Author Archives: Julie Mellby

Need a Project, no. 8? Color IQ


Are you overwhelmed when confronted with hundreds of Pantone color samples at Home Depot? Do you have difficulty telling red from green?  Are you one of every twelve men who have some form of color vision deficiency? When was the last time you tested your perception of colors and hues?

This week, why not schedule a few minutes to take one of several color IQ tests?

The most common form is the Farnsworth–Munsell 100 Hue Color Vision Test, which contains four distinct rows of similar color hues, each containing 25 distinct variations of each hue. Each color hue at the polar end of a row is fixed in position, to serve as an anchor. Each hue tile between the anchors can be adjusted as the observer sees fit. The final arrangement of the hue tiles represents the aptitude of the visual system in discerning differences in color hue.

The system was developed by Dean Farnsworth in the 1940s and it “tests the ability to isolate and arrange minute differences in various color targets with constant value and chroma that cover all the visual hues described by the Munsell color system.”

https://munsell.com/faqs/what-does-score-farnsworth-munsell-100-hue-test-mean/

or

https://www.xrite.com/hue-test

Then test your ability to name and match color with hue:

There are also tests for color blindness and other conditions. Once you finish, results are calculated immediately. You can also compare your results with those of others and see where you stand internationally. Note, the older you are, the greater the chances that your color perception is poor.

 

See also: Colour-blindness and colour-perception by F.W. Edridge-Green, M.D., F.G.S. … ; with three coloured plates (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd., 1891). Full text online

 

Or Colour. The most fascinating magazine in the world (London: William Dawson and sons. 1914- ).
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008303341

The devil, as he in the fulnes of his malice, first invented these great ruffes…

Crispijn van den Queborn (1604-1652) after Isaac Oliver (ca.1556-1617), Elisabet D.G. Angliae Franciae, et Hiberniae, Regina, 1625. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection

It was not difficult to identify this engraving of Elizabeth I, Queen of England (1533–1603), with the information inscribed on the plate below image: “Mortua Anno MiserI CorDI ae At 70 / Crisp: van queboren Sculp A:1625”

The half-length posthumous portrait shows Elizabeth I wearing an elaborate pearl adorned dress with a striking ruff and crown. According to O’Donoghue’s A Descriptive and Classified Catalogue of Portraits of Queen Elizabeth (1894): “It is a noteworthy fact that none of the engravings of Elizabeth published in or near her own time can be affiliated to existing oil paintings or miniatures, and (with the exception of the large plate by C. van de Passe and one of those by F. Delaram), none bear the name of the original artist.”

 

O’Donoghue continues “The most striking of all, and one peculiarly associated with Elizabeth, is the ruff, and almost the entire history of the rise and progress of that remarkable article of attire may be traced in her portraits; for this reason the various forms which it took at different periods have been used for the classification of the present catalogue.”

 

 

 

 

When researching the fashion of Elizabethan London, one of the first contemporaneous sources is Philips Stubbes’ The anatomie of abuses, published in 1583 and reprinted four times over the course of the next decade. While documenting both men and women’s dress, Stubbes did not hesitate to give his opinions, subtitling his study:  “a discouerie, or briefe summarie of such notable vices and imperfections, as now raigne in many countreyes of the world: but (especiallye) in a famous ilande called Ailgna: together, with most fearefull examples of Gods iudgements, executed vppon the wicked for the same, aswel in Ailgna of late, as in other places, elsewhere. Very godly, to be reade of all true Christians: but most needefull to be regarded in Englande. Made dialogue-wise by Phillip Stubbes. Here is a segment on Ruffes:

They have great and monsterous ruffes, made either of Camericke, Holland, Lawne, or els of some other the finest cloth that can be got for money, whereof some be a quarter of a yard deep, yea, some more, very few lesse; So that they stand a full quarter of a yarde (and more) from their necks, hanging over their shoulder poynts, instead of a vaile. But if Aeolus with his blasts, or Neptune with his stormes chaunce to hit uppon the crafie bark of their brused ruffes, then they goe flip flap in the winde, like rags flying abroad, and lye upon their shoulders like the dishcloute of a slut. But wot you what? The devil, as he in the fulnes of his malice, first invented these great ruffes, so hath hee now found out also two great stayes to beare up and maintaine that his kingdome of great ruffs : the one arch or piller wherby his kingdome of great ruffes is underpropped, is a certaine kinde of liquide matter which they call Starch, wherin the devill hath willed them to wash and dive his ruffes wel, which when they be dry, wil then stand stiffe and inflexible about their necks. The other piller is a certain device made of wyers, crested for the purpose, whipped over either with gold, thred, silver or silk, and this hee calleth a supportasse, or underpropper. This is to be applyed round about their necks under the ruffe, upon the out side of the band, to beare up the whole frame and body of the ruffe from falling and hanging down….

