Drumming at the Edge of Magic

 Mickey Hart, Jay Stevens, & Fredric Lieberman. Drumming at the Edge of Magic: A Journey Into the Spirit of Percussion,  HarperSanFrancisco, 1990.

     For a long time I thought I would walk into a bookstore and come out with a book explaining all of this.  I finally sought guidance from several of my more learned friends who suggested I try a good research library.  Have you ever been to a major research library, like Harvard’s Widener or Berkeley’s Doe? They’re imposing stone structures, every inch of which hammers home the message that this is a very serious building.  The first time I went into the library at Berkeley I felt as if I had entered a strange kind of church that was both very busy and very quiet – a kind of hushed, scurrying place.  Everywhere you looked, serious people were praying over piles of books.

      I couldn’t wait to get my pile.  I felt the same excitement that I remembered feeling when my grandfather took me to see the dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History – this was where the answers were kept.

     My guide was a brisk, no-nonsense type with a Ph.D. Astonished that I’d never been inside a big library before, she was enough of a teacher to be moved by my sudden and naïve eagerness for knowledge. Leading me over to a computer terminal, she punched in the topic – percussion—and scrolled quickly through the entries, jotting down numbers.  I was captivated by the process, particularly by the fact that inside this immense medieval stone building pulsed a heart of high technology.  In a minute we were trotting toward the stacks, zipping past aisles, checking numbers as we went.

     We made a right turn down between two of the stacks and halted in front of a squared-off section of maybe two dozen books.  The mother lode? I gazed at the titles.  Blades was there, of course, along with Curt Sachs’s History of Musical Instruments and John Chernoff’s African Rhythm and African Sensibility, but there were also a few volumes I had never seen before.  Eagerly I skimmed some of the tables of contents, my excitement fading as I went—there didn’t seem to be much here.

     Why were so many of the drum books so thin? And why, now that you mention it, were there so few? Why were there shelves full of books about the violin and walls full of books about the piano but only a dozen or so about drums, most of them monographs on obscurities like the gong in fourteenth-century Manchuria or gigantic tomes on narrow subjects like the mbira (the thumb piano in Zaire).

     I wheeled to question my guide, who nervously backed away murmuring something about there always being gaps in the scholarly record; if there weren’t gaps there’d be nothing for aspiring Ph.D.s to do.   [p. 29]

COMMENT

     This is my favorite library research story of all times.

     The drummer for the Grateful Dead walks into a library in Berkeley and... the librarian fails to recognize him. Then she gives him wrong advice.  Only in a moment of zen it turns out to be exactly the right advice.

     As things transpire, if you are Mickey Hart you have connections. Not long after this library incident, Hart's friends invited him to dinner with Joseph Campbell who literally wrote the book on The Power of Myth (1988). After chatting for a while about drums, Campbell (who like the librarian had also never heard of the Grateful Dead band, but knew the folktale)  offered the same advice  the librarian had given. He told Hart to write a book. 

   Micky Hart did what any respectable cult-band percussionist would do and hired a writer to help him write and a music professor to help with library research.  The book they wrote together is a marvel.

    It occurs to me that the reason that Hart failed to find books about shamanic drumming in the first place is because he was looking for indigenous knowledge.  The root problem is, most shamans don't write books.


 

Jill Lepore, Master of Microhistories, Tackles Endeavor of a Grander Scale

Jennifer Schuessler, “Jill Lepore, Master of Microhistories, Tackles Endeavor of a Grander Scale,” New York Times, Sept. 17, 2018, p. C1-2.

Even when filing an essay spurred by a group of books, Mr. Finder of the New Yorker said, Professor Lepore will send in detailed footnotes that sometimes include primary source documents that seem to have never been cited before.  

“Her gravitation towards dust, towards opening boxes that haven't seen light for decades, as clearly never faded, “ he said. 

… 

She also vacuumed up secondary literature.

     “I wrote strictly chronologically, and for every chapter I would check out a gazillion books,” she said.  “The security guard at the library would always ask, ‘What year are you on?”

COMMENT

It’s those “dusty” boxes again. 

