Auguste Rodin (12 November 1840 – 17 November 1917)
‘The world famous 77 year old French sculptor Auguste Rodin froze to death in an unheated attic in Meudon, France. In 1923, Marcell Tirel, Rodin’s secretary, published a book alleging this and that Rodin had applied to the government for quarters as warm as those wherein his statues were stored, but the government turned him down. It is said that other officials and friends promised coal for heating but never sent it.’
Jack Black in Vancouver, 1894
Jack Black came to Vancouver in 1894 after he and his Chinese cellmate busted out of a Revelstoke jail using a hacksaw. They hopped a boxcar to Vancouver, where Black rolled a drunk, smoked opium at Wing Sang, and got hog-tied in a botched robbery. He continued his perpetual crime spree throughout BC before getting pinched in Victoria, which earned him a two-year stretch at BC Penitentiary in New Westminster, where he was born. While there, the grandfather of another famous New West son, Raymond Burr, gave him the lash.
Jack Black (probably an alias) lived the life of any number of old west stock characters, including yegg, hobo, grifter, desperado, and hophead. More importantly, he eventually went straight and wrote his memoirs, You Can’t Win (1926), giving us a rare interior view of the world inhabited by the mostly anonymous underclass of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The book was a hit and made Black somewhat of a celebrity. He had his portrait (above right) taken by well-known photographer Edward Weston, and heavily influenced the likes of William S. Burroughs, who drew from You Can’t Win to write his classic beat novel, Junkie. MGM Studios recruited Black as a salaried Hollywood writer, presumably to give its crime flicks a touch of authenticity.
For more on Jack Black’s time in BC, check out “A Wild West Wanderer’s Adventures in BC” by John Mackie.
Source: Left: Mugshot printed in the San Francisco Call, 5 January 1912; right: portrait by Edward Weston ca. 1930, via The Chiseler
10. Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
Famous Quote: “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
The United States’ most famous poet’s most famous poem is a timeless ode to the American ideals of “individuality” and “forging your own path.” It’s one of those poems that’s so famous, even people who hate poetry can quote it. These are the reasons it appears on The Academy of American Poets’ list of top poems for college graduation.
Except aside from that last part, everything we just said isn’t true. Frost is actually using an old technique known as the “unreliable narrator,” and he isn’t even being all that subtle about it: in spite of the famous quote’s insistence that one road is “less traveled by,” the second stanza of the poem clarifies that both roads are “worn… really about the same.” Oh, and also, Frost himself admitted that he was actually mocking the idea that single decisions would change your life, and specifically making fun of a friend of his who had a tendency to over-think things that really weren’t that big a deal.
So what you thought was life-affirming was really just another poet/hipster condescendingly saying “you think you’re an individual, when really you’re just a cog in the machine, man!”
9. William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet
Famous Quote: “Star-Crossed Lovers”
Aww, Romeo & Juliet: two teenagers in the throes of what could possibly be the most pure love in literary history. This is why when a magazine wants to comment on, say, Justin Bieber’s love life or the relationship between a little boy and his horse, they’re likely to reference the sonnet that opens Shakespeare’s most famous play by calling them “Star-Crossed Lovers.”
And sure, this is totally appropriate, if you’re expecting these people to die. ”Star-Crossed” doesn’t mean “brought together by fate,” it means “fated to die,” because the stars (fate) have “crossed” you. Shakespeare is intentionally reminding everyone at the beginning of his play that this is a frickin’ tragedy, you guys, and you’re in for a miserable ride.
8. Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland
Famous Quote: “Oh, ’tis love, ’tis love that makes the world go round.”
This is an amazingly misunderstood line from an amazingly misunderstood writer. Pretty much everything about the life of Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Dodgson) is shrouded in confusion and slander; rather than being about drugs, Alice in Wonderland is most likely a criticism of then-new forms of mathematics that were becoming popular at Dodgson’s own Oxford College. In addition, though he was commonly accused of pedophilia, The Annotated Alice and The Carroll Myth makes the argument that Dodgson was actually asexual, and preferred the company of children because he was extremely uncomfortable with courting and any form of sexual innuendo.
