Pancho Villa Rides Again Thanks To Mexican Archives

General Pancho Villa in Mexico City in 1914.

(Courtesy of Casasola Archives.)

"Riding with Pancho Villa," a new photography exhibit, has just opened in Abilene, Texas, celebrating the centennial of the Mexican Revolution, and held in conjunction with events honoring the founding of the Republic of Texas (1836-46).

Hosting the events is Frontier Texas!, a nearly seven-acre Disneyland-meets-the-Wild-West historical theme park of sorts, designed to revive "the Old West with the help of state-of-the-art technology." A museum in which visitors can get up close and personal, virtually anyway, with the "people who played out their lives on the Texas frontier." Frontier Texas's "cutting-edge technology puts a visitor in the middle of attacks by Indians and wolves, stampeding buffalo, a card game shootout and a prairie thunderstorm, even a lovely spring evening filled with fireflies." (No word on amusements depicting the fun of Americans attacking and scalping Native Americans.)

Included in this celebration is an exhibit of over 40 rare historical photographs brought to the US by the legendary "outlaw," Francisco "Pancho" Villa's 25-year-old great-grandson, Francisco Villa. It was no simple task to bring these photos to the US from Villa the younger's native Mexico. Due to Mexico's stringent policy regarding protection of it's cultural heritage and artifacts, Villa was required to submit documents signed by authorized US experts guaranteeing that the images were not being imported for sale, but only for temporary exhibit purposes. Fortunately, Villa, being a political science student at Abilene Christian University, was able to secure letters to this effect from the university's Office of Multicultural Enrichment. And the photos made it across the border and into Texas without a hitch.

Pancho Villa's Great Grandson, Francisco Villa (right)
Discusses Exhibit With Frontier Texas! Executive Director Jeff Salmon.
(Photo courtesy of Nellie Doneva, www.reporternews.com.)

Francisco Villa's father, Agustin Villa, had been exhibiting these photos in Mexico City at various museums and other select repositories in his country for the past several years. A decade ago, Francisco began attending school in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. "At some point we decided that since I was going to be here it was a good idea to bring [the photos] to the U.S." for what would be a first-time domestic exhibition.

Pancho Villa is, of course, the legendary Mexican Revolutionary general-"outlaw"-"bandit," killer, revolutionary leader, and folk hero (depending which side of the border you're on), especially revered in his native Mexico. Villa (1878-1923) was justifiably notorious for his unique style of guerrilla-like depredations, several into Texas, most most notably in 1916. His raid on Columbus, New Mexico in 1916, earned him the enmity of the US and lead to the famous year-long ultimately futile "Punitive Expedition" incursion into Mexico by the equally legendary US Army General John J. ("Black Jack") Pershing, at the head of some 4,500 soldiers. ("Old Blood and Guts" General George S. Patton was at the time one of Pershing's aides.)

General John Joseph Pershing With Horse, 1920.
(Courtesy Library of Congress.)

After the Revolution somewhat ended in 1920, Villa, who had briefly semi-retired, once again became active in politics and was assassinated in 1923, under circumstances still clouded in mystery. (Most standard sources claim it was the result of a well-planned conspiracy by Mexican generals with the approval of Mexico's President Álvaro Obregón, who was himself assassinated a few years later.)

The Usual Suspects: (Left To Right) Generals Obregon, Villa and Pershing,
Fateful Meeting at meeting at Ft Bliss, Tx, 1914.
(George S. Patton, Jr., Directly behind Pershing).
(Courtesy www.reporternews.com).

On The Wrong Side of the Gun: Villa Ambushed, July 20, 1923.

(Courtesy www.latinamericanstudies.org.)

Pancho Villa led a rich, extensively documented life, well at odds with what Americans at the time thought of as respectable. Francisco Villa says of his great-grandfather "He had two things he really liked - women and cock fights." Yes, he loved the women: (And he AND his women presumably loved cocks.) roping in some 20-23 wives, several of whom he tied the knot with simultaneously. (Francisco's great-grandmother, Manuela Casas, married Villa around 1920.)

The exhibit, is comprised of photos acquired from the Casasola Archives, widely acclaimed as the most richly detailed collection of images documenting Mexico's history in the early 20th century. Agustín Casasola (1874-1928), was a photographer and author who created Mexico's first press agency in 1911, and in 1917 published the famous Album histórico gráfico, which was intended to be a complete photographic record of the Mexican Revolution. (Unfortunately only the first six volumes, covering 1910-1912, were actually published.) The Casasola collection, well over 500,000 prints and negatives, is now housed at the Casasola Archives at the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.

Of all the photographs, the one most treasured by Francisco is an image of Pancho Villa surrendering after a bloody ten-year campaign against the Mexican government. He says, "You can see in his face that he is not tired, he understands he must go through another way. You can tell [his soldiers] are burned from the desert, they are all dirty."