So few have them, as almost none is without them; for every one, how meane or simple soever they bee otherwise, will have of them three or foure apeece for sayling. And as though Cambrick, Holland, Lawne, and the finest cloth that maye bee got any where for money, were not good inough, they have them wrought all over with silke woorke, and peradventure laced with golde and silver, or other costly lace of no small price. And whether they have Argente to mayntaine this geare withall, or not, it forceth not much, for they will have it by one meane or another, or else they will eyther sell or morgage their Landes (as they have good store) on Suters hill & Stangate hole, with losse of their lives at Tiburne in a rope. & in sure token thereof, they have now newly found out a more monstrous kind of ruffe of xii. (12) , yea, xvi (16) lengthes a peece, set 3 or 4 times double, & is of some, fitlie called: “Three steppes and a halfe to the Gallowes”.

The women there [in Ailgna] use great ruffes, & neckerchers of holland, lawne, camerick, and such cloth, as the greatest thred shall not be so bigge as the least haire that is: then, least they should fall down, they are smeared and starched in the devils liquore, I meane Starch: after that, dryed with great diligence, streaked, patted and rubbed very nicely, and so applyed to their goodly necks, and, withall, underpropped with supportasses (as I tolde you before) the stately arches of pride: beyond all this they have a further fetch, nothing inferiour to the rest; as, namely, three or foure degrees of minor ruffes, placed gradatim, step by step, one beneath the other, and all under the Maister devil ruffe. The skyrts, then, of these great ruffes are long and wide every way, pleted and crested ful curiously, God wot. Then, last of all, they are either clogged with golde, silver, or silk lace of stately price, wrought all over with needle woork, speckled and sparkled heer and there with the sonne, the moone, the starres, and many other antiquities straunge to beholde. Some are wrought with open woork down to the midst of the ruffe and further, some with purled lace so cloyd, and other gewgawes so pestered, as the ruffe is the least parte of it self. Sometimes they are pinned up to their eares, sometimes they are suffered to hang over their shoulders, like windmil sayles fluttering in the winde; and thus every one pleaseth her self with her foolish devices, for suus cuiusque crepitus sibi bene olet, as the proverb saith: “every one thinketh his own wayes best”.

Seen above:

Francis Delaram. From Annales: The True and Royal History, of the Famous Empresse Elizabeth, Queene of England, France and Ireland, &c., by William Camden. 1625.

The Ermine Portrait [Elizabeth I]  by Nicholas Hilliard (1585).

Sequestered in 1767

https://dpul.princeton.edu/ga_treasures/catalog/9593tz72p
The History of the Holy Jesus … Being a pleasant and profitable Companion for Children : composed on Purpose for their Use. By a Lover of their precious Souls. 15th edition (Boston: Printed by I. Thomas, for Z. Fowle, [1767?]). Graphic Arts Collection Sinclair Hamilton 68 (2) s

The History of the Holy Jesus: containing a brief and plain account of his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascention into heaven : and his coming again at the great and last Day of Judgment : being a pleasant and profitable companion for children : compos’d on purpose for their use / by a lover of their precious souls. Sixth edition (Boston: Printed by J. Bushell and J. Green, 1749). Graphic Arts Collection Hamilton 28s

 

The Sinclair Hamilton Collection has six editions of The History of the Holy Jesus, 1749: Hamilton 28s; 1749: Hamilton 1311(1)s; 1767: Hamilton 68(2)s; 1774: Hamilton 68(1)s; 1779: Hamilton 88s; and 1958 (1746): Hamilton 1311(2)s. According to Hamilton, the 4th edition, published by D. Gookin in Boston in 1747 was the earliest American edition of this book, with similar plates in the 4th, 5th, and 6th editions attributed to James Turner (1721-1759?). Turner is best known for “Join or Die” the snake representing the early American states commissioned by Benjamin Franklin (See: Karen Severud Cook, “Benjamin Franklin and the Snake That Would Not Die,” The British Library Journal 22, no. 1 (spring 1996)).