Finally, and perhaps fittingly, his most famous quote is the one here about love making the world go ’round, and it is directly contrary to all of his pessimistic and strictly logical real-world values. In context, this quote is said by The Duchess, a character who is introduced as a potential child murderer. Hardly the kind of character a writer would want to speak the moral of his story.
Finally, need we remind you that Dodgson was a mathematician? Almost every detail of his biography — as well as the actual context of this story — show that this idea of love as a geo-revolutionary repellant is supposed to be scoffed at, not adored.
So it’s true that you might believe this to be true, but if that’s the case then it’s also true that one of history’s greatest writers is making fun of you.
Follow the link to read all 10.
“The year is 1962, and ad exec Martin K. Speckter has a punctuation problem.
Madison Avenue is debating the merits of a streamlined new European import called Helvetica. Roy Lichtenstein’s filling canvases with comic book characters and hand-painted typefaces. Andy Warhol’s cranking out Campbell’s soup cans in The Factory. Art is becoming commerce and commerce, art.
Meanwhile, JFK’s in office, the Vietnam War’s escalating, and The Pill’s finally received FDA approval. What’s needed is a typographically elegant way to notate surprise, disbelief, and incredulous excitement. For a single symbol to punctuate sentences like “Who’s that?!” and “What the hell?!”
Speckter’s solution? The interrobang. A stylish fusion of the question mark (that’s the “interro” part) and the exclamation point (known in old-timey typesetter’s slang as the “bang”), his unusual new creation looked like this.”
— You Call that a Punctuation Mark?! The Interrobang Celebrates its 50th Birthday by Nora Maynard
Chester Himes began his writing career while serving a sentence in an Ohio prison for armed robbery, from the late 1920s to mid 1930s. He published several short stories, using his prison number as his pen name. He continued to write after his parole in 1936, working odd jobs to support himself. He eventually moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a screenwriter and novelist. Himes later wrote about the racism he experienced in Los Angeles:
Up to the age of thirty-one I had been hurt emotionally, spiritually and physically as much as thirty-one years can bear. I had lived in the South, I had fallen down an elevator shaft, I had been kicked out of college, I had served seven and one half years in prison, I had survived the humiliating last five years of Depression in Cleveland; and still I was entire, complete, functional; my mind was sharp, my reflexes were good, and I was not bitter. But under the mental corrosion of race prejudice in Los Angeles I became bitter and saturated with hate.
In the 1950s, Himes emigrated to France, joining a number of African American writers and artists who left the United States seeking greater freedom and acceptance. He lived in France until 1969, when he moved to Moraira, Spain. He remained in Spain until his death in 1984.
Himes was an extremely prolific writer whose works encompassed many genres. His Harlem Detective series, which comprised nine novels, brought him the most success. Three movies are based on the series: Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), its sequel, Come Back, Charleston Blue (1972) and A Rage in Harlem (1991).
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Early printed book contains rare evidence of medieval spectacles
Front parchment pastedown, now detached, with offset from the manuscript visible on the boards. Both the front and rear pastedowns came from the same medieval manuscript and are now detached from the boards. Photo by Pete Smith.
Rear flyleaf: It’s difficult to tell exactly how the spectacles left their impression, but they must have been sandwiched between the two parchment endleaves for an extended period of time. Photo by Pete Smith.
This second rear flyleaf contains the most visible trace of the spectacles. Upon very close examination and under special lighting one can see the rivet used to join the two halves of the spectacles together at the bridge. Photo by Pete Smith.
Rear pastedown: the impression from the spectacles shows faintly through from the other side. Photo by Pete Smith.
Languenti ex sidere languor (I grow weak from the weakness of the sun)
Nikolaus Stuber, from Historica notitia rerum Boicarum (Historical facts from the life of Boethius), by Johann Edlweckh, Stadtamhof (Regensburg), 1746.
(Source: archive.org)
The First Global Man — The Americas Before and After Columbus
A pair of books by Charles Mann describe life in the Americas before and after Columbus linked the hemispheres and kicked off the first era of globalization. It turns out that the New World was far more technologically advanced than subsequent generations have realized, with plenty to teach the Old — especially about how to simultaneously exploit and preserve key natural resources.
The motion of my blood no longer keeps time with the tumult of the world.