Pancho Villa And Soldiers Sign Act of Surrender, July 28, 1920.
(Courtesy www. latinamericanstudies.org.)

Captions for the Frontier Texas! exhibit are, appropriately, bilingual with text in both English and Spanish, each accompanied with a quote from one of Villa's biographies. Jeff Salmon, executive director of Frontier Texas!, says of this exhibit: "it allows us to show a piece of history that deserves discussion. Although Villa is a controversial figure to many - it was a very important time in history. The photos are a fascinating look at a particular time and place in history."

Also highlighted in the exhibit are documents relating to the bicentennial of Diez y Seis de Septiembre (Sept. 16, 1810), when Mexico won its freedom from Spain. The exhibit continues at Frontier Texas until May 28, 2010. Other activities in this celebration are listed on the Frontier Texas! homepage. If successful, Francisco Villa and his family hope to take the exhibit on tour across Texas and the US. Pancho Villa had at least 23 children with various wives, so more great-grandchildren are bound to turn up somewhere on the exhibit's ride.

Posted by Nancy Mattoon

Medical Library's Contagious Exhibit Sure To Go Viral

She may be…a bag of TROUBLE. Syphilis – Gonorrhea.

U.S. Public Health Service,United States, 1940s.
Photomechanical print: color; 41 x 51 cm. Artist: "Christian."
A sultry, heavily-made-up woman squints provocatively, while smoking a cigarette. WWII posters usually addressed men, and fingered promiscuous women as the source of contagion.

They are an unholy alliance of science, art, medicine, politics, history, advertising, and propaganda. Dramatic images use visual shorthand to convey danger, disease, and death. Shadows, crowds, skeletons, vermin, blob-like micro-organisms, and sinister sick-o's threaten innocent men, women, and children. But these aren't posters for grindhouse horror flicks from the fabulous 50's. They're government issue placards pleading for public health.

Chinese Anti-Tuberculosis Society, 1935.
Translation: "Mistakes are difficult to avoid. Mistakes can be corrected once people realize their errors; and people can be forgiven, if the mistake is not committed again. In spite of government efforts, the average person still does not think spitting is wrong. Any time, any place. Spit once, spit again. Not only does this lack public morality, but, if the phlegm contains the TB bacillus, this can spread thousands upon thousands of bacilli. Spit, on the ground, or on common tools, is inhaled into the lungs. People next to you don't know or feel it, but can catch the disease. TB is rampant in our country because of the error of spitting anywhere. This is unforgivable! If you have the habit, please stop doing it. Spit into a handkerchief and boil it, or spit into paper and burn it. This not only ensures virtue but is a gift to mankind."

The Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (CPNAS) and the National Library of Medicine (NLM) of the National Institutes of Health have teamed up to create an exhibit of 22 posters from around the globe, the creme de contagion culled from a collection of hundreds of compelling commercials created to curtail communicable killers. An Iconography of Contagion proves that every trick in Madison Avenue's persuasive playbook was purloined by medical professionals to stem the tide of spitting, sneezing, screwing around, smoking, and other socially suspect steps certain to spread sickness.

Rotten er en Landeplage. (Rats are a plague on the land.)
Statens Annonce & Reklamebureau, Denmark, 1946.
Color lithograph; 54 x 86 cm.
Artist: Aage Rasmussen (1913-1975).
A rat crawls over a map of Denmark. The caption reads "Anmeld straks Rottebesog paa kommunekontoret-og Bekæmp selv med alle midler." ("Immediately tell the city authorities if you have rats in your house, and use all possible means to exterminate them").

The first goal of the health poster is to attract the viewer’s attention. Through seduction, entertainment, annoyance, or fear, the images and words on the poster must capture the intended audience. Once heeded, it is hoped the message of the campaign will exert a powerful effect on behavior. Through a combination of argument and imagery, the content will persuade the populace to carry a handkerchief, see a doctor, get an x-ray, practice safer sex, drink only clean water, destroy disease-carrying vermin, get vaccinated, stop smoking, exercise, and practice good nutrition.

She may look clean, but…pick-ups, "good time" girls, prostitutes spread syphilis and gonorrhea.
U.S. Public Health Service,United States, 1940s.
Photomechanical print: color; 37 x 51 cm.
An appealing, seemingly innocent, young woman smiles. Three men, a sailor, a civilian and a soldier, look toward her.

Despite depicting the most dangerous and dire consequences of dreaded diseases, the posters were not without a certain sense of positivity. NLM exhibit curator Michael Sappol says the exhibit reflects a time when medical professionals believed that the creation of compelling images would be "the scientific and modern way to conquer disease and build a better society." Public-health art exploded during World War II, when governments poured money into campaigns designed to defeat the enemy as well as disease, often combining the two until they were indistinguishable. The tagline of one poster, produced by the U.S. Public Health Service in the 1940s, reads: "You can't beat the Axis if you get VD." The posters also reveal the twisted sexual politics of the era: susceptible soldiers are seduced by sirens serving sex with a side of syphilis.