Later on the Boston printer Zechariah Fowle (1724-1776) published several editions of this book with illustrations recut by young Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831). Hamilton notes “Certain of the cuts in these two edition of 1766 and 1767 appear to have been re-engraved from those which James Turner may have made for the earlier edition…. All of these are in reverse form the earlier cuts and are of poorer workmanship than the originals. Some changes have been introduced such as … in the cut of the prodigal son the number of swine has been reduced from two to one. There is also a small cut of a three-masted square rigger, presumably representing the ship which figured in the miraculous draught of fishes, which may have been copied but not in reverse, from the more elaborate cut of a ship, proudly flying what looks very much like the English flag, in the earlier editions.”

Besides the changes in cuts, Princeton’s 1767? volume has a unique hand painted paper wrapper with the design continued on the back. This copy is missing pages 1-10 and 41-45 but the rest is usable and a great comparison with the earlier cuts.

Left: 15th edition 1767?  Right: 6th edition 1749

 

15 edition, 1767? above

6th edition 1749 below

6th edition 1749, not in later editions

6th edition 1749 above

15th edition 1767? below

15th edition 1767? not in earlier editions

 

15th edition 1767? above

6th edition 1749 below

 

 

Above: 15th edition 1767?    Below: 6th edition 1749

See another copy: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2017/09/29/being-a-pleasant-and-profitable-companion-for-children/

 

 

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Are you following the Ancient Mariner Big Read presented by The Arts Institute at the University of Plymouth plymouth.ac.uk/arts-institute; an inclusive, immersive work of audio and visual art, commissioned by @theaiplym @plymuni #marinerbigread www.ancientmarinerbigread.com? Readers include Simon Armitage, the 2019 Holmes Visiting Professor and Poet at Princeton University.


https://www.ancientmarinerbigread.com/reading/

The readers and artists:

No.1, Reader Jeremy Irons, Artist Glenn Brown “The Shallow End,” Oil on panel (oval)

No.2, Reader Jeanette Winterson, Artist Lisa Wright “Lucent Blue,” Oil on canvas

No.3, Reader Samuel West, Artist Ackroyd + Harvey, “Storm Drawings” Luminescent paint on card

No.4, Reader Peter Wilson, Artist Peter Wilson, “Polar guide” Filmed + recorded by Eric Wehrmeister, Point Wild, Antarctica

No.5, Reader Willem Dafoe, Artist Gordon Cheung, “Albatross Glitch”

No.6, Reader Hilary Mantel, Artist Linder “Post-Mortem: Yura” Photomontage

No.7, Reader Simon Armitage, Artist Sarah Chapman “Immersion” Photograph, oil + ceramic on aluminium

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?
The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May’st hear the merry din.’
He holds him with his skinny hand,
‘There was a ship,’ quoth he.
‘Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Plymouth students write: “Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born 21 October 1772, at Ottery St Mary, Devon, where his father was the vicar. As a young man at Jesus College, Cambridge, he won a prize for his poem protesting the slave trade, and briefly absconded to enlist in the dragoons under the alias, Silas Tomkyn Comberbache; he spent most of his time falling off his horse and was officially discharged for being ‘insane’. After leaving Cambridge he and Robert Southey tried to set up a utopian settlement in Pennsylvania, but this faltered. He married Sara Fricker in Bristol in 1795, and became close friends with William and Dorothy Wordsworth.”

 

 

First published in 1798 – we [University of Plymouth] use Coleridge’s revised version of 1817 – but still vitally relevant today, it is no coincidence, perhaps, that this poem is the first great work of English literature to speak to isolation and loneliness – and the possibility of redemption if we mend our ways. Three years in the making, drawing on the talents of actors, artists, performers, poets, and writers, The Ancient Mariner Big Read is a brand-new digital work of art in its own right – a wild and tempestuous voyage into the unknown.

