Have we reached the Durkheim Line? Once crossed is it possible to go back? (Over and back is a penalty, remember?)
‘Categories such as time, space, cause, and number represent the most fundamental relationships which exist among things…. If we did not have the same conception of time, space, cause, and number, all contact between our minds would be impossible,’ wrote Émile Durkheim in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), pp. 22-23. To emphasise their currency he called them Social Facts.
This line is what I think of when I hear the latest nonsense spouted in D.C. by the GOP, which by the way, now stands for Group of Pygmies and the mindless robots on Pox News. (Apologies for the insult to pygmies.) Then there are the antipodean echoes of that nonsense. Did he anticipate Queensland’s war on daylight savings time? Did he advocate faded curtains?
Book Collector has paid for itself many times over by preventing the purchase of multiple copies of the same book. An appealing book or one I thought I should read and so have on the shelf to encourage me to read it was purchased and stacked away for future reading or reference and… a few years later the same book comes to hand and I have the same thought and buy another copy, and then later another. Nothing but that memory lapse could explain why I had three copies of something like Antonio Gramsci’s unreadable The Modern Prince. (Yes, I know, ‘Why have one copy at all?’ No answer to that.)
I became painfully aware of these multiple copies when upon retirement I was preparing to move my professional library of about 5000 titles. As I was thinning the collection, shredding textbooks and other items I saw of no further use, I told Trevor Cook about this labour and he told me about Book Collector.
Wow! I did not know such applications existed and made it a mission to find out more. That was about ten years ago. The timing was opportune as I was moving and re-shelving and so each book had to be handled a couple of times. Hence I acquired the app and got to work.
I found my first use easy and simple. Of course, I had a long backlog amounting to about 2500 titles after I finished shredding books. I purchased a scanner and used that to ease the burden, and it worked fine on books with a bar code. Recommended.
However, my collection dates back to graduate school in the 1960s and many of the books that I retained had neither as ISBN nor a bar code, while others had an ISBN on the obverse of the title page but no bar code and so had to be keyed in. I paced this work to about 50-60 a day (about 400 a week) so that I could do other things and not go crazy and make too many mistakes. In a month most of the work was done, and I am very pleased.
Cataloguing identified what I had and synchronizing the catalogue to my cell phone has saved me several duplicate purchases very quickly, and more since. Three or four such saves more than paid for the software, the scanner, and the time and trouble to learn its use.
Now there is a hitch here. When I brag to visitors that I have catalogued all the books in my library they assume that means a given order on the shelves, and it does not. I have grouped the books by subject matter but not anchored any of them to a sequence, shelf mark, or locale. Maybe I should have but I did not and now it seems a task beyond my needs, abilities, and interests. The books on a subject like ‘Utopia’ occupy a bay with the tallest on the bottom shelf. All the reference books are in another bay. The titles on the history of political thought occupy the top shelves in the bookcases I face from my desk as my favourites. While there is room in the template to enter such shelving information, it has to be done manually and I have not done that.
Adding books by title and author or ISBN works pretty well but it is not perfect. I find books published in Australia are less likely to be retrieved, and recently issued books with ISBNs still sometimes prove illusive, so there is still more manual entry than I would like.
When I am doing this manual entry at times the application has asked me to enter the data a second time on the master data base (the core) in the Cloud and I found that an annoyance. Since I have already entered the data on my system, could it not be uploaded from there rather than keyed in again? But that practice seems now to have stopped.
When I capture a book by the automated search I find sometimes that the author’s first and last names get transposed and have to keep an eye on that. This becomes even more pesky with several authors. Then there is the need to distinguish translators and editors from authors, say of an edition of Plato’s Republic of which I have six or eight. For scholars these distinctions are crucial.
The templates have pages and boxes for everything imaginable and some things unimaginable to me, but in my case most are empty. Those that come with drop down lists are easy to complete, and I have done that, creating a few categories of my own.
In the last five years I have become converted to digital reading on a Kindle for the convenience, accessibility, text searching, and more. Not having a copy of the book to put in the pending tray on my desk means that sometimes I forget to enter them in the catalogue, and I have not yet developed a method to overcome such slips of memory.
I have been confused a few times when changing to a new computer about the catalogue files and I am sure I lost data at least once. The files names and locations are a mystery to me.
Like everyone else I wish, sometimes, that applications were integrated. I use EndNote a lot (and it is a beast and have never been invited to give feedback on it) and means I key in duplicate information on Book Collector and EndNote quite often. That is no doubt good for the soul but it is tedious.
While listing nits, I should say I also find it impossible to distinguish among the many products associated with Book Collector. CLZ Barry left me blank. Such proliferation I suppose meets some need, but not mine.
