January 2011

HEADACHE SOLUTIONS OLD RING THE ULTIMATE COMPROMISE

Dr. Neal Trubowitz, survey archeologist with the Arkansas Archeological Survey, has written us to correct an error we inadvertently made in our June/July 1981 issue:

“‘The Healing Art’ provided an interesting perspective on the practice of medicine in America, but it contained at least one error that slipped past art historian William H. Gerdts and your editors.

“The caption under the portrait of Dr. John Clark says that he performed the first successful trepanning in America; he may have been the first European to have done so in America, but Native American healers had practiced trephination long before Columbus set foot in the Western Hemisphere. Trepanning was frequently practiced by the Aztecs and the ancient Peruvians, who were masters of the craft and often performed it more than once on a single patient, and I know that it was at least practiced in North America in Arkansas (see Dellinger & Wakefield, ' Possible Reasons for Trephining the Skull in the Past,’ Ciba Symposia , 1[16]: 166-169, 1939).

Upon at least five occasions when in great danger from gunfire George Washington remained unscathed. His hat was shot off his head; his clothes were torn; horses were killed beneath him, but the hero was never so much as scratched by a bullet. For this immunity he thanked “Providence.” He also wrote himself down as lucky.

Jazz endures in a special sort of American reserve. Accepted as a part of our national heritage, still it is as if the interior sound of this music prevents most of us from embracing it as fully as we have its derivatives, pop music and rock. We hear in that interior sound an intensity of purpose and also a frustration that fends off our casual familiarity and makes us content with the image of the music rather than its reality. In the early days in New Orleans they called that interior sound “hot,” and this is still a useful word for its connotative values. Rock is a huge noise, and the lovely melodies and clever words of our best pop songwriters can brighten our lives like a glass of champagne. But jazz is the sound of life being lived at the limits, dangerous as an element that can burn. To understand something of this elusive but acknowledged interior sound, we must look to the early days in New Orleans, to a world that did not yet know jazz but that provided its place of birthing.

“You’re Another!” is one of the favorite games people play with history. Accuse citizens of doing something outrageous, and they point to precedents. When Watergate blighted Richard Nixon, author Victor Lasky came back with the potboiling It Didn’t Start With Watergate . Lasky could easily show that “It,” meaning high-level corruption, marked previous presidential administrations. The biased media, he charged, simply had overlooked “It” back then.

In this extravagantly unusual occupational shaving mug, a policeman wheels a prostitute to the lockup. For the story of a time when the law had to treat these women more circumspectly, turn to page 50.

Ever since the news of Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown had reached England late in November, the war government of Lord North had come under increasing attack. Although the prime minister had been against the war from the beginning, and for the past three years had known victory was hopeless, his sovereign, the intractable George III, was determined to keep the Colonies.

Marshaling such allies as he still possessed, the king embarked on a holding action. He provoked the resignation of the highly unpopular Lord George Germain, who, as secretary of state for the American Colonies, was responsible for running the war. (The king wanted him out so badly that, despite his lamentable record, Germain was able to extort a peerage in return.)

On March 15 Jumbo’s cage was lowered into the hold of the Assyrian Monarch , and the biggest elephant ever exhibited began his journey from England to America.

He did not leave London unnoticed; Britons had been protesting his loss with mounting ferocity. For years the elephant had placidly carried children around Regent’s Park, but now the directors of the London Zoo were quietly worried that the twenty-one-year-old beast’s disposition might turn sour, with catastrophic effects. P. T. Barnum got wind of this and offered ten thousand dollars for the animal.

William Cardinal O’Connell of Boston was worried about morality in media. “I desire to speak earnestly about a degenerate form of singing which is called crooning,” he told the Holy Name Society. “No true American would practice this base art. I like to use my radio, when weary,” he continued. “But I cannot turn the dials without getting these whiners crying vapid words to impossible tunes.

“If you will listen closely when you are unfortunate enough to get one of these, you will discern the basest appeal to sex emotions in the young. They are not true love songs, they profane the name. They are ribald and revolting to true men. ”