 

See also the short silent film by Abishek Daniel Chawla:

See also this version using images from Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, illustrated by Gustave Doré (London: Doré Gallery, 1876). Graphic Arts Collection GAX Over 2006-0220F; more about that edition here: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2016/03/02/coleridge-and-dore/


Ricky Jay’s Magic Magic Book

Ricky Jay (1946-2018), The Magic Magic Book: an inquiry into the venerable history & operation of the oldest trick conjuring volumes, designated ‘blow books’… / adorned with original renderings from the ateliers of these esteemed delineators of artistic impression, Vija Celmins, Jane Hammond, Glenn Ligon, Justen Ladda, Philip Taaffe, William Wegman ; embellished with ancient iconography from the collection of the author of this curious compendium, Ricky Jay (New York: Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1994). Copy 247 of 300. 2 volumes. Special Collections GAX GV1559 .J39


“The edition is three hundred copies, numbered one to three hundred. Ninety copies are reserved for the collaborators and sixty are reserved for the members of the Library Fellows. The first eighty copies are accompanied by an additional suite of prints.”–colophon

“The text volume was designed by Patrick Reagh and Ricky Jay and edited by Susan Green; the blow book was designed by Patrick Reagh, Ricky Jay, and Leslie Miller, with May Castleberry.”–colophon

 

 

Beginning in 1990, Jay spent four years working with May Castleberry, then at the Whitney Museum of American Art, on a two-volume set called The Magic Magic Book. One volume presents Jay’s historical essay on the magician’s conjuring book known as a “blow book,” and the second volume is a blow book using images from contemporary American artists including Vija Celmins, Jane Hammond, Glenn Ligon, Philip Taaffe, and William Wegman.


Blow books have special manipulatable tabs that make the content of the book appear to change. Each time the magician flips through the book the contents appear different. “With a flick of the finger, the performer can make a range of images appear and then disappear.” Here is a twitter video of Brandon Sheffield flipping through the Magic Magic Book: https://twitter.com/i/status/1080186210625249281

 

Some sources list the earliest known mention of the blow book as by Gerolamo Cardano in 1550, who described the trick by mentioning “conjurors show different and always unlike pictures in one and the same book.” Another early mention is by Reginald Scot in his book The Discoverie of Witchcraft, published in 1584.


In 2014, Ricky Jay appear at the New York Public Library’s “Live at the NYPL” series to talk about The Magic Magic Book. Although a video of the 1 ½ hour conversation is not available, there is an audio recording and a complete transcription: https://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/ricky-jay. Jay comments,

“I had been researching for some years the history of something called the blow book, which was the oldest trick book in the world. It’s more of a prop than an actual book and there had never been a history of it. And if you can see this this is just the title page announcing that this is a history of The Magic Magic Book and it was called the blow book, because whoever blew on the pages was able to make the images on the pages change I think the quote was “many several ways.” And this particular book was a collaboration with a number of well-known modern artists, Vija Celmins, Jane Hammond, Glenn Ligon, Justen Ladda, who made this beautiful case, Philip Taaffe, and William Wegman.

And so I visited the studios of these artists with May Castleberry to talk about images they had that might have to do with magic, but basically this first volume was a history of how these blow books had been made and used going back to the sixteenth century and the two major sixteenth-century books on magic, Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft in England and Jean Prévost’s wonderful working book of magic in French, both published in 1584, both have explanations of the making and presentation of this thing called a blow book, and they’re completely different, which is interesting, and then the blow book that we have from the New York Public Library that I’ll show you in a minute is also slightly different, and so we decided to re-create a blow book, and we literally made this. I daresay this was the greatest miscalculation of time in my life because this took an enormous amount of time to do as a pro bono job, but I’m incredibly proud of it.

…And it was performed—in this history of the blow book, I talk about it being performed by magicians for years. At times it was an incredibly cherished, very expensive item in their repertoire. Certainly that was true in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. By the early nineteenth century, magicians often sold them after their shows, as a prop and also as a trick to garner money for the magicians and a little bit of publicity. But when I wrote the book, the earliest blow book extant was a seventeenth-century book probably printed in Belgium, completely manuscript. And, if you recall, the last thing I flipped through were a series of devils. They came from that book….”

