I thought I’d posted a link to this interview with Wendy McClure–author of I’m Not the New Me and connoisseur of kitschy recipe cards–who is writing a book about her Laura Ingalls Wilder obsession (which will be out early next year), but I thought I did a lot of things these last couple weeks that I in fact did not!
I also missed this great Times article about the dying breed of school photographers, and one of them, Marty Hyman, in particular.
About 5 to 10 years ago, class photos and individual student portraits were reflexive purchases for parents. Those 4-by-6 and 8-by-10 prints were the visual equivalents of the notches made on door frames to show how much Junior had grown since last year. Now, more parents are snapping their own digital pictures and declining the products of the pros. It’s a situation akin to the disappearance of the formal engagement and wedding portraits, courtesy of Bachrach, that were once a staple of newspaper society pages….
Mr. Hyman is selling tradition and continuity in the form of a familiar tableau: three rows of children with gap-toothed frozen grins, teachers smiling in the back row. It’s a commodity that fluctuates in value.
Also going away: the long-running comic strip Little Orphan Annie, though the character will still be available for exciting licensing opportunities. The strip’s end (“with Daddy Warbucks uncertain over what happened to Annie in her latest run-in with the Butcher of the Balkans”!) is being attributed to the fact that it targeted young readers who barely know what a newspaper is.
According to A.O. Scott in this characteristically thought-provoking essay, Sam Lipsyte, in his raved-about novel The Ask, “through the shambling, highly articulate and pathetic persona of Milo Burke, has announced the onset of the Generation X midlife crisis.” Asks Scott, “How can a generation whose cultural trademark is a refusal to grow up have a midlife crisis?” Well:
We grew up in the shadow of the baby boomers, who still manage, in their dotage, to commandeer disproportionate attention. Every time they hit a life cycle milestone it’s worth 10 magazine covers. When they retire, the Social Security system will go under! When they die, narcissism will be so much lonelier.
Also: “a generation is a demographic fiction, and…a stage of life is something of a literary conceit.” Still, “give or take a few details, Hot Tub Time Machine is the story of my life.”
At The Millions, Edan Lepucki’s essay (from February) about sorting through her personal papers is lovely. It would be good if I took inspirations from her piece on a similar book purge, but…you know.
More recently, Garrison Keillor wrote an Op-Ed in the Times rather naively bemoaning the demise of traditional book publishing, and the good old days in general:
Children, I am an author who used to type a book manuscript on a manual typewriter. Yes, I did. And mailed it to a New York publisher in a big manila envelope with actual postage stamps on it. And kept a carbon copy for myself. I waited for a month or so and then got an acceptance letter in the mail. It was typed on paper. They offered to pay me a large sum of money. I read it over and over and ran up and down the rows of corn whooping. It was beautiful, the Old Era. I’m sorry you missed it.
Yes, it is like he is trying to be irritating and oblivious. But even the many, many writers and publishing professionals who roll their eyes and easily rebut him know where he’s coming from. That’s actually what makes the whole situation so annoying: The people who understand writing and publishing’s future in a real way love its traditional side, too. They just don’t pretend it’s realistic, or even necessarily desirable, to stay there. Flavorwire ran a nice round-up of responses. I also liked Brian Spears’s take at The Rumpus, though it’s also certainly possible to argue with:
[A]s a general rule, things were never better in the past, not even if you were a white male. The privilege you gained by being in power was offset by poorer health, fewer economic opportunities, less flexibility in your career options, etc. I can’t think of a single way in which life in the past–even the recent past–was better than in the present. Advances in technology alone make the present better, and the future potentially better than that.
And this summer marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird. Maybe I’ll re-read it, ideally while wearing this amazing t-shirt, which I have lusted after for years, but which costs 45 dollars.