Having BC has meant I catalogued my library, something I would not have done without it, and that has been invaluable. I have heard fellow book worms say they know where every one of their 5000 books is shelved without the need for such a computer crutch but I don’t believe them.
Good Reads meta-data is 510 pages rated 4.28 by 247 litizens
Genre: Biography
Verdict: An éminence grise without the robes.
‘Harry Who?’ asked the fraternity brothers, ever perplexed by reading, since they get along just fine without it. Harry Hopkins (1890-1946) was a shopkeeper’s son from Iowa who by dint of his mother’s determination and grit got a college education, along with his sisters, at Grinnell College in Iowa. Lucky them. Prior to that the Hopkins family had lived briefly in Kearny and Hastings Nebraska (though I remember nothing about him from Hastings but I do remember the WPA works at Heartwell Park. See below for relevance.)
After graduating from college he followed in his older sister’s footsteps and became a social worker, and Jacob Riis in New York City was hiring, so this Iowa hick (q.v. Bill Bryson) took the train east to work in a settlement house. His experiences in the immigrant slums of New York City during the Great Depression made him a champion of government intervention, regulation, and assistance. It also proved him to be an efficient and effective organiser of people, material, and money. His work impressed the philanthropic owner of Macy’s department store who later recommended him to New York state governor FDR.
Per Wikipedia his claim to fame is that he was US Secretary of Commerce for a little less than two years, 1938-1940. In that capacity he was an architect of the Works Progress Administration whose labours can still be seen far and wide, e.g., Heartwell Park, and later the organiser behind the Lend-Lease program. Those, Class, were some of his lesser accomplishments!
Later in Washington Hopkins was a whirlwind, working all the hours of the clock at the expense of his first marriage, and set land speed records in distributing funds to put the unemployed to work. Within a fortnight of his first appointment he had put 88,000 unemployed men with families to work through state governments building bridges, tarring roads, landscaping parks, reinforcing railway embankments, digging drainage ditches, repairing the roofs of libraries and town halls, shoring up damns, stringing telephone wires, planting trees, cutting fire trails in forests, and so on and on. He did this working from a broom closet in a ramshackle building off the beaten track in D.C.
In these works he was an ambitious empire builder who irritated some and made enemies of others, particularly Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. Hopkins made mistakes but he always pressed on.
His most significant accomplishments were not, however, in these domestic matters but later in foreign policy where many, including such diverse figures as Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin regarded him as the glue that held together the Anglo-Soviet Alliance against the odds. About which more later.
Hopkins back left.
Harry was a sickly child, boy, and adolescent but youth fuelled him, as it does, though the maladies remained and came to the fore with maturity, compounded by a life of cigarette smoking and whisky drinking. He can be seen in many photographs as a spectral figure on the periphery with FDR. He was so constant that some referred to him as the shadow.
When people met him for the first time, there were many remarks on his pale complexion, bony face and figure, pallor, pasty face, clammy perspiration, sunken eyes, ….. But they also noted that when the spoke of his purposes, the embers came to life and the fire within was apparent to even the most imperceptive observer. Those purposes kept him alive against the odds.
On the first of his many visits to wartime England in the middle of 1941 Hopkins was allowed to see and go when and where he wanted. By then FDR had no confidence in the reports and assessments of the US ambassador to England, and wanted an unbiased account from someone he trusted. The mission fell to Hopkins, who by the way was paid no salary, though his travel expenses were covered. For FDR’s personal friend and representative the British rolled out a red carpet. Hopkins was inquisitive and demanding; he was also impressed. More than once in the company of Winston Churchill inspecting bomb damaged docks in Bristol, military hospitals overflowing with wounded, rubble strewn streets in London, those Britons present stopped their weary labours to cheer the Prime Minister who walked among them. In a most secret cable Hopkins told FDR that Churchill’s rhetoric, while elevated and melodramatic, nonetheless represented popular opinion. (The cable was carried by hand to an American warship in port, and transmitted from here in the navy’s darkest code.)
During this visit, Hopkins also managed something few others ever did, upstaging Churchill. At a dinner of forty Churchill gave an orotund speech of welcome. Hopkins had selected the guest list to include those he wanted to meet, trade union heads, businessmen, press owners, munition plant managers, bankers, hospital directors, Red Cross workers, shipping experts, accountants, aviation engineers, and social workers. After the meal it was Hopkins’s turn to thank his host. He did so by quoting the Book of Ruth, bringing tears to Churchill’s eyes and silencing the room… ‘even to the end.’ (Look it up.)