Man-Made Malaria. 6 mosquitoes in 10 breed in water in unnecessary ruts, abandoned roads, blocked ditches, fox and shell holes.
U.S. Navy, Bureau of Medicine & Surgery, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1945.
Photomechanical print: color; 21 x 23 cm.
War-time U.S. military health campaigns often conflated the Japanese enemy with disease-carrying flies and mosquitoes. Here, an anopheles mosquito is given the stereotypical features of the Japanese enemy and has the rising sun of the Japanese imperial flag on his wings.

Scientific advances in the 1950s, antibiotics, the polio vaccine, made public health posters seem passe. The general populace believed drugs and technology would quickly eradicate all the plagues of humankind. Then, in the 1980s, a new incurable killer came knocking. "AIDS blew a giant hole in that belief," says Sappol. HIV/AIDS posters took advantage of the more liberal social climate, and selected salty language and saucy images to sell safe sex. They took a stab at soothing irrational fears, too, assuring a panicked public that casual contact couldn't cause contamination. "Don't worry about what you'll pick up at work," says the text of a poster showing a hand touching a coffee cup, and reaching for a towel and a wrench.

Don’t worry about what you’ll pick up at work.
Health Education Authority, Great Britain, 1980s.
Photomechanical print: color; 60 x 42 cm.A series of ominous photos of darkly-lit human hands touching or grasping for objects commonly used in the workplace. The caption reassures the public that hands and the objects they touch are not carriers of the AIDS contagion.

Discover safer sex.
Terrence Higgins Trust, London, mid-1980s.
Photomechanical print: color; 42 x 60 cm.
This poster, from the Love Sexy, Love Safe campaign, shows an intimate scene of a couple in bed. A tattooed man places his head between the legs of a sexually indeterminate partner. The precise nature of the activity is playfully obscured. Against the stigmatization of gay sex and AIDS sufferers as a source of contagion, and a larger atmosphere of panic, the poster presents sexual activity in a positive light and urges the use of reasonable measures to make sex safe.

Infectious diseases form a chain that links not just all of humanity, but all living things. They do not discriminate, they affect every individual and every population. They have shattered societies and eliminated entire economies. They have changed history by determining the outcome of warfare, destroying the demography of nations, and creating social unrest. They still make headlines every day, and remain mysterious despite scientific breakthroughs. We remain vulnerable to new illnesses in spite of all of our education and technology. Malaria still kills more than 1 million people a year; AIDS has taken more than 25 million lives. Little has changed since 1934, when Hans Zinsser wrote in his classic study, Rats, Lice and History: "Infectious disease is one of the great tragedies of living things – the struggle for existence between different forms of life."

Tuberkulose undersogelse –en borgerpligt (Tuberculosis examination – a citizen’s duty.)
Copenhagen, Denmark, 1947.
Color lithograph; 62 x 85 cm.
Designer/artist: : Henry Thelander (fl. 1902-1986).
Lithographers: Andreasen & Lachmann.
A shadow couple happily walks arm in arm. In the background, the abstract form of a modernist building, looking like an arrow and suggesting a statistical increase, is labeled Folke-tuberkulose undersogelse.

La course a la mort. (The race with death.)
Ligue Nationale Française contre le Peril Venerien, France, ca. 1926.
Color lithograph; reproduction of a pastel drawing; 69 x 88 cm.
Artist: Charles Emmanuel Jodelet (1883-1969).
Death watches a thoroughbred race of deadly diseases. The statistics below compare the annual mortality rates of tuberculosis, syphilis
and cancer.

"An Iconography of Contagion," began life as a short term exhibition in Washington, D.C. Now in a trend that appears to be infectious, the National Library of Medicine has made the exhibit a permanent online feature of its website. The posters served a deadly serious purpose, but have an artistic legacy, as well. As curator Michael Sappol puts it: "they're also about the pleasure of the image. There have been some very sexy, colorful, playful posters about some very serious diseases."

Posted by Nancy Mattoon

Purdue Library Celebrates Wind Beneath Earhart's Wings

George Palmer Putnam and Amelia Earhart, circa 1935.

(All photos courtesy of Purdue University libraries.)

The modern "manufacturing" of celebrities involves finding a camera-friendly face and figure with a charismatic personality, plus an indefinable personal magnetism, and using the power of mass media to create an overnight sensation. Result? A legion of people famous for being famous. Accomplishment is no longer a prerequisite for stardom: savvy promotion trumps talent. But a new exhibit at Purdue University's Virginia Kelly Karnes Archives and Special Collections Research Center proves this phenomenon existed far earlier than the advent of "reality T.V." America's most famous female flyer, Amelia Earhart, might have been just another part-time pilot without the publicity push of her publisher-husband, George Palmer Putnam.