Professor Lepore has written a well-reviewed new history of the U.S. [1] and her attraction to dust is the specific thing that  makes her a great historian. (When librarians say "dust" they usually mean unused materials that are a target for weeding).  Mr. Finder’s comment also carries an implication  that most historians copy from each other when they cite sources. This copying can also be a side effect of keyword search engines that highlight the most popular links. Finding new primary source documents means not using the same research strategy as everyone else. 

I notice that Professor Lepore works from the print collection. Writing a book is information-intensive.  Many researchers find that reading from print is a quicker way to scan through a lot of text, slowing down to give more attention to the interesting parts. It's also a way to find things expressed in non-keyword vocabulary-- especially important since language changes over time. Online reading enforces equivalent attention to each page in a way that I, personally, dislike.  In my own research, I find that I often use ebooks for keyword searching and almost never actually read them. 

     It's interesting to me that Lepore who is clearly a library super-user mentions a relationship with the security guard but not with any librarians. Library support staff are often the ones on the front lines interacting with patrons, while librarians, hidden in their offices, miss making connections like this. I wonder how many librarians at the Widener Library knew that professor Lepore was making such heavy use of the U.S. History Collection?  I wonder if any of them cared what year she was on?

[1] Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States, W.W.Norton (2018).

What are we Teaching Boys when we Discourage Them from Reading Books about Girls?

 
Shannon Hale. “What are We Teaching Boys when We Discourage Them from Reading Books about Girls? (Special to the Washington Post), Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 14, 2018. P. D2. 

A school librarian introduces me before I give an assembly. “Girls, you’re in for a real treat. You will love Shannon Hale’s books. Boys, I expect you to behave anyway.” 

 COMMENT

     The librarian who Hale mentions is one of several anecdotes about teachers, booksellers, parents and other adults who should know better. Hale says that  she has plenty of fans who are boys (No surprise. She's a good writer.), but they’ve  been reading in secret because they feel embarrassed to enjoy “girl” books.  It must be really aggravating for an author to get fan mail from people who have been shamed about liking her books. But as Hale points out, the social effects of gender-stereotyping books are far more harmful than just irritating writers. Boys who are told they can't read about girls are learning that it's shameful to feel empathy for girls. Hale recommends that we can all do better by learning to say that  a book is about girls without saying it’s for girls. 

     Hale mentions that books about boys like Harry Potter are considered gender neutral, though perhaps Harry Potter is not the right example since since the series has exemplary diversity as well as a lot of strong female characters like Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood, and Minerva McGonagal Even Harry Potter had its own run in with gender stereotyping. When it first came out the publisher told J.K. Rowling to use initials rather than her actual name because they thought boys wouldn't want to read a book written by a woman. (They also felt it necessary to issue an edition with an “adult” cover for grownups who felt ashamed to be seen reading children’s books).

     The two illustrations of Hale’s book covers that were chosen for the Salt Lake Tribune article are The Princess in Black and the Hungry Bunny Horde and Real Friends.  Both books feature highly feminized cover designs --pastel colors and cute, long-haired  female figures making smiling eye-contact with prospective readers. 

My copy of Princess Academy (top left) that I bought when the book first came out shows a group of women trekking through a rugged mountainous landscape. I was sorry to see that the new cover (top right) has an image that looks a lot like Belle from the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast.  Even I, a dispassionate middle aged librarian, might feel a twinge of embarrassment to be caught reading a book with a fake Disney princess on the cover.

Go and See 'Jane and Emma' this Weekend

Holly Richardson. "Go and See 'Jane and Emma' this Weekend. Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 13 2018. p.A11.

Tamu has shared her own painful experiences encountering painful experiences encountering racism in the church.  The first time she was called the N-word was at a church school.  Not surprisingly, it shocked her and then rocked her.  She needed to know if there really was a place for her in "God's choir." A teacher sent her to the college library to research black Mormon pioneers and that is where she "met" Jane and changed her life.

COMMENT

I've lived in Utah my whole life and I had no idea that Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (a.k.a. Mormons) was radically anti-racist. The contemporary LDS  church has yet to live up to Joseph Smith's vision, "All are alike unto God".  Up until 1978, black men were forbidden to hold the priesthood (women still can't).  I've often wondered how black people could be persuaded to convert to Mormonism.