Pilloried after his death by headline hunting red baiters of the Republican Party as a Soviet agent because he advocated material support to sustain the Soviet front. If it needs to be said, Russian archives give that allegation the lie. Churchill and Hopkins and others wanted to keep Russia from signing a separate peace with Germany, and that meant keeping Russia in the war. With that priority Churchill himself sometimes deferred British needs for American material to satisfy Russian hunger for supplies which held down 140 German divisions on the Eastern Front. With perfect hindsight we now assume that Hitler was so driven by hate, as weaklings are, that no peace with Russia was possible. Ahem, everyone had thought that before the 1939 non-aggression pact, too, and were surprised at his and Stalin’s flexibility. Better not to risk another surprise. The more so when it was realised that Soviet and German diplomats met regularly in Stockholm even as the war raged.
For much of later 1943 to early 1945 Hopkins was the de facto Secretary of State, as the incumbent Cordell Hull, a decade on the job, had become ill and was replaced by a cypher. Hopkins committed himself completely to holding together this unlikely and unholy alliance against the common enemies of Germany and Japan. He traveled the world in difficult circumstances to listen patiently to the complaints of each party about the other(s), and slowly found the common ground firm enough for the next step. Churchill complained to him about FDR who complained to him about Stalin who complained to him about both of them, and so on. A glutton for punishment Hopkins also tried to draw Charles de Gaulle into the party by fair means and foul. Since he turned on the tap of Lend-Lease I suppose Churchill, Stalin, and de Gaulle were aware that he might turn it off, too.
The book is particularly good on the international conferences. The prose brings to life the preparations and activities, but it is especially good at demonstrating what was at stake in the meetings from Newfoundland to Yalta. The conclusions about Yalta are insightful. In short, Roll concludes that the fate of Eastern Europe was sealed long before Yalta in 1945. When the decision was made to invade North Africa in 1942, rather than to wait until 1943 and then attack northern France, the deed was done.
Without a second front in 1942 or 1943, the Soviets went all out and by the time the second front came in mid-1944 the momentum of Soviet advances into Eastern Europe could not be rolled back short of another war. The 1942 decision to land in Africa was prompted largely by Churchill’s morbid fear of a repeat of the charnel house of World War I in northern France, but in hindsight it made military sense to test the US Armed Forces on a small scale before the Big One. Indeed the pitiful performance of much of American arms in North Africa was a stimulant for major changes from the equipment of rifle companies, tank armour, operational command, signals, co-ordination of arms, and more.
Let it be noted that Hopkins’s son Steven was a marine, killed on the Kwajalein Atoll in 1944. Another son Robert was hold up in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.
Hopkins was the man behind Lend Lease for several years. He made it work for Great Britain and then extended it to the Soviet Union. He also suggested war crimes trials and got agreement for that. He was early advocate of a United Nations and staked out many of the arrangements the came into being. FDR said it was Hopkins’s good-natured persistence that provoked Stalin into a grudging commitment to join the war against Japan which at the time had the highest priority on the assumption that neither Britain and the Empire, the Netherlands, or France would offer much.
His health was never good and there were periodic hospitalisations for blood transfusions and vitamin injections. There was also abdominal surgery over the years. When FDR died, Hopkins’s hold on life slipped, too.
The early, brief description of Hopkins’s students days at Grinnell reminded me of my own years in a similar institution of do-gooders who did good by me and many others.
For some time I had in my mind and in my Amazon shopping cart Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Robert Sherwood’s biography of Hopkins, but, well, it is out of print and not always available, and, worse, it is not in a Kindle edition, so it languished in both places. Then the mechanical Turk’s algorithms suggested this title and I bit.
These days in the English-speaking world with a few notable and noble exceptions we can look for leadership only in the past. Below is another instance.
In the 1930s and 1940s Eleanor Roosevelt concluded that she would damned no matter what she did, so she might as well do as she thought was right. She did, early and often. ‘Eleanor Everywhere’ is what husband Franklin called her. She invited blacks to the White House. Lend her name to early women’s rights groups. Picked fruit with migrant workers. Signed over the income from her journalism to a children’s charity. Held the hands of GIs dying of war wounds in the Pacific. For all of this she vilified by the Pox News professional haters of the day.
She is the only First Lady with a statue in D.C. and that seems right. A biography of Eleanor Everywhere is discussed on my blog.
IMDb meta-data runtime of 1 hour and 31 minutes, rated 6.7 by 923 cinematizens.
Genre: ODH wanna be (that is, Old Dark House).
Verdict: energetic clichés.
In mid-career a much published krimi writer seeks inspiration in a change of scene, and reluctantly moves to Greenwich Village with his vivacious and enthusiastic helpmate who has neither a career nor a mind of her own. Credit Loretta Young’s extraordinary thespian talents to sell such a pretence. He is the droll Brian Aherne who is reluctant because wanted to live by a lake or stream, not a busy street.
