Maybe it’s hard times, or maybe it’s something else, but the theft of books from bookstores is on the rise. For some, book theft is a kind of “proof of manhood”, and the docket of those busted for this offence runs strongly to the male side. For others, books are desirable entities that, alas, are financially out of reach, so the acquisition proceeds “by other means” as Clausewitz said about war. The most-stolen book is the Bible, which, when you think about it a minute shouldn’t be all that surprising. In fact, it’s swiped even from religious book stores which have a policy of giving away a Bible to anyone who asks for one, gratis. In some bookstores, the theft rate is one book per hour, which over a week would be a very nice sales figure, but in this case sadly reflects loss of income. It’s not clear who the “most stolen” authors are, but Martin Amis, Paul Auster and Jeffrey Eugenides are often mentioned, along with some semi-classics: Don DeLilo and Jack Kerouac for example.
Theft

It is or it isn’t. It now seems that it is, sort of, a little bit anyway. That’s the Google phone. For a while now there was talk that Google was planning to release a handheld phone of its own design that would be what The G thinks a handheld should be, without any compromises required by dealing with outside manufacturers. The rumors got a boost recently when the company handed out exemplars of what is being called Nexus One. The folks were told to try it out and see what they thought. Google has an operating system back for handhelds, called Android, and it seemed to make sense to go ahead and launch a phone to go with it. Motorola did, in the Droid package. Analysts are divided on the Google phone, whether it makes sense that is. There are some drawbacks. Not the least of which is that Google would have to get into retailing hardware, something it hasn’t done. In fact, it doesn’t retail anything, so why start now. Google would also probably have to sell the phone at a loss or subsidize it somehow, since most existing mobiles are sold by networks in bundles with a service plan. Customers would have to pony up a nice chunk for an “unlocked” phone, as they call it, and then shop around for a carrier. It’s all possible, and if the G-phone were something super-special, maybe enough people would do it. I use my phone to make calls and to receive calls, and that’s it. So almost any phone around is several times more sophisticated than what I want and need. But, that’s me. The last word is that Google seems to be fooling around with this phone idea and has gone as far as comissioning a number of actual devices, which people are using. But industry observers are scratching their heads over the rest of it. We shall see.
Gphone

Gone With The Wind was probably the biggest money maker of all motion pictures, ever, once all the factors have been added in. Or, so they tell me. GWTW is also a kind of landmark in movie history. It was the Brontosaurus of movie making in the old style…spectacle, get the right stars, spare no expense, damn the torpedoes, everything has to be just right, in fact it has to be perfect. I wonder how young people today, seeing it for the first time, think about it, if they do at all. The soft-focus view of slavery has always disturbed people, and the characters seem un-human somehow: Melanie is too good, Rhett too irresistibly seductive, Scarlett too bad, Ashley too wimpy. They’re more types than people, to me anyway. But once the film gets rolling, the viewer can sit back and enjoy the feeling of watching a well-oiled machine producing entertainment, by the yard. GWTW is not a history lesson, or a course in the sociology of the Old South. It’s more like a soap opera, only grandly done, on a great scale, against a heroic background.
GWTW

We cover death, off and on, depending on how I feel about it at the moment. I don’t go out of my way to find important deaths, but if somebody I have some connection with dies, or if the deceased is important, or at least if I think s/he was, I’ll say something. It’s pretty subjective, I admit, but it’s my blog. Well, we have had a number of interesting people depart this life recently and it’s time for a nod.
First, Thomas Hoving, who was Director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was an interesting guy, who ran the Met for about ten years, and did some good things there, the particulars of which I won’t repeat here, other than to note that he snagged the King Tut exhibit which was an absolute blockbuster at the Met and in other sites around the country. He also managed to tick off a lot of people, partly because of his non-reverential, non high-priest-of-culture approach to the job of Director, and his somewhat too frank admission of art collecting’s dark side, especially in the purchase of items which had left their original countries by the agency of colorful people and in unusual ways, shall we say. His interest in the art world’s lower regions upset many of his colleagues, and he carried it forward in a career as a “fakebuster”. Since he knew many of the fakers and forgers personally, he was often able to spot their work. Hoving suggested that the ranks of the fakers include some very talented painters, and if you wanted an Old Master or an Impressionist, such a thing could be had, well done and fairly simply too. The suggestion that quite a number of museums are displaying excellent forgeries has made some museum directors very uneasy. His books Making the Mummies Dance, and False Impressions are interesting and fun. TH was 78 when he died on Dec. 5.
Hoving