Two  black Mormon women, Tamu Smith and Zandra Vranes collaborated on the script for the movie Jane and Emma (2018) (In Utah those names don't necessarily sound black, but they definitely sound Mormon).  At a point where she was feeling doubt, Tamu went searching for black Mormon history, where else? In the library.  There she found a history that indicated having a  black Mormon identity is not an impossible contradiction.

Later in the essay Richardson writes that she has a teenaged daughter adopted from Ethiopia.  After the family watched Jane and Emma they started a conversation about racism.  Richardson's daughter admitted, "That's happened to me." Someday Holly Richardson's daughter might go looking for black Mormon history in the library herself.  I like to think that when she does she'll find her very own mama bear standing up for radical inclusion. 

Stony Mesa Sagas

Chip Ward. Stony Mesa Sagas. Torrey House Press. 2017.

But in his last story, the one he didn'’t complete, he learned he leaned that sometimes It's hard to distinguish the the good guys from the bad and the bad guys do get away and the truth is suppressed. He’d investigated the shooting deaths by police of homeless men. Not just homeless. There were many people who are temporarily homeless while trying desperately to land on their feet, but the people who had been killed were chronically homeless. They are the ones we point to, the ones who live on the streets, sleep in parks and alleys, spend their days reading in public libraries, and sometimes rant on sidewalks, piss in the courthouse shrubs, and scream in the subway when visited by their inner demons  They’re the ones who cry with joy in fast food lines when angels appear above the condiment bar. 

     America, Buchman realized, had kicked the mentally ill out into the streets and then punished them for expressing the symptoms of untreated illness. Often, way too often , the ranters and screamers who didn’t or couldn’t respond to the police when confronted were coldly executed.  In case after case, an order was given once and given again. If the raging didn’t stop, a cop would calmly and deliberately take aim and then fire. These incidents had a cold and calculated aspect and they were becoming almost routine, like removing pests from a garden, bullets instead of bug spray. [p. 36-37]

COMMENT

      This is fiction, so it's made up, but the premise is drawn from real life. Ward's essay about homeless people at the public library [1] is probably the only essay ever written for an audience of librarians that has been turned into a Hollywood movie [2]. In the novel Buchman, Ward's fictional alter-ego (get it?), is a journalist who has quit his job and moved to a small town in Utah after a cover-up involving the murder of homeless people. There he continues to serve as a sort of  reference librarian/detective, helping people find and use useful information.  

    I don't think that Ward knew of any actual cover-up as horrifying as this fictional one, though I'm sure he was aware of abuses. After Ward's essay came out, many libraries actually made an effort to be more helpful to homeless patrons. [3] The Salt Lake Public Library, for example, staffs a Volunteers of America desk to help connect people with food, shelter and other services. 

     Public libraries are a key institution for democracy, one of the few places where people of all ages, ethnicity and social class all share the same space. It's hard to imagine a privatized space that would find ways to mitigate the disruption of homelessness or welcome homeless people in any way.

[1] Chip Ward, "How the Public Library Became Heartbreak Hotel," TomDispatch.com, 2007 .
[2]  The Public (2018)
[3] Dowd, Ryan. The Librarian's Guide to Homelessness: An Empathy-driven Approach to Solving Problems, Preventing Conflict, and Serving Everyone. ALA Editions, 2018.
[4] [Book Review] Stony Mesa Sagas. Reviewed by Amy Brunvand in Catalyst magazine, November 2018.

Beyond 'Rent,' Tunes Awaiting Their Star Turn

Michael Paulson, "Beyond 'Rent,' Tunes Awaiting Their Star Turn: Bringing New Life to Unknown Songs by Jonathan Larson," New York Times, October 7, 2018, p. AR7.

