And how cool is this?

Tippi Hedren in The Birds Barbie! With real plastic birds!

Literary studies

Bruce Fleming on the proper role of professors of literature: “We’re not scientists, we’re coaches.”

Just read a timely

(for me and for many parents, no doubt) piece in the NY Times by Judith Warner about discussing distressing or tragic topics with children. In the midst of reading the comments (though if I come across another one that accuses the author of being a “bad parent” my eyes might explode) and came across this one, which reminded me of a conversation with the Jinker Boy, awhile back:

JB: Why are you putting those clothes in the garbage?
Me: It’s not garbage; it’s a bag for the Diabetes Society to pick up.
JB: Diabetes like M—– [his friend] has?
Me: Yes. They pick up things to sell so that they can use the money for research.
JB: [after a moment] Can’t we just give the money to M—–?

There is to be

an Atlantic blogger/podcaster dinner on Nov. 21 in Sackville. I would surely like to go, but I have to be in Fredericton that morning and a triangulated trip is more than I can contemplate just now. Would be nice to meet some other bloggers, though, especially bloggers that I won’t be marking in the next weeks.

Cartoons

(She always reminded me of one of my own grannies. And not just the whip.)

The British Cartoon Archive, from the University of Kent, is now online. The BBC states that the collection begins in the eighteenth century though the site itself indicates it starts at the beginning of the twentieth, which as far as I am selfishly concerned, is a real shame. There is, however, a page of links to other collections.

I’m having a flash of nostalgia as the site is featuring Carl Giles and I spent many hours pondering a book of his comics when young and almost totally ignorant of British politics.

The Golden Notebook

Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook was one of those influential, life-changing books for me, one of those books that one reads at just the right time in ones life to be the most receptive. I was most interested, then, to receive notice of the following project from Bob Stein, and in these terms:

On November 10th, The Institute for the Future of the Book kicks off an experiment in close reading. Seven women* will read Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook and carry on a conversation in the margins. The idea for the project arose out of my experience re-reading the novel in the summer of 2007 just before Lessing won the Nobel Prize for literature. The Golden Notebook was one of the two or three most influential books of my youth and I decided I wanted to “try it on” again after so many years. It turned out to be one of the most interesting reading experiences of my life. With an interval of thirty-seven years the lens of perception was so different; things that stood out the first-time around were now of lesser importance, and entire themes I missed the first time came front and center. When I told my younger colleagues what I was reading, I was surprised that not one of them had read it, not even the ones with degrees in English literature.  It occurred to me that it would be very interesting to eavesdrop on a conversation between two readers, one under thirty, one over fifty or sixty, in which they react to the book and to each other’s reactions. And then of course I realized that we now actually have the technology to do just that. Thanks to the efforts of Chris Meade, my colleague and director of if:book London, the Arts Council England enthusiastically and generously agreed to fund the project. Chris was also the link to Doris Lessing who through her publisher HarperCollins signed on with the rights to putting the entire text of the novel online.

Fundamentally this is an experiment in how the web might be used as a space for collaborative close-reading. We don’t yet understand how to model a complex conversation in the web’s two-dimensional environment and we’re hoping this experiment will help us learn what’s necessary to make this sort of collaboration work as well as possible. In addition to making comments in the margin, we expect that the readers will also record their reactions to the process in a group blog. In the public forum, everyone who is reading along and following the conversation can post their comments on the book and the process itself.

*Naomi Alderman, Nona Willis Aronowitz, Laura Kipnis, Philippa Levine, Lenelle Moise, Helen Oyeyemi, and Harriet Rubin

This is a busy time of year and lots is going on on the work front, but I would really like to participate in this, as least to the extent of reading along and perhaps occasionally commenting in the forum. Though I confess to being nervous about reading this novel after all this time; for decades I have regarded it as such a monolith. It will be interesting to compare the responses of then-me and now-me.

Another thought for Halloween:

[Click here or on image for whole panel.]

What I wanna be when I grow up:

a boxmaker.

Seasons greetings

Two stories on Google books:

• Jennifer Howard, “Google, Publishers, and Authors Settle Huge Lawsuit Over Book-Scanning Project,” Chronicle of Higher Education (Oct. 28/08).
• Jack Stripling, “Still Searching,” Inside Higher Ed (Oct. 29/08).

Looks like a lot more might come available, though through subscription.