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January 2011
Nearly every week, one or two books about the Civil War arrive at our offices. A recently published pair of ambitious works in this category show that innovative approaches can help a reader see familiar material in new ways.
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Nearly every week, one or two books about the Civil War arrive at our offices. A recently published pair of ambitious works in this category show that innovative approaches can help a reader see familiar material in new ways.
While Tiffany and Steuben are the most recognizable stars in the iridescent art-glass galaxy, Quezal gleams right alongside them. The firm’s guiding force, Martin Bach, joined Louis Comfort Tiffany’s staff as a glass chemist in 1892, the year before the famous designer’s Favrile products first appeared, and left around 1900 with the company’s for-mulas.
The recent success of Brokeback Mountain —at the box office, with critics, and in numerous awards presentations—has put before the public an American West very different from that of the traditional Western. It comes as no surprise that the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain , adapting Annie Proulx’s short story, was co-written by Larry McMurtry (with Diana Ossana). For more than four decades, in novels, essays, and screenplays, McMurtry has been giving Americans his own vision of the West, one that today is probably more pervasive than that of anyone except John Ford.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s surgeon, Col. Roger O. Egeberg, stepped on a semantic land mine when he casually referred to MacArthur’s troops as G.I.s. The general immediately exploded: “Don’t ever do that in my presence… . G.I. means ‘general issue.’ Call them soldiers.” It seems safe to assume that Colonel Egeberg never made that mistake again.
Today, of course, most people use G.I. approvingly when referring to enlisted personnel. (But beware of calling a Marine a G.I.!) The abbreviation crops up all over the place, particularly in headlines and captions, where writers look for ways to cram news into tight spaces, as in, from The New York Times , G.I.S TO PULL BACK IN BAGHDAD (Feb. 2, 2004) and G.I.S TO INCREASE U.S. SUPERVISION OF IRAQI POLICE (Dec. 20, 2005).
In 1997 Penguin Books published the American Heritage Dictionary of American Quotations . Assembled by Margaret Miner and Hugh Rawson (who writes our “Why Do We Say …?” column), it immediately proved an invaluable resource to the editors here and, when not being consulted in the line of duty, a great pleasure just to read around in. Now the dictionary is back in a revised and enlarged edition, having shed our banner in favor of Oxford’s, alas, but nonetheless as stimulating and engrossing a reference book as you are likely to find. Here, to mark our current issue, are some of the entries under “Travel” from The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations .
[Traveling] makes men wise but less happy.
—Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, 1787
No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby—so helpless and so ridiculous.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journal, 1833
25 Years Ago
March 30, 1981 President Ronald W. Reagan is shot by a mentally disturbed man with a crush on the actress Jodie Foster. The President recovers swiftly and is out of the hospital in less than two weeks.
50 Years Ago
February 3, 1956 Autherine Lucy becomes the first African-American to enroll at the University of Alabama. After three days of violent unrest on campus, she is suspended. On March 1 she is expelled for making “outrageous” charges against the university in a lawsuit for reinstatement.
75 Years Ago
March 3, 1931 Congress officially adopts “The Star-Spangled Banner” as America’s national anthem.
March 25, 1931 In Alabama, nine black youths are arrested and charged with raping a white woman. The “Scottsboro Boys” will be convicted on flimsy charges, but in 1935 the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn their convictions.