See also: Reginald Scot (1538?-1599), The Discouerie of Witchcraft, Wherein the Lewde Dealing of Witches and Witchmongers is Notablie Detected…Heerevnto is Added a Treatise Vpon the Nature and Substance of Spirits and Diuels, etc.: all latelie written by Reginald Scot ([London, William Brome] 1584). Rare Books GR535.S41

See also: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2017/10/31/bilder-zauberei/

See also: https://rickyjay.com/

 

 

Need a Project, no. 7? 1626

What happened in 1626 to account for the surge in usage of the word “editor”?

This blog has no editor, other than valued friends and colleagues who catch the many typos and write to me, much as Titus Pomponius Atticus (ca. 110-32 BCE) wrote to his friend Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) to suggest corrections and edits. As part of a search for early professional editors of modern printed books, a Googlebooks Ngram search led to this odd phenomenon (similar searches in German, French, and Spanish are completely different). What happened in 1626 to account for the surge in usage of the word “editor”?


Might it have something to do with Samuel Purchas’s magnum opus: Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes, London, 1625 and the obituaries for the author the following year? https://doi-org.ezproxy.princeton.edu/10.1093/ref:odnb/22898

 

Samuel Purchas (1577?-1626), Purchas his pilgrimes: in five books. The first, contayning the voyages and peregrinations made by ancient kings, patriarkes, apostles, philosophers, and others, to and thorow the remoter parts of the knowne world: enquiries also of languages and religions, especially of the modernediuersified professions of Christianitie. … (London: Printed by William Stansby for Henrie Fetherstone, and are to be sold at his shop in Pauls Church-hard at the signe of the Rose, 1625-[1626]). RB Oversize 1007.741.2q; EXKA Oversize Americana 1625q; and Scheide Library 25.1

 

 

 

Or rather is it something to do with Francis Bacon, Viscount St Alban (1561–1626)?
https://doi-org.ezproxy.princeton.edu/10.1093/ref:odnb/990

A note in the DNB mentions “…many of those contemporaries who knew Bacon more intimately depicted his personality and character in highly positive terms. William Rawley compiled and published a commemorative volume in Bacon’s honour in 1626. The volume contained thirty-two Latin poems in his praise. These poems called Bacon ‘the very nerve of genius’ and ‘the greatest philosopher since the fall of Greece’ (Mathews, 7). But those who thought highly of Bacon admired his moral and personal traits as well as his intellectual powers. Ben Jonson called Bacon:

one of the greatest men and most worthy of admiration that hath been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength … knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest.”

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Sylva sylvarum, or, A naturall history in ten centuries / written by the Right Honble. Francis Lo Verulam Viscount St. Alban; published after the authors death by William Rawley (London: Printed by J.H. for W. Lee …, 1626). RB 2016-0005Q. Frontispiece by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677).

Title-page to Francis Bacon, ‘Sylva sylvarum or a Natural History in ten centuries’ (London, W. Lee, 1651); two fluted columns with decorated capitals, between which a globe lettered ‘Mundus Intellectualis’; in the background, the sea; above, the sun and rays, two cherubim, a tetragrammaton, and the lettering ‘Et vidit Deus lucem quod esset bona’. 1627 Engraving–British Museum

Write if you have a better answer: jmellby@princeton.edu and it will be posted.

 

Lord Temple and his stolen stationery

James Gillray (1757-1815), The Fall of Icarus, April 20, 1807. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.01485. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown ’95. http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/9p290943w

Have you ever taken a pad of paper or an extra pen from your office? When Lord Temple, later Buckingham*, left office in 1807, he was accused of taking with him large quantities of stationery. What might be a minor infraction was highlighted and repeated by caricaturists over many years so whenever you saw a picture of Buckingham, he was usually carrying a hoard of paper and pens.

In the print above, The Fall of Icarus, we see Lord Temple, winged and naked, attempting to fly after his father but like Icarus, his wings are disintegrating. The dropping feathers are shaped like quill pens and splattered with red sealing wax. We anticipate him landing on a stake of public opinion, inscribed “Stake out of Public-Hedge!” George III, as the sun, is looking severely down at Temple, causing the wax of Temple’s wings to melt. In the lower right, a servant hands off packages inscribed ‘Stationary Office’, with paper and bundles of pens.