Paul Samuelson was the first American to win the Nobel award in economics, and was a major figure in the development of the discipline in this country, working from his base at MIT. Samuelson wrote an enormously influential introductory textbook, which first appeared in 1948, and now is in its 19th edition. Colleges all over the world use it. Everybody says he brought clarity and rigor to the discipline, and I guess I have to agree, but if that’s so, why are there so many conflicting schools, sects, coteries and theories, each claiming to be the Only True Path. The Times featured a very lengthy obit, with evaluation.
Obit

Stephan Toulmin, scientist, philosopher and logician died on Dec.4 at the age of 87. Toulmin came here to give a couple of lectures and seminars on the history of science and medicine some years back. As I recall, he was better in the seminars than as a lecturer, but memory deceives often. Toulmin had a strong science background. As a young graduate, he worked with the RAF in WWII on developing radar equipment, jamming and counter-jamming, and was a participant in the “Sunday Soviets”, meetings of all ranks, civilian and military, in which the only rule was: anybody can say anything. High ranking officers were not pleased to have their views shredded by some junior, or worse, some civilian armed with a few equations, but it was felt that progress on radar was more important than hurt feelings. If somebody has a bad idea, kill it now, and don’t waste time on it. Maybe charming ideas such as that get a chance only in wartime. Toulmin was a very influential writer and thinker, who moved easily between different fields, but without being shallow. He really wanted to help everybody understand what science is and how it works.
Toulmin

Finally, we say goodbye to Gene Barry, dead at the age of 90. Barry was a movie actor, with a nice screen presence and a good, somewhat gravelly voice. These made him perfect for roles that required a certain class. He was perfect in a tux, and looked like he lived in one. I include him in these farewells because of one line of dialog in The War of the Worlds, not the Tom Cruise one, the earlier. Barry plays a scientist, in a nice suit, who is advising the Army about Martian weapons. A harried general tells him that the Martians seem to “be reversing the magnetic friztratz on the gravitational whatiz, making our systems useless. Is that possible?’ To which GB replies, “if they’re doing it, it is.” Poifect, as Moe would say. Empiricism summed up in six words. Barry had a long career, in all forms of ShowBiz from song and dance through musical comedy to drama, in the movies, on TV and legit.
Barry

Circumstances have not been kind to the publishing industry, and the bad news keeps on coming. Some landmark periodicals in book publishing are getting the chop as their parent company unloads them to “focus on growth”. That’s management euphemism for “kill the weak sisters and sick puppies”. Editor and Publisher magazine will close after 108 years of publication history. E&P is an insider’s trade journal for the industry, a place where publishing types could go to do some professional reading. I didn’t read it often, but from what I did read, I concluded that it was well put-together and not badly written. But E&P is not the only mag facing the firing squad. Kirkus Reviews will close as well, and that’s a real loss to many librarians because, as the name implies, KR was a source for reviews on new books, which could help libraries in selection decisions. In places such as small public libraries, you need all the help you can find to make sure the limited book budget is well spent, so KR played a useful role. AMAZON includes KR reviews of books, whenever they were available, as a help to dithering online buyers.
But, not anymore. You will be glad to know that the company that is closing these two venerable and useful publications has decided to continue Progressive Grocer or to sell it off, I forget which.
Variety is the house sheet for the Show Biz industry, and it is in no danger of going under, at least not right now. But the paper is in the news for another reason; the publishers are re-instating a toll gate for access to the contents. For a while, Variety went with the “information wants to be free” crowd, and let everybody in. But, the wind on charging for access is apparently shifting 180, and one site after another is locking up much, most, or all content behind a pay wall. The rationale in the present case is this: Variety is aimed at Show Biz types, and the assorted supporting populations. Too many casual general readers were reading online, but the core audience is insiders, so the publisher decided the best way to focus on them was to impose a charge to discourage non-pros. Makes sense.

Variety of course is famous for its punchy, telegraphic headlines that grab attention. Back in the Thirties, an article relating that people in rural areas actively disliked the movies about farmers and country people that were being shown was headlined: “Sticks Nix Hick Pix”, and one about the commercial success of the movie Passion of the Christ carried the headline: “Good Book Books Boffo Biz”. You get the idea.
Variety