausburg: J. Wolfus, 1698.

First edition, second printing, rarer than the first printing (of 1697), and subsequent 1709 and 1712 editions, with no copies at auction within  the last thirty-five years.  Folio (12 1/4 x 7 3/4 in; 311 x 197 mm). [6], 297, [5 index], [2 blank] pp. With engraved frontispiece by A.M.Wolffgang after W.J.Kadariza, and eighty-three in-text copperplate emblem engravings  by J.Müller, J.Stridbeck, & J.S.Krauss after W.J. Kadariza.

Praz p. 463. De Backer-Sommervogel IV, 1640.3. Landwehr 494.

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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Napoleon Rides Bareback On Erotic Steed (May Be NSFW)

by Stephen J. Gertz

This  astonishing and keenly amusing original watercolor of a bare-bottomed Napoleon with membre viril exposed riding a horse composed of nude women is being offered at Christie's-Paris during their Collection d'un Amateur Bibliophile sale, Tuesday, October 30, 2012.

What's the estimate for this unique erotic caricature of Napoleon? $21,000 - $27,000. Nappy in flagrante delicto ain't cheap to collecto.

The watercolor, created c. 1810 by an unknown artist in the manner of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, is 232 x 180 mm in size. The draftsmanship is excellent, the arrangement of the women to form a horse with mane and tail is artful and clever, the composition is a sight to delight. It's a minor masterwork.

Napoleon was no stranger to political caricature and this eye-opener, while singular, reflects the contemporary German and English sport of casting Napoleon in the worst possible light.

I'm not sure what the underlying message is in this particular lampoon  - Napoleon, imperial scepter exposed, riding on the backs of women as a commentary on his staying power; Napoleon as a sex-addled emperor; what? - but it is, as they say in Brooklyn, cherce.

This is just one of many fine items of erotica, etc, offered by Christie's. We'll feature more from this sale as it draws close.

In the meantime, Booktryst provides, as a public service, the following advice for horseback riders engaged in l'amour fou à cheval.

Equestrian Safety Tip #1: Men who hold on to their pommel when riding without saddle may feel warm and secure but it will do absolutely no good if the horse rears and/or bolts into a wild gallop. You may hold your own during the ordeal but that won't hold the prospect of flying over the high side at bay.

Equestrian Safety Tip #2: French emperors who bare their buttocks while riding may justifiably be confused with a horse's ass.

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Image courtesy of Christies, with our thanks.
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The 1773 Committee For Tarring and Feathering Invites You To A Tea Party

By Stephen J. Gertz

On November 27, 1773, Philadelphia's Committee For Tarring and Feathering issued a playful yet very stern warning to a British mercantile ship captain that his arrival in the city's harbor might precipitate action by Colonists who harbor ill-will. 

A scarce copy of this extraordinary broadside is being offered by Sotheby's - New York in their Fine Books and Manuscripts sale June 15, 2012. It is expected to sell for $18,000 - $25,000.

The text reads: 

To the Delaware Pilots.

We took the Pleasure, some days since, of kindly admonishing you to do your duty; if perchance you should meet with the (Tea) Ship Polly, CAPTAIN AYRES, a Three Decker which is hourly expected.

We have now to add, that Matters ripen fast here; and that much is expected from those lads who meet with the Tea Ship ---There is some Talk of A Handsome Reward For The Pilot Who Gives The First Good Account Of Her --- How that may be, we cannot for certain determine; But all agree, that Tar and Feathers will be his Portioo, who pilots her into this Harbor. And we will answer for ourselves, that, whoever is committed to us, as an Offender against the Rights of America, will experience the utmost Exertion of our Abilities, as THE COMMITTEE FOR TARRING AND FEATHERING.

P.S. We expect you will furnish yourselves with Copies of the foregoing and following Letter, which are printed for this Purpose, that the Pilot who meets with Captain Ayres may favor him with a Sight of them.

To Captain Ayres,
Of the Ship POLLY, on a voyage from London to Philadelphia.

Sir,

We are informed that you have, imprudently, taken Charge of a Quantity of Tea, which has been sent out by the India Company, under the Auspices of the Ministry, as a Trial of American Virtue and Resolution.

Now, as your Cargo, on your arrival here, will most assuredly bring you into hot water; and as  you are perhaps a Stranger to these parts, we have concluded to advise you that of the present Situation of Affairs in Philadelphia --- that, taking Time by the Forelock, you may stop short in your dangerous Errand --- secure your ship against the Rafts of combustible Matter which may be set on Fire, and turned loose against her; and, more than all this, that you may preserve your own Person, from the Pitch and Feathers that are prepared for you.