‘In former days the Poet sings,
An Artist skill’d and rare
Of Wax and Feathers form’d his Wings
And made a famous pair –
With which from Precipice or Tower
From Hill or highest Trees,
When work’d by his mechanic power
He could descend with ease, –
Why T-p-e then wants such a store
You surely ask in vain? –
A moment of reflection more
Will make the matter plain,
With Plumes & Wax, & such like things
In quantities not small
He tries to make a pair of Wings
To ease his sudden Fall! – ‘

*Richard Grenville, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1776-1839), also known as Lord Temple, also known as Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos Grenville; also known as Buckingham. Elder son of George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st marquess of Buckingham. Not to be confused with George Nugent Temple Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham (1753-1813), son of the prime minister George Grenville, succeeded his uncle Richard Temple as third Earl Temple and prefixed the names Nugent-Temple to his surname; created Marquess of Buckingham.

Here are a few more prints scolding Temple (Buckingham) for stealing stationery:

Detail
James Gillray (1757-1815), Overthrow of the Republican-Babel, May 1, 1809. Hand colored etching. British Museum

The Tower of Babel is here represented by bundles of documents tied by tricolour ribbon, culminating in the allegations of Mrs. Clarke against the Duke of York. …The ladder is the Broad-Bottom Ladder of Ambition [coalition formed between Charles James Fox and Lord North]. Temple has broken the lower rungs and lies on his back, his legs in the air. He has dropped large stacks of Foolscap [what we call legal size] paper for Broad Bottom and Stationary from the Paymasters For Attacks on Ministry, with pens, sealing-wax, … Dorothy George adds: “Temple did not belong to the extreme wing of the Whigs, represented by Whitbread and Folkestone, though he was a supporter of Wardle. His presence may be due to the canard about his pilfering of stationery…”

 

Attributed to Charles Williams (active 1796-1830), The Fall of the Temple; – of Rome, April 20, 1807. Hand colored etching. British Museum.

Here we see Lord Temple with a bloody nose, scrambling to collect the bales of stationery, pens, sealing wax, scissors, ink pots and other writing materials he dropped. He says; “God and Innocency Defend and Guard us!!”– Buckingham Richd. III.

 

Samuel De Wilde (1751–1832), [All the Talents Dismissed], February 1, 1808. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts Collection.

John Bull (George III), has risen from his chair of state to overthrow Grenville’s Ministry, while the new Ministers are grouped on the left Behind and above him, Britannia sits enthroned, flanked by pillars; she holds her shield and angrily points with her staff at the ex-Ministers, who are also assailed by missiles. …. In the foreground on the extreme right. Temple crouches over a pile of stationery and pens.

 

By the way, if you look closely at the Gillray print “The Fall of Icarus” at the top, you will notice that the date at the bottom is slightly smeared. For many years, the main sources of information about Gillray listed it as April 28, 1807 but contemporary research has corrected that to read April 20, 1807.

The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist: with the story of his life and times / edited by Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A. F.S.A. (London: Chatto and Windus, [1873]). Graphic Arts Collection Oversize Rowlandson 989.2q

If you have to write, write with a pencil.

**This is very bloody**

 

Announcing the Winners of the 2019-2020 Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize

The Judging Committee of the 2019-2020 Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize is pleased to announce this year’s winners. We are departing from our tradition of publicizing the result of the annual essay contest over a large group event, where student winners join the Friends of the Princeton University Library at its spring dinner meeting. The gathering, originally scheduled for April 19, was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Princeton students have been sent home and dispersed around the world. As chair of the Judging Committee, I (Minjie Chen) used to prepare for the ceremony by finding colleagues who could teach me how to pronounce winners’ names. This year I am spared this little routine as well because the announcement will appear in writing only.

The 2019-2020 Adler Prize is awarded to three student collectors who, in the opinion of the judges, have “shown the most thought and ingenuity in assembling a thematically coherent collection of books, manuscripts, or other material normally collected by libraries.” Thanks to the generosity of the Princeton University Press, the Judging Committee has selected books to be presented as part of the prize. They are sitting in the Firestone Library and waiting until it reopens to be shipped to students. Each of the winners will also receive a certificate from the Dean of the College.

Instead of the group photo of the winners we planned to take and post here, we asked students to share their photos with us, and they responded with both words and pictures. I heard from one of the students, Tan Shanker, that he had had the harrowing experience of testing positive for COVID-19 but, to my great relief, fully recovered. The extraordinary story of his abundant vigilance and steely self-discipline in breaking the chain of infection even made it to the Gulf News.