     The concert is a passion project for Jennifer Ashley Tepper, the club's creative and programming director and a longtime fan of Larson's work-- her bat mitzvah sign-in board depicted her dressed as Mimi, popping out of a pile of "Rent" playbills.  She dived into his archives at the Library of Congress, listening to hours of recordings and sifting through boxes of documents to reconstruct his catalog.
     Larson wrote about 200 songs over 18 years, starting when he was in college.  They were for unproduced musicals, workshops and benefits; there were pop songs, political songs and songs cut from his to posthumously produced musicals, "Rent" and "Tick, Tick...Boom!"
     Many are about being a struggling artist in New York. Few of the songs existed in written form, so the producers of the "Jonathan Larson Project," as the 54 Below concerts are being titled, had to transcribe and orchestrate them from recordings. 

COMMENT

     As far as research projects go, this one is high profile. After Larson died in 1996, Mark Horowitz, an archivist at the Library of Congress, contacted his family to ask if they would consider donating his papers.[1] The songs were on audio cassettes (remember those?) and computer data files. The archivists registered copyright protection and made back-up copies of the media files. [2]  Preserving historic media is a big problem for libraries. Plastic materials used for recordings are generally not chemically stable. Computer technology keeps changing and it's hard to keep up. You either have to save the device that plays the media or you have or continually migrate it to some new-fangled media platform. All of this is expensive and time-consuming so librarians have to pick and choose what to save.

     Transcription is also an issue for researchers using multi-media sources. Transcription software exists, but none of it is totally automatic.  It's still a time-consuming, nitpicky process to listen and transcribe recordings.

     Nonetheless, in a blog post she wrote for the Library of Congress, Tepper describes her research as "the adventure of a theatre historian's wildest dreams."[3]  The photo accompanying the New York Times article shows singers using sheet music on music stands.  Essentially, Tepper's transcriptions made Larson's music accessible by migrating it from digital formats to paper, and then from paper into live performance.

[1] Jonathon Larson Papers 1978-1996

[2] Amy Asch, "Creating Jonathan Larsen's Archive: a Letter from the Woman who Built his Library of Congress Collection," Playbill, Jan. 28, 2016.

[3] Jennifer Ashley Tepper, "Finding Jonathan Larsen’s Lost Works In Tapes and Boxes…and Turning Them Into a Show," Library of Congress> Blogs > Music, Sept. 6, 2018.

A Famous Nude Gets a Face and an Identity

Adam Nossiter, "A Famous Nude gets a Face and an Identity: Historian Solves Mystery of a Gustave Courbet Painting," New York Times, Oct 2. 2018, p.C1;C6.

     The feminist art historian Linda Nochlin called the work "pornography" but also "a little masterpiece of overt sexuality."
     And now finally the matter of its sitter seems to have been solved, thanks to a chance discovery by a mild-mannered French historian toiling in the archives.
...
     Mr Schopp's breakthrough came innocently enough.  He had been working on annotation the letters between Dumas and the writer George Sand, and had long been perplexed by a passage in the old typewritten copies, where Dumas inveigh against the  "insolent" and "cowardly" Courbet, who had committed an artistic heresy, in the view of Dumas:
     "One doesn't paint with one's most delicate and sonorous brush the interview of Mademoiselle Queniault of the Opera, for the Turk who took refuge inside it from time to time -- all of it life-size, and life-size also two women passing for men."
...
     But what about that world "interview" in the typescript, and the other painting referred to?  Mr. Schopp went back to the source -- the manuscript of the Dumas letter at the National Library.
The word Dumas had actually written was "interior," not interview.  He underlined it, to emphasize that he was playing with worlds.
     "I dared to utter an inner 'Eureka,'' Mr. Schopp writes in a new book about the affair, "The Origin of the World: Life of the Model," which will be published in France this week. 

COMMENT 

The first rule of research is, when in doubt consult the original source. The name of the model for a famous (and famously risqué) painting by Gustave Courbet was unknown, even though the answer to the mystery was hiding in plain sight.  It took a researcher brave enough to admit that the transcription made no sense to go back and investigate what the original manuscript actually said.  It didn't help that Dumas had misspelled the name of Constance Queniaux, foiling a keyword search strategy.  The journalist is pleased to report that the sexy Ms. Queniaux lived long and prospered.