To be fair, Amelia Earhart was a pioneer in aviation prior to meeting her personal P.T. Barnum, but she was completely unknown outside of flying circles. In 1922, she set an unofficial aviation record as the first female pilot to fly above 14,000 feet, and in 1923 she became the first woman, and seventeenth pilot, to receive a National Aeronautic Association pilot’s license. But by 1924 she had sold her plane and given up flying, primarily due to family financial struggles.

Amelia Earhart's Pilot's License Photo, circa 1922.

After Charles Lindbergh's historic 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic, a wealthy dilettante, Amy Phipps Guest, became enthralled with the idea of being the first female to cross the ocean by air. She purchased a tri-motor Fokker aircraft and planned to hire a crew to take her on the flight. (Guest would travel as a passenger rather than a pilot.) Once the dangers and hardships of early air travel became all too apparent, Amy Phipps Guest wisely grounded herself, and instead offered to finance the solo voyage of "another girl with the right image." Enter book publisher and publicist George Palmer Putnam, grandson of famed publishing company founder G.P. Putnam, who was tasked with finding a woman with "the right stuff," and polishing, packaging and promoting a promising pilot into a planetary-circumnavigating star.

Amelia Earhart was in her second year as a social worker at Boston's Denison House when she received a call from Putnam's partner in the piloting project, Hilton H. Railey. Would she be interested in becoming the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air? An interview with Railey and Putnam followed, and Earhart passed the audition to become a passenger aboard the "Friendship," a FokkerF.VII.b/3m, piloted by Wilmer Stultz and co-piloted Louis "Slim" Gordon. The three departed from Newfoundland on June 17, 1928, and landed in Wales exactly 20 hours and 40 minutes later. When interviewed after landing, Amelia said, "Stultz did all the flying...had to. I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes. Maybe someday I'll try it alone."

Amelia In Her Flight Suit And Helmet, circa 1928.

Thanks to Putnam's P.R. machine, she soon gained international acclaim for being the first woman to make the transatlantic crossing by air. Pilots Stultz and Gordon were ignored by the press, and even President Coolidge cabled his congratulations to Amelia, personally. Upon her return to America, the woman who was a passenger-not a pilot-received a ticker-tape parade through the streets of New York City. Her book documenting the flight, 20 Hrs. 40 Mins., complete with an editing polish from Putnam, was published by (surprise!) G.P. Putnam's Sons, in 1928.

George Putnam and company made sure Amelia's name stayed in the headlines. His partner in publicity, H.H. Railey, noted Amelia's many physical similarities to Lindbergh: both were tall and slender, with high cheekbones and an easy, "aw shucks" kind of grace that telegraphed down-home humility. Railey made sure his nickname for Amelia, "Lady Lindy," became a staple of newsmen on both sides of the Atlantic. Amelia accepted a job as "Aviation Editor" of Cosmopolitan Magazine, ensuring plenty of ink for the pioneering passenger. Putnam arranged non-stop lecture tours for his media darling to promote her book. His accompaniment of Earhart on the lecture circuit led to a less glowing form of publicity: gossip. Putnam was a married man.

Lucky Strike Cigarette Endorsement, 1928.

Handwritten annotation reads: "Is this the face of a lady? What price glory!"

In addition to making her a media icon for women in aviation, Putnam was savvy enough to see that "Amelia Earhart" was a marketable brand name. Some of the product endorsements he chose for her made perfect sense: a line of "Modernaire Earhart Luggage" was a no-brainer. And the "A.E." line of women's fashions sold at Macy's consisted of wrinkle-free, easy-care sportswear perfect for the active, modern woman. Other products were more of a stretch: a magazine ad campaign for Lucky Strike cigarettes saw the money earmarked for charity to diffuse the ire of non-smokers, one of whom was Amelia, herself.

Not all of the gigs Putnam arranged for Amelia were unrelated to aviation. In 1929, Earhart was appointed Assistant to the General Traffic Manager at Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT), with a special responsibility of attracting women passengers. Earhart invested time and money in setting up TAT's regional shuttle service between New York City and Washington, D.C. The move paid off when the early commercial airline continued to expand, and eventually became know as Trans World Airlines. Only once did Amelia refuse to navigate according to Putnam's flight plan: he wanted to put her likeness on a small medal marketed for children. Amelia nixed the plan saying: "Forget it, George. I won't be a part of cheating youngsters. Adults are supposed to know better, but not kids."

A Publicity Shot, circa 1932.
Palmer instructed Earhart to "keep her mouth shut" to hide a gap-toothed smile.

