Your magazine remains the best publication in the country, but Peter Braunstein’s cover story on Jane Fonda was a mistake. Many different celebrities have reflected our changing culture by reinventing themselves—Cher and Madonna jump to mind as far more representative of the trend—but you chose one who disgraced this country and renounced its culture, then turned around and profited from it. That’s not reinvention, that’s hypocrisy.
We’re happy to announce that our colleagues at Black Dog & Leventhal publishers have created a book drawing on the first three years of our popular annual “Overrated & Underrated” feature. This is the exercise in which the editors ask historians, novelists, journalists, and others to assess a given category
and say what in it might be over- and underappreciated. From the start, the results have been lively, vexing, amusing, and, at bottom, valuable. While some are merely diverting (and, after all, what’s so “mere” about that?), others are elegant, succinct essays of considerable weight and significance. Among those
present are Tom Wicker on “Politician,” Richard Brookhiser on “President,” Camille Paglia on “Feminist,” Thomas Berger on “Indian Leader,” Liz Smith on “Love Affair,” Laura Hillenbrand on “Racehorse,” and many more—103 in all. Since the book costs $15.95, that’s about 16 cents per essay, so don’t hesitate.
To some film goers, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is the ultimate Vietnam movie. To many more, it is one of the great disappointments of the 19705. That decade, after all, is regarded by critics today as the moment when American film came of age, and Coppola, with The Godfather and The Conversation , went a long way toward bringing that about. Apocalypse Now , released in 1979, was expected to put a cap on the era while summing up America’s stillfresh horror over the war. Instead, viewers were presented with a rambling, often brilliant, but maddeningly indecisive movie that only deepened the mystery about what happened over there.
Book Collector’s Guide to Toasters and Accessories , by Helen Greguire (Schroder Publishing, 1997). Color photos.
Gallery/Web site www.toaster.org reflects a fine collection; www.toastercentral.com includes blenders and waffle irons.
NOTE: Many early toasters can still be used, but they should be watched for short circuits or overheating.
FOR SERIOUS COLLECTORS
Pioneer models The earliest examples of the GE D12 sell for about $3,000, a premium for its rarity and importance.
Armstrong table stove Introduced in 1919, it combined with a small bag of groceries to make a complete breakfast: frying bacon on top, poaching eggs in the bottom, and toasting bread in between. It sells for about $50.
The first electric toaster, introduced by General Electric in 1909, didn’t look anything like the long-handled tongs that had previously been used to toast bread over fire. GE was best known at the time for making equipment for huge transforming stations, and its D12 looked remarkably like a transforming station sized to a countertop. The entire design consisted of resistance coils and connecting wire, planted on a porcelain base. The industry’s next models generally looked like traps for animals with rectangular feet.
In the early days, though, no electric toaster was considered too ugly and no dining room too elegant to make room for one. People had long been frustrated by stove-made toast, for as Good Housekeeping pointed out in 1935, “By the time it had been made and buttered in the kitchen, piled on a plate, and brought to the table, it was cold, limp, and thoroughly unappetizing.”
A good way to see the troop is during one of its mounted parades through Philadelphia, which take place at least three times a year: on the troop’s anniversary, in November; to commemorate Washington’s death, in December; and to mark his birthday, in February. A feature of Philadelphia’s social calendar is the troop’s Border Plate equestrian event, in May, which was inspired by its lively 1916 Mexican campaign against Pancho Villa. Visit the troop’s Web site for information:
What is a soldier of “cornet” rank, dressed in an 1830s-era uniform with bearskin plumed helmet, doing in the modern, high-tech U.S. Army? Plenty, it turns out, for the cornet is a member of the 1st Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, a National Guard outfit that may be the oldest military unit in continuous service in the country. Its members love to parade in dress uniforms, but when war breaks out, they shed their antique finery for military fatigues and chemical-warfare suits.
25 YEARS AGO
September 1, 1976 Rep. Wayne Hays, chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, resigns after his affair with a staff member is revealed.
September 16, 1976 The U.S. Episcopal Church votes to allow the ordination of women.
September 20, 1976 Playboy releases an interview in which Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate for President, admits having “committed adultery in my heart many times.”
50 YEARS AGO
September 8, 1951 In San Francisco, 49 nations sign a treaty restoring full sovereignty to Japan.
75 YEARS AGO
September 18, 1926 A devastating hurricane hits Florida, killing 372 people, destroying 5,000 homes, and putting a serious dent in the Florida land boom.
One night in early September, 1776 in New York Harbor, a small vessel called the Turtle made the world’s first submarine attack on a warship. The pilot, Ezra Lee, was a sergeant in the Continental Army. He began by riding the tide at surface level to the vicinity of a British ship, possibly the 64-gun HMS Eagle, the flagship of Admiral Richard Howe’s fleet. He then submerged and maneuvered his craft beneath the ship, using a paddle-driven propeller.