In the first Place, we must tell you, that the Pennsylvanians are, to a Man, passionately fond of Freedom, the Birthright of Americans; and that at all events are determined to enjoy it.

That they sincerely believe, no Power on the Face of the Earth has a Right to tax them without their Consent.

That in their Opinion, the Tea in your Custody is designed by the Ministry to enforce such a Tax, which they will undoubtedly oppose; and in so doing give you every possible Obstruction.

We are nominated to a very disagreeable, but necessary Service --- To our Care are committed all Offenders against the Rights of America, and hapless is he, whose evil Destiny has doomed him to suffer at our Hands.

You are sent out out on a diabolical Service, and if you are so foolish and obstinate as to complete your Voyage, by bringing your Ship to Anchor in this Port,  you may run such a gauntlet, as will induce you to, in your last Moments, most heartily to curse those who have made you the Dupe of their Avarice and Ambition.

What think you, Captain, of a Halter around your neck --- ten Gallons off liquid Tar decanted on your Pate --- with the Feathers of a dozen wild Geese laid over that to enliven your Appearance?

Only think seriously of this --- and fly to the Place from whence you came ---fly without Hesitation --- without the Formality of a Protest --- and above all, Captain Ayres, let us advise you to fly without the wild Geese Feathers.

Your Friends to serve,

THE COMMITTEE

The Tea Act of May 10, 1773 was not well-received in the American colonies. In September and October 1773, seven ships carrying a total of 600,000 pounds of East India Company tea were sent to America. Four were bound for Boston, and one each for New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. In every colony except Massachusetts protesters were able to force the tea ships to return to Britain. In Boston, the tea hit the fan.

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Image courtesy of Sotheby's, with our thanks.

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Hey Kids, Viva La Revolucion With Fidel And Che!

By Stephen J. Gertz

Front wrapper.

Madres y Padres! Los hijos falling asleep during El Líder's interminable orations? Are they missing out on the detailed history of the glorious revolucion? Is the ideology of sharing everything they own with everybody else here in our island paradise leading to counter-revolutionary sass? Are you dangerously harboring dissident tikes? State Security sniffing your kids' laundry?

Fear not! Album de la Revolucion Cubana is here!

The Coup of March 10th.

From the voyage of The Gramma returning Tios Fidel, Raul y Che to Cuba from exile in Mexico to spearhead the war against capitalist exploitation in 1956, all the way to Batista's fall, in 1959, every action-packed episode tells of the bravery y cajones of our comrades in the struggle.

Landing of  the "Gramma," the yacht that ferried Fidel,
Raul Castro, and Che Cuevara from Mexico to Cuba
on November 25, 1956.

But, you may ask, how can I acquire this great primer for pre-pubescent Fidelistas when I can't even buy little Juanny a pair of shoes?

Leaders of the Revolucion.

We have heard The People. Album de la Revolucion Cubana is free! Free, I tell you, a gift from The People to The People. Just buy cans of Felices Frutas - "Las Más Exquisitas Frutas Cubanas" - and the album and one of the 268 cards in the set are free! Free, I say! Simply buy 268 cans of Felices Frutas to collect them all for your kids, have them read and mount each in their proper place in the album, and their political credentials are in order!

Think of them as Cuban baseball cards, revolutionary propaganda division. Happy Fruits beget happy children free from the pernicious anxieties associated with opposition politics on the see-saw and jungle bars.

Triumph of the Revolution, Fall of Batista.

Our glorious heroes won the revolucion with guns. Album de la Revolucion Cubana will arm our beautiful angelitos with Marxist-Leninist spirit!

Act now! Don't delay! The future of the revolucion is in the hands of our children. Support our nascent canned fruit industry, support the Revolucion, and prepare our children for life in communal paradise. It's a three-fer for Cuba. Los Cubanos, do your duty!

Advertensia! Children caught defacing the portraits of our leaders in Album de la Revolucioin Cubana by erasing moustaches and beards will be detained for re-education in a reform facility.

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[CHILDREN"S PROPAGANDA]. PICART, J.M. and Mario Jimenez. Album de la Revolucion Cubana: 1952-1959. Habana: Editorial Echevarria, 1959. First edition. Oblong quarto (12 x 8 3/4 inches). 32 pp. 268 numbered picture cards, mounted in numbered space, with printed captions. Drawings by  Capdevila. Pictorial wrappers.

Distributed free to buyers of Felices Frutas. OCLC records a reprint by Habana: Revista Cinegrafico, 1960.

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Images courtesy of Aleph-Bet Books, currently offering this item, with our thanks.
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Richard M. Nixon, Thespian Interpreter Of Ayn Rand

By Stephen J. Gertz

Ronald Reagan was not the only President of the United States who was an actor before entering politics.