By the end of 1929, Putnam's wife, Dorothy Binney, wealthy heiress to the Crayola crayon fortune, decided it was time for her to fly solo. She obtained a quickie divorce in Reno, leaving Putnam free to take his business partnership with Amelia personal. The only problem was, Earhart wanted to continue flying more than she wanted to be Mrs. George Putnam. She refused Putnam's proposal six times before finally accepting, but only on her own terms. She would retain the name "Amelia Earhart," the marriage would be "an equal partnership with dual control by both breadwinners," and neither partner would be bound by "any midaeval [sic] code of faithfulness." Most importantly, Amelia would continue to advance her career in aviation. All of this was recorded in a shockingly modern prenuptial agreement. Having hammered out the contract, the marriage took place on February 7, 1931 at the home of Putnam's mother in Noank, Connecticut.


The newlyweds went without a honeymoon, as Putnam had contracted Amelia to make a cross-country tour promoting Beech-nut gum and the Pitcairn Autogiro Company. The tour ended in California, which worked out well for the new couple. Putnam had sold his interest in the publishing company to his cousin Palmer, and accepted a position as head of the editorial board of Paramount Pictures. So the P.R. genius ended up just where he belonged, in Hollywood. Putnam and Earhart remained an unconventional couple, bound together by practicality more than love. But Putnam kept his part of the bargain, and never interfered with Amelia's passion for aviation, despite the danger he knew it entailed.

Going Hollywood, 1932. Amelia Shows Actress Claudette Colbert The Bracelet She Wore While Crossing The Atlantic.

Just as with the 1928 flight Amelia took as a passenger, by 1932 Putnam was well aware that a woman would soon pilot a plane across the Atlantic, emulating Lindbergh. Putnam wanted Amelia to be that woman, as much as Earhart yearned for the honor herself. On May 20, 1932, exactly 5 years after the Lindbergh flight, Amelia's modified Lockheed Vega began the journey. Earhart set off from Newfoundland and after a flight lasting 14 hours, 56 minutes, and plagued by mechanical problems and icy weather conditions she landed in Northern Ireland. Upon completing this flight, Amelia became the first woman (and second person) to fly solo across the Atlantic. She also became the first person to cross the Atlantic twice by air nonstop, setting a record for the fastest Atlantic crossing and the longest distance ever flown by a woman.



In July of 1932, she set the women’s record for the fastest non-stop transcontinental flight, flying from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey. In 1935, Amelia became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the American mainland, landing in Oakland, California. With this flight, she also became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean and the first person who had flown solo across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. That same year, she became the first person to fly solo from Los Angeles to Mexico City, by official invitation of the Mexican government.

Lei-Over: Amelia Earhart In Hawaii In 1935, Preparing To Cross The Pacific.

Purdue University President Edward C. Elliott invited Amelia Earhart to joined the university's faculty as a career counselor for women interested in non-traditional occupations, and as an adviser to the Department of Aeronautics. The university funded the purchase of what she called her "flying laboratory," a Lockheed Electra airplane that was to be used for her greatest flying adventure to date: a round-the world-flight at the equator. Her initial attempt at circumnavigating the globe, flying westward from Oakland to Hawaii, ended with a crash on the island of Oahu. The badly damaged plane had to be sent to California for repairs. On June 1, Amelia began her second global flight attempt, taking off from Miami with navigator Fred Noonan, traveling from west to east. After completing 22,000 miles of the flight, Earhart and Noonan left New Guinea en route to tiny Howland Island. They hit bad weather, and lost radio contact with the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca on July 2, 1937. Despite a massive search authorized by the U.S. government, no trace of Earhart, Noonan, or their plane was ever found. George Putnam financed his own search for his missing wife until October 1937. In 1939, Amelia Earhart was declared legally dead in Los Angeles.

Proof of Book Cover June 30, 1937. The Title Would Be Changed From World Flight To Last Flight When Earhart Vanished.

Putnam published a book of journal entries from the fatal flight which had been planned when Amelia began her initial attempt at a flight around the equator. The book was to have been titled World Flight but was printed under the title Last Flight. Most historians agree that Putnam wrote much of the book himself, a tribute to the woman whose place in history he helped to secure.

After his wife's disappearance, Putnam donated thousands of letters, maps, documents, flight plans, and even Amelia's flight suits, helmets, and personal items from her flight kits, such as makeup and smelling salts, to the Purdue University Library, where these items comprise the George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers. The exhibit, which opened on March 1, 2010, Amelia Earhart: The Aviator, the Advocate, and the Icon, draws upon the world's largest collection of Earhart artifacts, housed at the Virginia Kelly Karnes Archives and Special Collections Research Center in West Lafayette, IN. It is the first time such as exhibit has been mounted since 2003, and opens as a celebration of both Amelia Earhart and Women's History Month. Most of the collection has also been digitized, so it is available online for those unable to grab a flight to the Hoosier State. Almost 75 years since his wife disappeared without a trace, public relations genius George Palmer Putnam is still keeping Amelia Earhart in the public eye.