We have two tied winners of the SECOND PRIZE.

(Photo courtesy of Mikaylah Ladue)

Mikaylah Ladue, Class of 2020, wins for her essay, “Raw and Unfiltered: The Creation of a Book Collection.” Ladue, of Levittown, Pennsylvania, is concentrating in anthropology with specialization in legal, political, and economic anthropology and earning certificates in both Gender and Sexuality Studies and Latin American Studies.

Ladue curates an eclectic collection of books, the organizing principle of which, as she argues, is meaningfulness to who she is. Her collection encompasses a range of genres and subjects, each representing a different phase of her life so far. An avid collector, Ladue wrote that she has “never left a bookstore empty-handed.” To complement her growing collection and her passion for Dostoevsky’s works, we selected for her a copy of Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time (regarded as the best biography of Dostoevsky in any language, including Russian). Ladue receives a prize of $1,500 in addition to the book.

(Photo courtesy of Kaveh Badrei)

Also awarded second prize is Kaveh Badrei, Class of 2020, for the essay, “Stewardship of the Stranger: A Collection of Albert Camus.” Badrei, from Houston, Texas, majors in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs with a focus on human rights, international law, and transitional justice. He is earning certificates in History and the Practice of Diplomacy as well as French Language and Culture, for which he has conducted independent work analyzing the role of nature and the harvest in the works of Albert Camus.

Badrei, too, explores the meaning of life through his collection. Ever since first encountering Camus’s writing in high school, he has been drawn to the French Algerian philosopher’s ideas, finding solace, connection, and inspiration in his works and discovering layers of meaning increasingly aligned with Badrei’s professional and personal endeavors. To his collection of thirty books—actively read, marked up, and sometimes mended—we will add a copy of Camus at Combat: Writing 1944-1947, translated by Arthur Goldhammer (the first complete English edition of the 165 articles and editorials Camus published in Combat). Badrei receives a prize of $1,500 in addition to the book.

FIRST PRIZE goes to Tanishk (Tan) Shanker, Class of 2020, for his essay, “My Two Cents: A Coin Collector’s Perspective on Exploring the World.” Shanker hails from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He majors in Operations Research and Financial Engineering and is pursuing four certificates—in Finance, Applications of Computing, Engineering and Management Systems, and Statistics and Machine Learning.Shanker holds a ten-trillion-dollar Zimbabwean bill, which, due to hyperinflation in 2009, was worth less than five US dollars. Photo courtesy of Tan Shanker, taken after he recovered from the coronavirus and shaved his “quarantine beard.”

 

Some of the banknotes and coins from Shanker’s collection. (Photo courtesy of Tan Shanker)

Shanker is an unusually precocious collector, whose obsession with coins was manifest as early as the tender years of toddlerhood, earning him nicknames like “Magpie” and “Little Metal Detector.” His essay takes us along a journey that spanned five countries—India, Singapore, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, and the United States—and began with visits to his Indian grandfather, who had accumulated coins from India’s various empires. Shanker inherited both his grandfather’s collection and his intellectual curiosity about the history of coinage. Shanker’s essay deftly interweaves several themes: how he grew as a collector, how he matured as a person (his parents cleverly “exploited” his passion, tying it to math lessons and using it to discipline adolescent behavior), and how coins taught him about the nature, history, economics, art, culture, and religion of various nations and regions.

Shanker is awarded $2,000 and the book, Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece, by Leslie Kurke. His essay will represent Princeton in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest organized by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America.

Thanks go to the Princeton University Press for its book donations and to Lyndsey Claro, Chief of Staff at the Press, for kindly facilitating the process.

Thanks also go to the following judging committee members, who engaged in a pleasantly intense debate over the essay submissions back in the days when a lunch meeting was a perfectly acceptable activity:

  • Alfred Bendixen, Professor of English;
  • Claire Jacobus, member of the Friends;
  • Emma Sarconi, Reference Professional for Special Collections;
  • Jessica Terekhov, Student Friends member;
  • John Logan, Literature Bibliographer;
  • Julie Mellby, Graphic Arts Librarian; and
  • Minjie Chen, Metadata Librarian (Chair)

Thanks to all of the contest participants and congratulations to our three graduating senior winners!

