Stamp Out (my) Ignorance, Please....

On 6/11/05 2:02 PM, in article
, "Conan The Librarian"
wrote:

Wolfgang wrote:

"Conan The Librarian" wrote in message
oups.com...

That reminds me, did I tell y'all about the Dobie Collection that
we've got down here at (Southwest) Texas State? Interesting stuff,
that.

I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think so. However, I believe I read
something about it recently......um......Nicholas Basbane's "A Gentle
Madness", if I'm not mistaken.

Please tell me more.

Now, why would you go and use such a phrase when corresponding with
Wolfgang? You ought to know better!

Wolfgang
great......that's all a ****in' junky needs.......another pusher!

I can't speak for Claspy, but I'm just trying to help.

Our breed is just too helpful! I believe the term is "enabler".

B

"Conan The Librarian" wrote in message
oups.com...

Please tell me more.

Well, first of all, Bill was right.

Looks like I was wrong about Basbanes. The only mention of Dobie in "A
Gentle Madness" (at least, according to the index) is on page 346, in a
chapter titled "Instant Ivy," wherein Basbanes mentions Dobie as one of
nineteen notable people (including Erle Stanley Gardner, John Foster Dulles
and the Hoblitzelles) for whom rooms in the HRC at Austin are named. I
won't bore you with the details of what Basbanes has to say about H.H.
Ransom and the HRC......you probably know a great deal more about it than I
do......or than Basbanes, for that matter.

As for "A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion
for Books," the subtitle says it all.......well, or SHOULD anyway. In a
book of 533 pages (minus what Kevin Jackson refers to as "invisible
forms"{*}), you'd think a competent and conscientious author could pretty
much cover the material. Unfortunately (at least from my perspective),
Basbanes restricts himself, with one glaring exception, to serious
collectors of means and purpose. Aside from brief mentions of a few
noteworthy examples, he mostly ignores the crackpot TRUE bibliomanes (not to
mention bibliphages) in favor of a fuller treatment of those who have
collected with a passion, more or less good taste, and a good deal of focus.
The intriguing and adorable basket-cases who are found rotted or dessicated
under a collapsed stack some two to five years after their last sightings by
the neighbors are given short shrift. To give him his due, Basbanes does a
good job with the material he covers, but I was hoping for more of the lurid
stuff.

That said, he somehow manages to botch the one REALLY scandalous case he
deals with in detail......the notorious case of Stephen Blumberg. I'm going
to guess this name is already familiar to you, in which case I don't need to
elucidate. If not, I won't spoil the surprise. Suffice it to say that the
interjection of Blumberg's story in this volume is something akin to jamming
a bit of Stravinsky into Mozart......or vice-versa. I don't know what
Basbanes was thinking......and I suspect he doesn't either.

Chuck Vance (and if that sort of thing interests you, you should
check out Mody Boatright; my mom took classes with him at the U of T,
and got to know his daughter, and she says they were a delightfully
disfunctional family :-)

Boatright......o.k., that's a new one for me. I'll be watching for him.


He's not as well-known as Dobie, but he holds his own as a
folklorist. Here's a little more about him:
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/...s/BB/fbo1.html

Wolfgang
great......that's all a ****in' junky needs.......another pusher!


I can't speak for Claspy, but I'm just trying to help.


Chuck Vance (yeah, I know ... that's what they all say)

Yeah, that's what they all say.

Wolfgang
{*}"Invisible Forms: A Guide to Literary Curiosities", Kevin Jackson, Thomas
Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, 1999. [From the dust jacket fly-leaf:
"Dedications, titles, epigraphs, footnotes{**}, prefaces, afterwords,
indexes{***}, these and other 'invisbile' literary necessities form the
skeletons of many a book..."]

{**} If you love footnotes.....or hate them.....(it's one or the
other.....or you are no real bibliophile), you might want to have a look at,
"The Devil's Details: A History of Footnotes* Chuck Zerby, Invisible Cities
Press, 2002.