Posted by Nancy Mattoon

Pengiun to Publish Apocryphal Boswell MS. on Samuel Johnson?

Samuel Johnson in 1775, by Joshua Reynolds,
reading, with no little consternation, Boswell's
unpublished, other biography of him.

With the emergence of monsters reimagined into classic literature – Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sense and Sensibility and Sea-Monsters, and the upcoming Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter – it’s easy to forget that during full moons, Samuel Johnson, the most distinguished man of letters in English history, grew hirsute, lustful, and howled. Samuel Johnson, Werewolf?

No. As told by his amanuensis, James Boswell, it is the book he dared not publish in his lifetime from a manuscript long thought apocryphal or lost, The Other Life of Samuel Johnson.

Johnson, it turns out, was a deeply conflicted man who split his existence into two spheres, the Apollonian and Dionysian.

While working on his Dictionary of the English Language, he was simultaneously compiling a lexicon of sexual slang with particular attention to the acronym associated with for unwarranted carnal knowledge in all its variations, as well as the tender and not so tender nouns of the female mound and its environs.

And, as he wrote Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Johnson scribbled Lives of the Most Eminent English Buggers.

Johnson was doomed from the start: His father owned a book shop and with depraved indifference exposed his son to the printed word at an early age and thus condemned him to a life of reading and writing. Some parents are monsters. While there is as yet no direct proof, it is well-known that excessive reading causes scrofula, the tubercular disease of the lymph nodes that plagued Johnson in his early life. Surgical excision left him scarred on face and body, which from his perspective left him a hideous beast. He would, for the rest of his life, desperately try to keep the beast hidden away, caged in a corner of his mind. But the beast was strong and fearsome, and it would periodically escape the ganglia of neurons that tightly held it at bay to terrorize his quotidian self and those around him.

When his friend, Harry Porter, died, the widow took a shine to the twenty-five year old man twenty-one years her junior. Old broad, young buck: She saw the beast within and was delighted.

“A little travelin’ music, Sammy,” she’d exclaim when flushed with desire. Few are aware that Jackie Gleason’s classic, signature stage exit line has its origins with Johnson’s wife, Tetty.

Words, words, words; okay, the man cold write and liked to do so. But words won’t ease a gentle, restless soul or nourish the savage beast that shares office space with it.

And so, eleven years after meeting Boswell, Johnson is swingin’ through the Hebrides wielding a broadsword while dressed in Scottish drag and engaging in a highland fling as Boswell, the voyeur, takes notes. Where was YouTube when it was needed most to catch the raunchy Tory in all his glory?

Books rights to The Other Life of Samuel Johnson were recently acquired by Penguin, which appears to have cornered the market on classics gone wild. As print-ad tag-line for their series of resurrected classics, Pengiun exclaims, with a demented glee usually associated with Dr. Victor Frankenstein, “They’re alive! Alive!"

Johnny Depp has shown interest in acquiring the movie rights.

The book and film’s working title? Dr. Johnson and Mr. Hyde.

__________

Art Center To Fill Acres of Books Site

A rendering of the proposed Art Exchange project.
(Photo credit: Rodolfo_M)

When Acres of Books, the legendary used and rare book shop that for seventy-four years provided Southern California book lovers and literati with a place to get joyously lost in and, ultimately, became a designated cultural landmark, closed in 2008 the grief was profound.

Acres of Books in Long Beach, CA, at the time of its closing in 2008.

Now, the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency Board has approved the final environmental impact report allowing Art Exchange, an art-driven facility where visitors can watch local artists create, buy art and attend classes, to be built.

Acres of Books in its heyday.
Though not a wide shop, it was deeeeep.

If a book shop has to close, I can’t think of a better way to fill the space that Acres of Books sat upon than by opening a local art center.

A partial view of the front section of Acres of Books.

And what a space it was. With an inventory of one million - yes, one million - volumes Acres of Books, established by respected rare book man Bertram Smith in 1934, was a vast Elysium of everything between two covers. Art Exchange will incorporate the front 5,000 square feet of the original, Art Deco facade of Acres of Books. That front section was reasonably easy to find your way around. When I began in the trade as a scout twenty-five years ago, I would stop into Acres of Books twice a month and stay the entire day. Why? It was the back 5,000 square feet that often yielded the best finds. Not a book shop with standard amenities - like bright lighting and air-conditioning - the back room, more of a humongous warehouse than annex, was filled with books in only the most basic order. You never knew what you’d find, and if you had to spend four hours going through only a small part of the thousands of dusty books with a flashlight to find a gem, so be it. It was worth it.

Bert Smith established Acres of Books
in Cincinnati, OH before moving to California.

It was worth my fingertips getting so dried-out from handling the books and dust that they would crust, split, and bleed. It got to the point where I began to wear surgical gloves while going through the books.

