April 23

Patrick Cassels at The Faster Times amusingly examines the brief, frenetic, and commercially significant history of "New Coke," which was launched 25 years ago:

http://thefastertimes.com/business/2010/04/23/the-new-coke-fiasco-at-25/

I came from a Coca-Cola family -- Pepsi was evil, and to this day I won't eat in a Pepsi-serving restaurant -- and it is no exaggeration to say that the "New Coke" fiasco made an emotionally trying period for my mother in particular. The re-introduction of the classic Coca-Cola, brought on by relentless consumer outrage, saved her soft-drink sanity.

Alan Massie gives thoughtful re-consideration to Sir Walter Scott (a PMD favorite) and subsequent practitioners of the historical novel:

http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/2825/full

From the historical novel to actual history: Vulpes Libris re-opens the musty pages of the school-room classic familiar to every Latin student, Julius Caesar's The Gallic War, and finds much to enjoy still:

http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/caesar-de-bello-gallicothe-gallic-war/

I agree, although I will admit that Caesar's opening line -- "All of Gaul is divided into three parts" -- has got to be the dullest first sentence in all of world literature; but even that's a distinction of a kind. I am terribly happy to have been part of the last diminishing wave of Latin students in the United States; it was taught in both the private school I attended for grades 7 and 8, and the Catholic high school I attended for grades 9 through 12, and I took it in both places. I keep meaning to brush up and do a little Latin reading. I certainly believe that Latin and ancient Greek (and, for that matter, Sanskrit and classical Chinese) deserve a place of honor in a 21st century curriculum; the people who say that "dead languages" are irrelevant in our swingin' contemporary culture annoyed me even as an adolescent back in the Seventies. The discipline of learning Latin and its beautiful grammar was one of the best educational experiences I ever had.   

A modern historian finds himself in trouble, in yet another literary scandal: Professor Orlando Figes has admitted to writing what journalists are calling "savage" anonymous reviews of the works of "competitors" at Amazon. He went after books in his subject area (Russian studies), books that competed against his for literary prizes, books by writers who had given him negative reviews, books by people he disliked. For the past few days, his wife Stephanie Palmer tried to take the fall for him, but he has "come clean," not that it will do him much good, because this is unacceptably crappy behavior for a scholar of this stature, and the repercussions have only just begun. Let us admit, however, that from a sideline standpoint this is good juicy fun and will undoubtedly goose the book sales of everyone involved.

http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/?p=14567

To clear our heads, Let's Take a Walk! I agree with Curious Pages that the illustrations in this 1963 children's book are quite wonderful, reminiscent of the UPA cartoons of the Fifties:

http://curiouspages.blogspot.com/2010/04/lets-take-walk.html

Viewers of Werner Herzog's amazing documentary Grizzly Man will be interested to read more about bear-lover and bear-victim Timothy Treadwell:

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/stevereads/2010/04/the-grizzly-maze/

Is the world ready for the Bollywood Brokeback Mountain?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/23/india-gay-film

Adrian Fischer does a helpful survey of breakthrough Venezuelan music for SoundRoots (although I wish there were clickable audios in the post):

http://www.soundroots.org/2010/03/listening-to-venezuela.html

Among notables born on this date are playwright William Shakespeare, novelists Vladimir Nabokov, J.P. Donleavy, Maurice Druon (France), and Halldor Laxness (Iceland), science fiction novelist Avram Davidson, crime novelist Ngaio Marsh, humorist Artemus Ward, physicist Max Planck, President James Buchanan, composers Ethel Smyth and Ruggero Leoncavallo, dancer/choreographer Michel Fokine, painter J.M.W. Turner, sculptor Fritz Wotruba, baseball player Warren Spahn, film directors Frank Borzage, Ronald Neame, and Michael Moore, cinematographer Ernest Laszlo, pop singer Roy Orbison, and actors Simone Simon, Shirley Temple, and Judy Davis. Ernest Laszlo, certainly one of the greatest noir cinematographers, just a hair's-breadth behind John Alton, shot Impact, Manhandled, the 1951 version of M, While the City Sleeps, and D.O.A.. There was never a blacker night in noir than the great opening scene he filmed for Kiss Me Deadly:



Notice how the gas station that Mike Hammer pulls into has a positively "phosphorescent" glow against the pitch night, as Jack Shadoian noted in his great critical study Dreams and Dead Ends  -- a "gas station of the imagination."