first efforts

Marley & Me, feline edition

I'm reading John Grogan's Marley & Me, the ridiculously bestselling story of life with a problematic yet wonderful yellow lab. As a cat lover, I am bound by the Feline/Canine Parity Act to remind all of you that there was another Marley & Me, or rather Marley & We: an orange tabby named Marley who belonged to me and my college roommate Kristin.

Like Grogan, we got our Marley in 1991. And like Grogan, we named him Marley after Bob Marley, whose greatest hits album was playing in the tape deck in my car when we took him home. It's there that the similarities end. We got him from a lady with bad makeup who ran an antique shop on West Seventh Street in St. Paul. She had a litter of kittens in a cage in the back and when we asked to look at Marley she said, "Oh, you mean the one without a tail?" That sealed it. That and the fact that we had a coupon; we got him on discount. I lost "custody" of Marley when Kristin and I were no longer roommates, but he went on to live a long, fat, comfy life as a house cat. Though I prefer to remember him this way:

The course of rhetorical education?

One final thought on slogans and themes at RSA...my alma mater, Northwestern, bought the back of the RSA program for a full-page ad for its Ph.D. program in Rhetoric and Public Culture. The following image went with it:

This is a painting from Thomas Cole's "The Course of Empire" series; this one's the fourth of five, called "Destruction." (The first three are "The Savage State," "The Pastoral State" and "The Consummation of Empire"). The ad noted that its "allegorical coding" was "provided with apologies to Thomas Cole" but that's all the explanation we got. Click on the image and you'll see a larger version.

OK, here's the thing. This is a violent image. Dead bodies, killing, drowning, war, rape. People setting things on fire and blowing things up. Really makes you want to pack your bags for Evanston, doesn't it? I assume the intended interpretation is something about how Northwestern wants to unsettle things, break up the traditions of rhetoric's "empire" and make something new. Now I'm all for a little canon-busting now and then. But, funny thing, let's look at the next image in the series, the final one:

It's called "Desolation."

It seems, according to Cole at least, that after one destroys the empire there's a period of bleakness. Which doesn't exactly make things look very good for Northwestern, does it?

Homeless archives

This morning's New York Times has a great article on the problem of archiving materials made and collected in the aftermath of 9/11. While documentary film producer Steve Rosenbaum's important video archive is available via Google Video, other archives of important material are without permanent homes. Collectors have gathered all manner of ephemera, not just photos and video but also things like missing persons fliers. In the article, my Illinois colleague Vernon Burton is quoted on the importance of digitizing and making available such data for future historical research. Vernon is the director of CHASS, the Center for Computing in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at UIUC.

Shameless plug: the Spring 2006 issue of Rhetoric & Public Affairs contains a forum edited by Chuck Morris called "The Politics of Archival Research." Yours truly has a short essay about photo archives, while essays by Morris, Barbara Biesecker, Mary Stuckey, and Davis Houck take up other aspects of the rhetoric of the archive. It's a nice collection.

Duck soap

I'm back from RSA in Memphis and all I can tell you is that the Peabody Hotel likes ducks. Duck parade, duck mouthwash, duck shampoo, duck towels, duck soap, even duck swizzle sticks in your drink at the bar. The obsession with the duck theme seems have leaked to the rest of the conference, which was similarly obsessed with slogans and themes. Judging from the ads in the conference program, for example, graduate programs are now required to have their own slogan. Iowa says it has "Deep Traditions, Revolutionary Force," while Penn State proudly proclaims, "The best of both traditions" (rhet/comp and comm, that is). Friday night on a patio overlooking Beale Street, several of us tried to come up with options for our own programs. For Illinois, we tried out, "Affordable housing, racist mascot" before somebody, I can't remember who, simply said, "Illinois, the *very* best of both traditions."  Eureka, that's it!

And then there's the business of conference themes. This year's was "Sizing Up Rhetoric," which suggests multiple meanings -- some of which are, well, more *masculine* than others. Debbie and I wracked our brains all weekend to try to come up with a comparably *feminine* theme. Finally, I hit on it: "Rhetoric's cleavage." If any RSA board members are reading this, I offer this officially as a potential theme for Seattle 2008. Several of us are already hard at work on the t-shirt design.

And they're off!

Steeplechase race, May 27, 1912, Canal Park, New York (click on image for larger version)

Another fabulous running photo from the Library of Congress's Bain collection. I must be obsessing about my (lack of) running lately.

Not exactly a beach book

I noticed while running errands this morning that the local churches all have their signs up for Vacation Bible School. As a little kid I was totally ignorant of this rite of summer. Little Catholics don't do Bible school, or at least they didn't in the seventies. I would see these signs and wonder exactly what the "Vacation Bible" was and whether it was cooler than the regular Bible.

Quack

This week I'm off to the Rhetoric Society of America conference at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. The Peabody, apparently, is known for the unique daily performance of the Peabody Ducks. The hotel's web site explains,

The tradition of the famous Peabody Marching Ducks began in the 1930s. Peabody General Manager Frank Schutt, an avid sportsman, and a friend Chip Barwick, returned empty-handed from weekend hunting trip in Arkansas. The two friends had a bit too much Tennessee sippin' whiskey, and decided to play a prank and put their live duck decoys (which were legal at the time) in the fountain in the hotel's Grand Lobby.

Today, the ducks are housed in the "Duck Palace" on the hotel roof. Every day at 11 a.m., they are led by the Duckmaster down the elevator to the Italian travertine marble fountain in the Peabody Grand Lobby. A red carpet is unrolled and the ducks march through crowds of admiring spectators to the tune of John Philip Sousa's King Cotton March. The ceremony is reversed at 5 p.m., when the ducks retire for the evening to their palace on the roof of the hotel.

Duckmaster? This oughta be good. Somebody get the whiskey; I'll bring the camera.

Chick lit circa 1933

When I came across it in a used bookstore in Dahlonega, Georgia last week, I couldn't resist. I brought it to the counter and the proprietor smiled broadly; he approved. Then he studied the cover and asked sarcastically, "Wife vs. Secretary. Gee, I wonder who is who?"

The plot is exactly what the title suggests. It seems that rich New York magazine publisher "Van" is caught between two beautiful women: his redheaded, free-spending, wise-cracking wife "Linda" and his blonde, trustworthy and career-focused secretary "Helen." Whatever is a capitalist to do?

And just when I was thinking, "This dialogue reads like a Myrna Loy movie," I discovered that it was. Wife vs. Secretary, MGM studios, 1936. Starring Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, and Clark Gable -- of course.

I'm fifty pages in and so far I'm rooting for the secretary.

 

The girl's hit the BAGtime

Today marks the official beginning of my life as a "contributing blogger" to BAGnewsNotes, which offers critical commentary on political images. Last winter I began a fortuitous correspondence with Michael Shaw, the site's founder. Turns out he was thinking about including occasional commentary from guest bloggers. After learning a bit about my research, he asked me to contribute. I have written here before about my love for this blog, so of course I think all of this is just about the coolest thing ever. Our plan is that my posts will appear about once every two weeks. At least for now, I intend to focus on historical images that have contemporary resonance. 

Here's the first one.

Enjoy!

Race day photography

While browsing a newly-digitized photo collection at the Library of Congress I came across this wonderful picture taken at the start of the Brooklyn Marathon in 1909 (click on it to view larger version).

I see a pace car and even what appear to be pre-printed race numbers. Very modern. But I assume there was no chip timing at this event.