While he has published a lot of krimis, to judge from the piles he moves around, none has been a best seller or satisfying.
The apartment (old dark) House has a cast of boarders from the doleful owner, to the snoopy restauranteur, oily art dealer, the terrified ingenue with an over-protective husband, the hysterical cleaning woman…. but no black stereotype for which omission much thanks, though it meant no pay-check for Will Best.
It is a great cast that includes Charlie Chan Tolar as the police officer come to sort out the body in the garden. Spider Woman is also on hand, though underemployed compared to the turtle.
Good scenes include the bed clothes slowly slipping off…. In 1945 that must have been close the censorship line. And it happens twice. And that’s the problem with the whole film: repetition.
The sticking door was amusing the first three or four times but not thereafter, and certainly not at the fifteenth time with musical accompaniment. The door is never explained and does nothing for the plot.
The plot holes were many. It was said that the corpus delicti in the garden was naked; if so why? Where did the clothes go? What was the motive for that murder? Indeed what was the whole blackmail narrative about? How did any of that relate to the cab driver’s opening comment about hauling away two stiffs? Did any of it relate to the missing previous half-owner of the establishment?
Released on 10 December 1942 there is no reference to war. In that month the Australian 7th Division pushed the Japanese from Buna, trailhead for the purgatory of the Kokoda Track. More generally, the Afrika Korps was trapped (by forces that included the Australian 9th Division) in Tunisia, the Germans were encircled in Stalingrad, and the Japanese had lost Guadalcanal where Royal Australian Navy ships served). Hindsight reveals that it was the beginning of the end for them.
Literati note. These books were published late 1942. I have read them all. What’s holding you back?
Le Silence de la mer by Vercors (Jean Bruller) – an idealistic German soldier gradually realises the fake news he had accepted when billeted with a silent French family.
The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck – an austere dialogue about the time to act set in rural Norway. Completely different from his other novels, a roman à clef.
Crazy Horse by Mari Sandoz – a fictional autobiography of a reluctant charismatic leader.
Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner – the grief of the title figure when his wife dies and the actions of those around him the very Deep South.
L’étranger by Albert Camus – Meursault stays ice cold under the blinding Algerian sun.
IMDb meta-data is 1 hour and 7 minutes, rated 6.4 by 69 cinematizens.
Genre: Mystery
Verdict: Snappy
The ingredients are a closed passenger train from Paris to Istanbul with two incognito journalists after the same vanilla scoop.
The journalists conceal their identities and purpose from each other and from the subject of their inquiries played by Paul Lukas. I never did grasp what the newshound were after from Paul, and neither did they I suppose.
Since there seemed to be no point, instead we have an incompetent assassin in Sascha bested by a bumptious bodyguard. Musical interludes lighten the tone, as the journalists collide. There are disguises, mistaken identities, a cake, a tandem bicycle, yodelling, and more.
An agreeable distraction from the news of the day.
We festivaled again last night: ‘DIdo and Aeneas’ at the Lyric Theatre in Star City (wasn’t that the name of the Soviet space exploration site) Casino.
Before show time we walked around looking at the glitz, and there is a lot of it. But mostly what strikes the observer is the ranks of ATMs for quick cash! They are everywhere by the ranks, well not quite everywhere, none in the bog. (Probably next time.) http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2014/Music/Dido-Aeneas/
We entrained from old Macdonaldtown Station, rather than Newtown, seeking as always a new sensation, and then took the tram from Central Station, all on our blue tickets! Smooth sailing, oops, smooth railing is more accurate.
Time came take out seats and the show began, and what a show! The water tank at the beginning was beguiling, fascinating, confusing, metaphorical, and appropriate. I am sure if Henry Purcell (1659-1695) could have done in his day, he would have. He loved a show himself. The combination of dance, opera, drama, and some slap-schtick worked for us.
It took a moment to realize that Dido and Aeneas had two representatives on stage, a singer and a dancer. Purists fainted at that I am sure. But I recalled Luis Buñel once cast three women as a single character in a film, saying he wanted to make the character complex and he could not decide which of the actresses could do that best, so he used all three!
The energy, the spectacle, the wit, the movement, the pathos, the drama, and that water tank were all good.
By the way, the program notes, which are all too often as banal as sports talk, are very cogent about the aim of the production — to balance the three major components of drama, dance, and song — and to return to Virgil’s story of exile and the synthesis of love and hate. And most of all, of course, the choice of Aeneas to accept his duty, his fate and leave Dido for Rome.
Pedants note, The Aeneid has always left me cold from my first effort to read it in college to a couple of repeated attempts including an audio version bellowed out by Simon Callow, who always seem to bellow even when whispering, something about voice projection. While I enjoyed this show, it did not inspire me to try Virgil again.