*"Being a concise and definitive account of the footnote, from its murky
birth to its fertile middle years to its endangered present, beset as it is
by careless writers and indifferent editors and thoughtless readers and
penny-pinching publishers, an account, moreover, enhanced by copious
documentation, enlightened by countless quotations from wise councilors,
lightened by many passages of delightful humor, and yet entirely unafraid of
either controversy or sex." [this footnote appears on the front of the dust
jacket]

{***} EVERY book should have an index! "Winnie the Pooh" should have an
index.....fukkin' phone books and dictionaries should have indexes!

p.s. Bill was right.

On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:39:40 -0500, "Wolfgang"
wrote:

(snipped)

That said, he somehow manages to botch the one REALLY scandalous case he
deals with in detail......the notorious case of Stephen Blumberg.

I only vaguely recalled Blumberg. So I Googled him. Much more than
I'd remembered was there. And it led me to the fascinating case of
St. Columba, whose bibliotheft helped start a war.
http://www.slis.ualberta.ca/cap03/sandra/columba.html

Thank heavens for modern photocopies, which would let readers like me
see any book they had interest in without doing damage to the
originals.

Cyli
r.bc: vixen. Minnow goddess. Speaker to squirrels.
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli
email: lid (strip the .invalid to email)

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 00:30:42 -0500, wrote:

(snipped)

No "weasel wording" on yours - it has what it has.

I think it's weasel wording because it allows them to change the
formula from one to the other or any combination of both without any
other warning. It may be perfectly true, but allows them lots of room
to play around. At least it's not as bad as simply putting,
'sweetening' in it, which would allow for aspartame in any amount.

Frankly, I don't care, as long as the flavour and mouth feel are right
and it doesn't spoil anything I cook when I use it as an ingredient.

Cyli
r.bc: vixen. Minnow goddess. Speaker to squirrels.
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli
email: lid (strip the .invalid to email)

On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 21:34:02 -0500, Cyli
wrote:

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 00:30:42 -0500, wrote:

(snipped)

No "weasel wording" on yours - it has what it has.

I think it's weasel wording because it allows them to change the
formula from one to the other or any combination of both without any
other warning. It may be perfectly true, but allows them lots of room
to play around.

I think you and John Gierach ought to get together and hire wayno AND
jeff and pay them vast quantities of money to start teaching these
scurrilous types a lesson they'll never forget...

HTH,
R

wrote

I think you and John Gierach ought to get together and hire wayno AND
jeff and pay them vast quantities of money

i have always known that just under the surface of your often over the
top roffian facade lies a bedrock of clear, accurate thought, a veritable
fountain of sound advice for those intelligent enough to take advantage of
their good fortune.

still, it occurs to me that only one lawyer from the highest level of
the profession would be sufficient for this undertaking; and, since jeffie
seems to be having an uphill battle with this last little resurgency of his
chronic leprosy condition, the duty surely falls upon my humble shoulders.

hth,

yfitons
wayno(john has my number, of course)

On 6/12/05 10:28 PM, in article ,
"Cyli" wrote:


Thank heavens for modern photocopies, which would let readers like me
see any book they had interest in without doing damage to the
originals.

What?

Puzzled,
Bill

Wolfgang wrote:

"Conan The Librarian" wrote in message
oups.com...

Please tell me more.

Well, first of all, Bill was right.

Looks like I was wrong about Basbanes. The only mention of Dobie in "A
Gentle Madness" (at least, according to the index) is on page 346, in a
chapter titled "Instant Ivy," wherein Basbanes mentions Dobie as one of
nineteen notable people (including Erle Stanley Gardner, John Foster Dulles
and the Hoblitzelles) for whom rooms in the HRC at Austin are named.

If I'm not mistaken, Dobie is also one of a handful of folks for
whom the HRHRC (not a typo; it was re-named the "Harry Ransom Humanities
Research Center" back when I worked at UT in the early eighties) has
created a replica office, complete with original ephemera.

I
won't bore you with the details of what Basbanes has to say about H.H.
Ransom and the HRC......you probably know a great deal more about it than I
do......or than Basbanes, for that matter.

Oh please do. :-) From what I've read about him, it appears that
above all else he was determined to bring immediate academic credibility
(similar to an "instant classic" :-) to the center and the university.
He was ruthless, calculating, driven, eccentric and possibly a bit
mad. In other words, he was the perfect man for the job.

