Little things excite me

Little things excite me. (I know its a quirk - I know I am a geek - but I can't help it.) Today, at the library, I looked at two publications I hadn't seen before. A roll of microfilm of the now defunct Pittsburgh Leader arrived, from which I gathered some material on the October, 1922 Denishawn performance in that Pennsylvania city. However, by the time Brooks and Denishawn returned to Pittsburgh in December of 1923, this newspaper had folded. These newly uncovered articles and advertisements will mark the only appearance of the Pittsburgh Leader in the bibliographies of the LBS.

I also looked at some rolls of the London Free Press, from London, Ontario. I hadn't looked at any issues of this paper before, let alone any newspapers from a smaller Canadian city. From the rolls that arrived, I was able to gather some material on the two November, 1922 and four April, 1924 Denishawn performances.

The London Free Press interlibrary loan came from the National Library of Canada, which is located in Ottawa. I am very, very grateful they loan material across the border. Thanx to the National Library, I have been able to survey the various papers from Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Winnipeg. My survey - which is a hunt for Denishawn material as well as film reviews - is on-going. Sometime this year or next, I hope to borrow other newspapers from smaller Canadian towns which Denishawn visited, such as Hamilton, Peterbarough, Galt, and Kingston. Anyone live near Ottawa ?

Google Print

I have been hearing about Google Print for some time. Last month, it was announced that Google would be teaming up to scan and put online the contents of a few major American libraries. That's millions of books - all, in theory, searchable by keyword. One article on this story read:

"As part of the years-long project, Google will scan the entire holdings of Stanford University, which has nearly 8 million books. The company will do the same at the University of Michigan, which has 7 million books. Harvard University and the New York Public Library have also agreed to participate, though only as part of a test project. They will make only a fraction of their expansive holdings available before deciding whether to expand the program. Oxford University, in England, has also signed on with Google's digitization project, offering only books published before 1900."

I am drooling in anticipation. The impact this development might have on research should be considerable. I would think that new Louise Brooks material might even turn up - such as references to the actress in old histories of film, memoirs,  biographies, academic treatises, etc.... Keyword searching sure beats browsing the stacks.

Mark Tansey painting

On December 12th of last year, the New York Times ran a half-page spread on the highly regarded contemporary painter Mark Tansey and a recent work of his entitled "West Face." (Click here to read the article and see an image of the painting.) According to the article, "West Face appears to be a suavely rendered picture of a band of hikers trudging up a snowy mountainside. But look closely, and you'll find a landscape treacherous with puzzles, paradoxes, hidden images and allusions." Among the hidden images, reportedly, are portraits of various philosophers and Louise Brooks. I see the portraits (including the one that is supposedly of Brooks), but I don't recognize the actress. What do you think?

Louise Brooks on "Jeopardy!"

Apparently, Louise Brooks was mentioned yesterday on the popular game show Jeopardy! (I believe this is at least the second time within ten years that the actress has been a clue.)

I received an email from netochka, who forwarded a LiveJournal post by aksarah, who had noticed the mention. Her post read, in part . . . "Then, in the catagory of 'Yesterday's Hotties', they showed 8x10s of old actresses and asked who they were. Then, they showed this pic of a woman with black hair and the clue was something about how popular her hairdo was." None of the contestants, however, recognized Louise Brooks.

Did anyone else see this episode of the game show? Does anyone have a tape of it?

This day in history

I have been thinking about putting a "This day in history" feature on the LBS homepage. But have not been able to find a script, or piece of PHP/SQL/HTML code, with which to do so. In theory, there will be 365 variables - such as "Louise Brooks was born on this day in 1906" or "Pandora's Box opened in New York City on this day in 1929" - which will reveal themselves on the appropriate day. Does anyone have any suggestions, know of any links, or have any readymade programming which I could implement?

Bestselling books of the 1920s and 1930s

Some historical data, from Publisher's Weekly

Bestselling books (fiction and non-fiction), covering the years 1920 - 1929:  http://www.caderbooks.com/best20.html

Bestselling books (fiction and non-fiction), covering the years 1930 - 1939:    http://www.caderbooks.com/best30.html

Ain't 'IT' a Shame

A long article about Clara Bow ran on today's PopMatters website. In her debut column, the site's classic film columnist argues for the It Girls's place in the pantheon of legendary leading ladies. Within this consideration of Clara Bow,  there is this paragraph. "You can still buy postcards of her acting contemporary, Louise Brooks, at a local 'lifestyle store', but most people, even movie buffs, wouldn't be able to recognize Bow, let alone name one of her films. (I'll help you out; she was the leading lady in Wings (1927), winner of the first Oscar for Best Picture.) Why is Brooks a still-immortalized cult figure and Bow not? Maybe there's something about Brooks' persona as cool, amoral, gender-ambiguous jazz baby with a keen intelligence shining behind her dark eyes that's got more staying power than Bow, the little Brooklyn spitfire full of terrier enthusiasm and effortless charm."

Weekly call for help

No inter-library loans had arrived at the SFPL, thus nothing to report. . . . The times they are a changing: the San Francisco Public Library is switching its ILL requests from paper forms (which I had dutifully filled out every week) to web-based forms. The new library system is called Millenium. However, the system does not have a specific web-form for microfilm requests. There are only forms for books and articles. What to do ?

Does anyone live near Findlay, Ohio or Bowling Green University? There are Denishawn articles I would like to get ahold of which appeared in the Findlay Morning Republican and Findlay Daily Courier. The Findlay public library likely has these publications on microfilm, and I know that Bowling Green does. If you live nearby and can spare an afternoon in the cause of Louise Brooks scholarship, please contact the Louise Brooks Society.

The LBS would also like to acquire a copy of a paper presented at the 1996 German Studies Association conference in Seattle, Washington. The paper, by Richard W. McCormick, was entitled "New Women in Crisis: Commodification and Downward Mobility in G.W. Pabst's Büchse der Pandora and Irmgard Kenn's Das kunstseidene Mädchen."

The LBS is also interested in obtaining a recording and / or transcript of a CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) radio program called Tuesday Night,which aired on November 30, 1971. The program, which was prepared by George Pratley, featured a documentary on Charlie Chaplin which supposedly contains an interview with, or comments by, Louise Brooks. If so, this would be the only known "radio interview" with Brooks.