On the evening of October 20, 1938, Richard M. Nixon, a year after being admitted to the  bar  and thirty years prior to his election as POTUS, trod the boards as District Attorney Flint for the first of a two night run of the Whittier Community Players' production, staged at the Whittier Woman's Club House, of Night of January 16th, Ayn Rand's courtroom drama,  her first play and a hit on Broadway during the 1935-36 season.

This was the amateur Master Thespian's first bite at potential stage stardom. Later in the year, he co-starred with Thelma "Pat" Ryan as the leads in the Whittier Community Players' production of George S. Kaufman and Alexander Woolcott's mystery-melodrama, The Dark Tower. Following the standard script, the two actors fell in love.

On this night (October 20, not January 16th), however, Nixon limned the role that he would wear as a political mantle, that of a D.A. whose traditional values drive him to prosecute the alluring, independent, atheistic flouter of social standards, Karen Andre (Rand's stand-in), for murder as much for her offense to the social order as her guilt.

The spokesman for the future Silent Majority found his voice in the character, his acting experience preparing him for the second of his six crises (the first as snake pursuing Alger Hiss), his 1952 role as  Vice-Presidential Candidate up against the wall to face dastardly charges of corruption. It was a heart-rending portrayal capped by the schmaltz-shmeared Shakespearean  monologue known as "the Checkers speech" in which he wept havoc and let slip the pooch of war to vanquish his enemies, succeeded, and definitively proved that in politics a honey-baked ham can make it to the big time. In politics, as well as strip-tease, you gotta have a gimmick.

And in dramaturgy, too. Rand's contrivance in Night of January 16th was to have the play's jury chosen from each performance's audience and let them decide the play's ending, "guilty" or "not guilty." Further, Rand left the ultimate truths ambiguous, leaving it up to the actors to decide whether their characters were lying or being honest. - another nod to politicians who often don't know whether they're  honestly lying, lying about being honest, are actually honest, or honestly don't know the difference.

The reviews for this production of Rand's Night of the 16th are lost to history; we don't know whether Nixon laid an egg or, as Ruby Keeler in 42d Street, went out a youngster and came back a star.

"Nixon, you're going out a youngster but you've got to come back a star!"

"Now, take off the dress and lose the hat. You look ridiculous."

Whatever the critics may have thought the footlights agreed with him. 

"One day in 1938, Mrs. Lilly Baldwin, the director of the local amateur theatre group, telephoned me to ask if I would like to play the part of a prosecuting attorney in their upcoming production of Ayn Rand’s courtroom drama, The Night of January 16th. I took the part and thoroughly enjoyed this experience in amateur dramatics" (RN, interview cited by Nixon Foundation).

This choice little piece of ephemera is being offered by Between the Covers as "The PERFECT gift for conservative objectivists." Liberal subjectivists may conscientiously object; it's the perfect gift for the Leftie in your life who needs a good laugh.

We leave you with Our Man Flint's bravura turn as Man On The Ropes; afterward, he was in like Flynn, without the sexual connotation, of course.

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[NIXON, Richard M.]. [RAND, Ayn]. Whittier Comunity Players Present "Night of January 16th" by Ayn Rand. Woman's Club House, October 20 and 21, 1938. Seventeenth Season, First Production. Whittier [California]: Whittier Community Players, 1938. Program for the play.

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Program images courtesy of Between The Covers, with our thanks.
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Death To The Fascist Insect!

By Stephen J. Gertz

It's Death To The Fascist Insect That Preys Upon The Life Of The People Day at Booktryst. On this day thirty-eight years ago, Patty Hearst was on the lam with the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA).

She had, on April  3, 1974, announced that she was now one of them and had adopted the pseudonym "Tania." Now she was in prep for her debut, on April 15, as an urban guerilla bank robber. Death To The Fascist Insect Blah, Blah, Blah, was the SLA's mission statement, radical politics at its buggiest.

In its dehumanization and abstraction of the individual it's a line, however, that Joseph Goebbels would have been proud to call his own, except, of course, for the anti-Fascist part. No little irony there. No matter  the politics,  the wider the division the more they all begin to look, sound, and behave alike until you reach, as here, the absurdum ad reductio, a Fascist anti-Fascist motto that, out of context, reads as a parody of political propaganda. But no laughing matter. When  radical extremists act out individuals tend to die.

The Secularist's Adopted Grandfather
N.p., n.d. [ c. late 19th century].
Handbill with unattributed woodcut.
 
Flanking the woodcut is text reading,
"Secularists, are you proud of your Grandfather?"
and " We should respect our Parentage - Dr. Darwin."
A previous owner has inscribed the words,
"Orang Outang - horrid beast - I am not like you in the least."