The rear annex of Acres of Books.
The photographer has used a strobe to light this shot.
Reality check: The florescent lights above were not
sufficient to illuminate anything must less a book's spine.
All treasures were buried in darkness.
Note the length of this aisle: Plenty of distance for
a small plane to take off and land.

At the time, I was specializing in erotica, sexology and curiosa and would always ask Jackie, Bert's granddaughter-in-law, if she had anything more than what was on the shelves. After a few months of visits and inquiries that she gracefully answered, I finally won her trust. The next time I showed up, she took me into one of the back rooms to a small, padlocked shed within. She unlocked it, opened the door, and switched on the single overhead bulb.

“The scat room,” she said. And she left me alone.

Inside were wall-to-wall, floor to ceiling shelves of rare, vintage smut and classic sex studies. Best part? The books were priced as they were originally before the shed door was sealed to the public. Four books I knew were worth $150-$200 each. Price? Fifteen dollars apiece. I suspect Acres of Books paid no more than a couple of dollars each for them, if that much. I walked out with six boxes of books, sold two books right away and covered my investment. I felt like a bandit. I suspect the Smiths were quite satisfied with their return. Oh yeah, the hours spent there were worth it.

Ray Bradbury adored Acres of Books. At the time of its
closing he said, "I love this place. I love the smell of it.
When it used to rain...I'd come to Long Beach, I'd
come here to the Acres of Books and I'd go in the back."

It was that experience that reinforced the notion that it might be possible to earn a living selling used and rare books.

The new Art Exchange will stand on hallowed ground. If they called the project Acres of Art, I don’t think anyone would object. Acres of Books put Long Beach, California on the map of international book attractions. With 10,500 square feet of space, perhaps Art Exchange, part of a larger arts development, will become a similar mecca.
________

Photo of Ray Bradbury courtesy L.A. Observed, which has a fine memorial to Acres of Books featuring Bradbury.

Hugh Hefner, Teen Cartoonist

The playboy of the Western World at age 16.
Jane Sellers and Hugh Hefner, 1943.

They dated each other’s best friend when they were in high school together in Chicago. When Jane Sellers moved to California in 1943 her sixteen year-old school pal, Hugh Hefner, began writing to her. Their friendship and correspondence endured for sixty years.

July 2, 1943. "When I said I was a man of liesure
(I still don't know whether I'm spelling this right)
I wasn't kiddin." Many of Hef's letters to
Jane Sellers at this time were festooned
with cartoons in the margins.

“At 16, I knew he was destined to do amazing things, so I saved every scrap of paper he ever sent or gave me,” Jane Sellers later said.

Recording For Jane.
"Please excuse opposite side of this paper
- but the only thick paper that I have like
this has zoology on the other side. Sorry!"

Hefner, the student council president at Steinmetz High School, was voted Most Likely to Succeed, Most Popular Boy, Best Orator, Best Dancer, Class Humorist, and Most Artistic. He would bring his humor and artistic talent to bear on a series of cartoons depicting daily life at Steinmetz.

My Day.

"We would go by his house to see who which of our boyfriends were cheating," Sellers recalls. Hefner, apparently, took notes during the day about what his classmates were wearing and doing and sketched them in the evening, a new strip every night detailing school events. The strip was titled School Daze.

The Gang.

The strips are just a small part of Jane Sellers’ Hefner archive, which was acquired by rare book dealer Ian Kahn of Lux Mentis. I asked Kahn how he wound up snagging this singular collection.

A Typical Hefner Day at Steinmetz. At lower right, Hef
(he was calling himself that in High School)
writes "See Portrait of Hugh on Back."

“I was called over to examine a scholarly Egyptology collection owned by a lovely (and somewhat ‘glam’) octogenarian. I couldn’t help but notice that she had an entire bookcase of Playboy-related material (books, records, and many binders). I figured that she had been a bunny circa 1958 or so. I finally worked up the courage to ask her why she had what appeared to be a very large Playboy collection. She said, "Oh, Hef and I went to school together...I dated his best friend and he dated mine. We've been friends for 60 years or so. I really need to do something with the collection, too." One thing lead to another and I ended up cataloguing it and am working on placement.”

Hef as soft-shell clam: Self-Portrait,
on back of My Typical Day at Steinmetz.

In addition to the comic strips, the collection includes 166 multi-page typed or autograph letters; books on and about Hefner; invitations to various parties at the Playboy mansion; news clippings on and about Hefner; Playboy music; form S-1 for Playboy’s IPO; the first issue of Playboy, signed (twice) by Hefner; unique photographs; and much more.

"Here I am, goin' home after a hard day's work
at school, on the Star, and practicing the play.
(I get home around 6)."

“It is, Kahn asserts, “ simply put, the deepest and most personal collection of material related to arguably the most significant cultural icon of the 20th century.”

Playboy issue #1. Contemporaneously signed by Hef
with his high school cartoon self-image,
perhaps the ONLY Hefner signature
to not feature his standard bunny doodle.