[little snip]

The intriguing and adorable basket-cases who are found rotted or dessicated
under a collapsed stack some two to five years after their last sightings by
the neighbors are given short shrift.

I have nothing to add here, I just wanted to re-read that phrase
again. :-)

(Bill, are you paying attention?)

That said, he somehow manages to botch the one REALLY scandalous case he
deals with in detail......the notorious case of Stephen Blumberg. I'm going
to guess this name is already familiar to you, in which case I don't need to
elucidate. If not, I won't spoil the surprise. Suffice it to say that the
interjection of Blumberg's story in this volume is something akin to jamming
a bit of Stravinsky into Mozart......or vice-versa. I don't know what
Basbanes was thinking......and I suspect he doesn't either.

How does he botch the Blumberg case? I would think that's one case
that is pretty open and shut (so to speak).

{**} If you love footnotes.....or hate them.....(it's one or the
other.....or you are no real bibliophile), you might want to have a look at,
"The Devil's Details: A History of Footnotes* Chuck Zerby, Invisible Cities
Press, 2002.

Thanks for the citation. And as to your previous point: There is
another option. You can love *and* hate them. I love them for what
they contain, but I hate them because I can't resist being immediately
drawn to their content; I always jump directly to the footnote.

*"Being a concise and definitive account of the footnote, from its murky
birth to its fertile middle years to its endangered present, beset as it is
by careless writers and indifferent editors and thoughtless readers and
penny-pinching publishers, an account, moreover, enhanced by copious
documentation, enlightened by countless quotations from wise councilors,
lightened by many passages of delightful humor, and yet entirely unafraid of
either controversy or sex." [this footnote appears on the front of the dust
jacket]

I *must* read that book, thanks.

{***} EVERY book should have an index! "Winnie the Pooh" should have an
index.....fukkin' phone books and dictionaries should have indexes!

p.s. Bill was right.

I already knew that. :-)


Chuck Vance

"Conan The Librarian" wrote in message
...
Wolfgang wrote:

I won't bore you with the details of what Basbanes has to say about H.H.
Ransom and the HRC......you probably know a great deal more about it than
I do......or than Basbanes, for that matter.

Oh please do. :-) From what I've read about him, it appears that
above all else he was determined to bring immediate academic credibility
(similar to an "instant classic" :-) to the center and the university. He
was ruthless, calculating, driven, eccentric and possibly a bit mad. In
other words, he was the perfect man for the job.

Basbanes was much kinder (while giving good account of Ransom's critics),
but that's about the gist of it. I can't really give you much more from
memory and, as I guessed, you already appear to know more about him than I
do.

[little snip]

The intriguing and adorable basket-cases who are found rotted or
dessicated under a collapsed stack some two to five years after their
last sightings by the neighbors are given short shrift.

...he somehow manages to botch the one REALLY scandalous case he deals
with in detail......the notorious case of Stephen Blumberg....

How does he botch the Blumberg case? I would think that's one case
that is pretty open and shut (so to speak).

Poor phrasing on my part. Basbanes actually did a good job of reportage on
Blumberg. What he really botched was the inclusion of Blumberg's story in
this book. In retrospect, it looks to me like Basbanes couldn't decide what
he wanted to do. In the first place, the word "madness" in the title
suggests that he is going to treat bibliomania in the sense of
pathology....a ripe field as anyone who pays much attention to books and
bookish people knows. As I stated, he glosses over this with little more
than a nod and then goes on to a relatively brief look at serious collectors
through history, finally settling on an in depth examination of (mostly)
nineteenth and twentieth century American and British collectors, with a
great deal of emphasis on their relations with dealers and the ultimate
disposition of their collections. And then, at the very end of the book, he
includes this Blumberg stuff. It's looks very much like Basbanes, a: is
saying "I know that a lot of this is boring and it's not what I promised,
and, b: decided on including Blumberg because he was available (and a pretty
hot topic in the book world) and would jazz the whole thing up a bit. The
whole thing is a discordant note in what is otherwise a competent (if
unexciting) look at modern book collecting on a grand scale and/or a tacit
confession that he hadn't done what he led the reader to believe he would.