And so on this day we celebrate polarization in American politics. It's poisoning our political landscape but makes for entertaining, if somewhat frightening, reading when radicals of both the Right and Left come out to play, commit themselves to their cause in print, and wreak havoc on rational discourse. The fright aspect is heightened when one considers that radical seems to have  become the new mainstream and moderate the new extreme. 

International Workmen's Association. North American
Section, Pacific Coast Division, Organizer's Circular.
[San Francisco]: International Workmen's Association, [c. 1881].

Buried in the text is an offer to members of a "scientific and
comprehensive course of chemistry," i.e. explosives training.

Coincidentally. Lorne Bair, the social and political history rare literature specialist, has just issued a new catalog, delightfully devoted, as usual, to the often strident and out there voices of yesteryear, reminding us that extreme political expression has always been a part of the American character, an All-Terrain Vehicle cycling though the American psychic velodrome. Now, however, the stakes are higher, and we need to get the poles back on the true American path, a bicycle built for two heading in one direction. Good luck and God help us all.

BOYCOTT Campbell's Cream of Exploitation Soup -
In Support of Mid-Western Farm Workers.
Toledo: FLOC [Farm Labor Organizing Committee], c. 1980s.

"Mmmm, Mmmm, [not so] Good."

When Campbell's Soup refused to negotiate with Ohio
farmworkers, a brilliant functionary of FLOC appropriated
Andy Warhol's classic pop image and created a propaganda
poster that sharply crystallized their message without
inflammatory slogans or wild-eyed declarations of evil.
The boycott worked. In 1986, Campbell's finally sat down
and entered into a collective bargaining agreement.

FAGAN, Myron C. Moscow Over Hollywood.
Los Angeles: R.C. Cary, 1948.

Josef Stalin looms over Tinseltown in this, the foundation
document of the Hollywood Blacklist, preceding the notorious
Red Channels by two years.

Note the cinematic chorus line, presumably singing and
dancing their hearts out during a performance of
The International while a sinister director looks on with
satanic satisfaction.

Protection To American Labor and American Industries.
New York: Ballin & Berman, 1888. Silk bandana.

Republican souvenir of the 1888 election, based upon
the campaign's Protection v. Free Trade issue.

Department of Strange Political Metamorphoses:
In 1888, the Republican Party was anti-Free Trade and pro-Labor.
Their Presidential candidate, Benjamin Harrison, won the election.

The Most Exciting Story of the Century Will Be Printed
in the Utica Saturday Globe.
Utica: Utica Saturday Globe, 1889.

The post-Civil War period saw more than one brand
of white-hooded racist. Here, the Utica, NY Globe advertises
a series of exposés based upon an undercover agent's
infiltration of The White Caps, a vigilante group based in
southern Indiana and contiguous counties in Kentucky and
Ohio. By 1900, the White Caps had disbanded or had been
hijacked by local Ku Klux Klan chapters, which, apparently,
believed that their territory wasn't big enough for the both of them. 
How can you tell them apart?

Is There a Pink Fringe in the Methodist Church?
If so, what shall we do about it?
Houston: The Committee For the Preservation of Methodism, 1951.

Exposé of the Methodist Federation for Social Action,
a faith-based organization following the precepts of
Jesus Christ, written by Methodist followers who
had forgotten them in the midst of paranoia.

WHARTON, Charles S. The House of Whispering Hate.
Chicago: Madelaine Mendelsohn, 1932. A presentation copy.

If only the current U.S. House of Representatives
kept their snarls at a whisper.

Actually, a memoir of three years imprisonment at Leavenworth.
But it might just as well been a memoir of three years imprisonment
in Congress, for most of us a fate worse than death.

491 years ago, on April 19, 1521, Martin Luther stood before the Diet of Worms and proclaimed in defense of his convictions, "Here I stand. I can do no other. May God help me. Amen." It is Western Civilization's preeminent statement on individual liberty, conscience, and thought.

Now, however, that eloquent declaration has become debased coin, its currency counterfeit in a culture that has gone mad with self-interest. Martin Luther has transmogrified into Sammy Davis singing I've Got To Be Me (Whether I'm Right. Whether I'm Wrong. What Else Can I Be But Who I Am)," the national conversation deep in schlock-infested waters, the  cacophony of political savagery the diet of worms in the U.S. Diet, leaving the rest of us undernourished.

It's the result of political movements that assert, as Sammy did in that anthem of juvenile yearning, "I won't settle down. I won't settle for less, as long as there's a chance I can have it all."

Calling Dr. Spock...

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All images courtesy of Lorne Bair Rare Books, Manuscripts & Ephemera, with our thanks.
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