_________

A pdf of the full catalog of Jane Sellers' Hefner archive is available for the asking:

Lux Mentis, Booksellers
Antiquarian & Fine First Editions - Specializing in Library/Collection Development
110 Marginal Way, #777
Portland, ME, 04101
207-329-1469
http://www.luxmentis.com
Member ABAA/ILAB

New Swiss Library Will Run Like Clockwork

A Bird's Eye View Of The Rolex Learning Center.

(All Images Courtesy Of SANAA.)

Viewed from above it looks like a flat, wavy rectangle full of randomly placed holes-- and it's Swiss. A cheesy description, perhaps, but one that fits a glorious modernist library which opened on February 22, 2010 in the city of Lausanne. The Japanese architectural firm known as SANAA has created a single-story, slice-like structure so sublimely constructed it seems to float above the ground.

Lausanne's Floating Library.

The Rolex Learning Center for the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) is a single fluid space that undulates like free-flowing waves over 20,000 square meters (just over 215,000 square feet) of inner city real estate. But the deliberately park-like structure makes a densely populated metropolitan area feel like the rolling hills and fertile valleys in the foothills of the nearby Alps. Almost entirely free of interior walls, long sweeping vistas seem to erase the distinction between indoors and outdoors. There is simply never ending space.

A Library Without Walls.

Light is brought in through the Swiss-cheese holes in the roof, and the pristine whiteness of the concrete surfaces creates a snowy plane, airy, bright, and infinite. The result is a communal space without fixed function. A softly curvy, feminine expanse without hierarchies or straight lines. A series of calm and silent connected spaces created to nurture collaboration, communication, and cooperation over competition. Library, offices, restaurants, and auditoriums are harmoniously linked between a cloud-like canopy above, and a floor that gently rises and falls like a living organism as it inhales and exhales. "Human movements are not linear like in a train, but curve in a more organic way," said architect Ryue Nishizawa, one-half of team SANAA, explaining his vision. "With straight lines we only create crossroads, but with curves we can create more diverse interactions."

Feminine Curves, No Straight Lines.

Not surprisingly, given the organic flavor of this delectable architectural dish, the other cook in SANAA's creative kitchen is Kayuyo Sejima, Japan's premiere female architect. She explains how the duo found the recipe to create a product both nourishing of creativity and pleasing to the eye: "We asked ourselves: what kind of space can a lot of people, doing different activities at the same time, enjoy being in? After we had the final shape, we used stairs and ramps from Lausanne and the Swiss landscape as precedents to learn how the gentle slopes can be used and enjoyed. We imagined that this type of open space might increase the possibility for new meetings or trigger new activities. In comparison to traditional study spaces, where corridors and classrooms are clearly separated, we hope that there will be many different ways to use the new space and that there will be more active interaction, which in turn will trigger new activities."

A Wavy Structure, Full of Holes.

The Rolex Learning Center is as innovative technologically as it is architecturally, befitting its function as an engineering and computer science library for one of the world's leading scientific universities. Highly energy efficient, the center uses almost entirely natural light, with carefully controlled fresh-air ventilation systems. High-quality double-glazed windows and ceiling and floor insulation help save energy. Engineers initially said the huge wavy structure, with 14 open "holes" in the ceiling to let in light, was unbuildable, as the height and load ratios suggested it could not hold its own weight.

Engineering Innovations Concealed By Surpassing Beauty.

The engineer's audacious solution to the support problem was to build the entire structure atop invisible, underground bridges. The unseen groundwork holding up this wood, steel, and glass landscape is the most ingenious part of the building. Laser-cut concrete forms positioned using GPS technology create two concrete shells held aloft by fifteen arches, which are anchored to 70 underground cables. Architecture that appears seamless is actually bolstered by "the flattest concrete arches ever built." A tailor-made, cleverly concealed, and incredibly flattering foundation garment is the unseen element without which this building's haute couture perfection would collapse.

An Organic Structure, As Natural As The Landscape.

The Rolex Learning Center can accommodate 860 students, and has office space for over 100 EPFL employees. A multimedia section gives access to 10,000 online journals and 17,000 e-books, while 10 teaching area "bubbles" may be used for seminars, group work, and meetings. The Rolex Forum, an amphitheater with a 310 square-meter stage, may be used for larger events. Restaurants, cafes and outdoor patios complete the RLC, as it is known on campus. The building is open from 7 am to midnight every day. "It's very audacious, but that was the aim. We needed to invent new spaces," explained EPFL President Patrick Aebischer. "We want to become one of the best institutes of technology in the world, so we needed this kind of flagship building." On opening day, one onlooker remarked that students might be intimidated by the structure's sheer beauty: "The risk is that they feel it's like a cathedral. It’s so magical it will take time to get used to it."

Posted by Nancy Mattoon