–Minjie Chen

How to improve the world (you will only make matters worse)


Five hours of John Cage reading from his Diary: How to Improve the World (You will Only Make Matters Worse) are posted at UbuWeb, Sound: http://www.ubu.com/sound/cage_diary.html. “Recorded June 22-24, 1991 at Powerplay Recording Studios, Maur, Switzerland. During the recording in the studio each change of typography in the printed text of the “Diary” corresponded to a change in the stereophonic position and a simultaneous change in the volume of John Cage’s voice.”

In 1990, John Cage (1912-1992) wrote an autobiographical statement that ran several pages in length. Here is a section that concerns his Diary:

“In the sixties the publication of both my music and my writings began. Whatever I do in the society is made available for use. An experience I had in Hawaii turned my attention to the work of Buckminster Fuller and the work of Marshall McLuhan. Above the tunnel that connects the southern part of Oahu with the northern there are crenellations at the top of the mountain range as on a medieval castle. When I asked about them, I was told they had been used for self protection while shooting poisoned arrows on the enemy below. Now both sides share the same utilities. Little more than a hundred years ago the island was a battlefield divided by a mountain range. Fuller’s world map shows that we live on a single island. Global Village (McLuhan), Spaceship Earth (Fuller). Make an equation between human needs and world resources (Fuller). I began my Diary: How to Improve the World: You Will Only Make Matters Worse. Mother said, “How dare you!

I don’t know when it began. But at Edwin Denby’s loft on 21st Street, not at the time but about the place, I wrote my first mesostic. It was a regular paragraph with the letters of his name capitalized. Since then I have written them as poems, the capitals going down the middle, to celebrate whatever, to support whatever, to fulfill requests, to initiate my thinking or my nonthinking (Themes and Variations is the first of a series of mesostic works: to find a way of writing that, though coming from ideas, is not about them but produces them). I have found a variety of ways of writing mesostics: Writings through a source: Rengas (a mix of a plurality of source mesostics), autokus, mesostics limited to the words of the mesostic itself, and “globally,” letting the words come from here and there through chance operations in a source text.”


The first installment of his Diary appeared in Clark Coolidge’s magazine Joglars 1, no. 3 (1966) p. 61-68 (Online and RCPXR-8000253) and reprinted in Aspen magazine the following year. The second installment was published in the Paris Review 11, issue 40 (Winter/Spring 1967): 52-68 (online and recap AP4 .P375). All were printed with black type on white paper using only one font regular, bold, and italic. When the text appear in its own publication in the Great Bear Pamphlet series Cage added additional fonts and colors. These three were republished in A Year from Monday (1967) as installment four and so on, through nine differing installments. Here are pdf files of three versions: cage5, cage2, cage

Paris Review added a preface: “This article presents a piece of writing by John Cage titled “Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)” which consists of seventeen pages filled with seemingly unrelated sentences strung together in a variety of typefaces. Topics mentioned include chess, aquariums, rock and roll radio, conscientious objectors, bodhisattvas, eugenics, clams, marijuana, Abraham Lincoln, “Love’s Body,” cacti, mushrooms, drugs, garbage cans, LSD, the gold standard, Marcel Duchamp, cows and television.”

The most recent installment from Siglio Press in 2019 is an expanded paperback edition reproducing the 2015 hardcover edition of Parts I-VIII along with previously unpublished material from Cage’s incomplete Part IX. Holland Cotter reviewed the new edition for the New York Times stating, “Over sixteen years, beginning in 1965, John Cage compiled anecdotes, observations and koanlike tales, originally typing everything on an IBM Selectric and using chance methods to determine the formatting of texts that twist down each page. The Siglio [hardcover] edition preserves the graphic effects, but, more important, it gives a sense of the company he kept during these years—Marcel Duchamp, R. Buckminster Fuiller, D.T. Suzuki—and of his passionate feeling about a world locked in a state of perpetual warfare. Cage has a reputation for being a Zen-inspired wit. He was also much more, an intensely engaged moral thinker.”

John Cage (1912-1992), Diary: how to improve the world (you will only make matters worse) Continued, part three, 1967 (W. Glover, Vt.: Something Else Press, 1967). Graphic Arts Collection 2006-1991N and recap-92727500. Gift of James Welling, 2019.