{**} If you love footnotes.....or hate them.....(it's one or the
other.....or you are no real bibliophile), you might want to have a look
at, "The Devil's Details: A History of Footnotes* Chuck Zerby, Invisible
Cities Press, 2002.

Thanks for the citation. And as to your previous point: There is
another option. You can love *and* hate them. I love them for what they
contain, but I hate them because I can't resist being immediately drawn to
their content; I always jump directly to the footnote.

Yeah, I was aware of that third option, but the whole love/hate thingy gets
messy......not the sort of thing we want to go into in depth in a family
newsgroup.

*"Being a concise and definitive account of the footnote, from its murky
birth to its fertile middle years to its endangered present, beset as it
is by careless writers and indifferent editors and thoughtless readers
and penny-pinching publishers, an account, moreover, enhanced by copious
documentation, enlightened by countless quotations from wise councilors,
lightened by many passages of delightful humor, and yet entirely unafraid
of either controversy or sex." [this footnote appears on the front of the
dust jacket]

I *must* read that book, thanks.

It should come as no surprise that Zerby appears entirely unapologetic about
making it a tricky read.

{***} EVERY book should have an index! "Winnie the Pooh" should have an
index.....fukkin' phone books and dictionaries should have indexes!


p.s. Bill was right.

I already knew that. :-)

Masochist.

Wolfgang

Wolfgang wrote:

"Conan The Librarian" wrote in message
...

Oh please do. :-) From what I've read about him, it appears that
above all else he was determined to bring immediate academic credibility
(similar to an "instant classic" :-) to the center and the university. He
was ruthless, calculating, driven, eccentric and possibly a bit mad. In
other words, he was the perfect man for the job.

Basbanes was much kinder (while giving good account of Ransom's critics),
but that's about the gist of it. I can't really give you much more from
memory and, as I guessed, you already appear to know more about him than I
do.

Lest I appear to be too harsh on old HR, I should clarify that I
have the utmost respect for what he did. To create a cultural/academic
centerpiece such as the HRHRC in the climate he did was nothing short of
amazing.

How does he botch the Blumberg case? I would think that's one case
that is pretty open and shut (so to speak).

Poor phrasing on my part. Basbanes actually did a good job of reportage on
Blumberg. What he really botched was the inclusion of Blumberg's story in
this book. In retrospect, it looks to me like Basbanes couldn't decide what
he wanted to do. In the first place, the word "madness" in the title
suggests that he is going to treat bibliomania in the sense of
pathology....a ripe field as anyone who pays much attention to books and
bookish people knows. As I stated, he glosses over this with little more
than a nod and then goes on to a relatively brief look at serious collectors
through history, finally settling on an in depth examination of (mostly)
nineteenth and twentieth century American and British collectors, with a
great deal of emphasis on their relations with dealers and the ultimate
disposition of their collections. And then, at the very end of the book, he
includes this Blumberg stuff. It's looks very much like Basbanes, a: is
saying "I know that a lot of this is boring and it's not what I promised,
and, b: decided on including Blumberg because he was available (and a pretty
hot topic in the book world) and would jazz the whole thing up a bit. The
whole thing is a discordant note in what is otherwise a competent (if
unexciting) look at modern book collecting on a grand scale and/or a tacit
confession that he hadn't done what he led the reader to believe he would.

OK, now I understand your point. (Frankly, I should have gotten it
the first time as your Mozart and Stravinsky analogy was clear enough.)
It does seem odd to feel the need to "spice up" a book like that. I
wonder if there may have been editorial pressure on him to include it.

Thanks for the citation. And as to your previous point: There is
another option. You can love *and* hate them. I love them for what they
contain, but I hate them because I can't resist being immediately drawn to
their content; I always jump directly to the footnote.

Yeah, I was aware of that third option, but the whole love/hate thingy gets
messy......not the sort of thing we want to go into in depth in a family
newsgroup.

Yeah, ROFF is certainly no place for any sort of love/hate
dichotomies. :-}

I *must* read that book, thanks.

It should come as no surprise that Zerby appears entirely unapologetic about
making it a tricky read.

As long as it's done with a sense of humor, I think I'll be fine. :-)

I already knew that. :-)

Masochist.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.


Chuck Vance