The Phrenological Journal & Haunted Typebox Blog

My plan had been to read something entirely different between volumes of Don Quixote—but that’s not likely to happen. Quixote has a peculiar power, a kind of charm that is felt not just by the reader. Even those who try to save Quixote are entranced by his madness, many even envy it. Quixote leaves his quotidian existence to live romantically, to bring to life narratives that are—to him—as true as the books in the bible. The scope of his madness is captivating: its ability to transform his reality so completely, to accommodate any objection and lay waste to any reason. Its an enchantment that even takes in the book’s main narrator, the one who collects the ‘histories’ that comprise the book. For in these tales of madness, he reports greatness.

And he’s not wrong. Quixote is great. The reader is left to figure out in which way he is great. Because Quixote is a bit of a hazard: attacking innocents, freeing prisoners, robbing barbers of their basins. We would not suffer such madness today, particularly if we were the targets. But to become that mad man, to wield that invincible arm? That we might do.

So while I will not be reading any other book between volumes, I think I will be reading a different Quixote. I’d been reading the Smollet mainly, and using the Grossman as backup. But the more I reference the Grossman, the more I love her dialogue. And I appreciate a vocabulary that’s more familiar to a reader in the 21st century. Though I must say I prefer Smollet’s ‘Knight of the Rueful Countenance’ to Grossman’s ‘Knight of the Sorrowful Face.’ But such are the sacrifices we make in translations.

As we analyze the Corpus Christi image further we find unexpected things. We enlarge it. We pass through the crowd. We notice all heads turned towards the procession. All heads?—No! In the lower right corner we notice a man, his head turned as if to see the camera. He wears a bowler (in contrast with so many of his fellows) and his right arm is raised, cocked as if to strike a neighbor, or to raise a weapon against himself!

He takes his eyes from the religious spectacle—breaking not one, but two contracts. That between himself and the object of the parade (devotion! wonder!) and that between himself and the pictorial plane.

Further Analysed!

The Museum of Unremarkable Ephemera is pleased to announce its latest acquisition: this 1907 postcard from Quebec, showing the Corpus Christi parade. Of particular note, is the number of straw boaters relative to the number of bowlers. Also worthy of mention, perhaps attesting to the future unimportance of the card, is the message written on the back, in the barest of margins, “Hello, how are you? Alma.”

I’m a big fan of the Decemberists. Which is why my interest was piqued with the announcement that they have an open call for poster submissions for their SXSW show. I fired up Photoshop, and then went and checked out the rules. Here’s an excerpt:

8. SPONSOR’S RIGHTS TO ENTRIES: By submitting a Entry, each entrant: a. Irrevocably grants to the Sponsor, its agents, licensees, and assigns the unconditional and perpetual right and permission to copyright, reproduce, encode, store, copy, transmit, publish, post, broadcast, display, publicly perform, adapt, modify, create derivative works of, exhibit, and otherwise use the Entry (with or without using the entrant’s name) in any media throughout the world for any purpose, without limitation, and without additional review, compensation, or approval from the entrant or any other party. b. Forever waives any rights of copyrights, trademark rights, privacy rights, and any other legal or moral rights that may preclude the Sponsor’s use of the entrant’s Entry, or require the entrant’s permission for the Sponsor to use the Entry. c. Agrees not to instigate, support, maintain, or authorize any action, claim, or lawsuit against the Sponsor on the grounds that any use of the Entry, or any derivative works, infringes any of the entrant’s rights as creator of the Entry, including, without limitation, copyrights, trademark rights, and moral rights.

Really? Just by entering I give you the rights to use and reproduce this without even the guarantee of attribution? C’mon. This should be one-time use rights, and only for the winner. Given the recent facebook TOS kerfuffle, you’d think companies would be a little more sensitive to such things.

-Kent

One shouldn’t write or even think too much about ‘American Idol.’ To be honest*, one probably shouldn’t even watch it. But I’m committed to doing so this season. And all the attendant thinking and writing as well.

First, let it be said that I am involved. ‘American Idol’ tells a story, and unlike other reality shows it does so in near real-time. I’m not so cynical as to think that the voting is rigged. No, I believe in the power of a single telephone vote to affect the careers of 36 individuals. That being said, the show has been on the side of Danny Gokey since the beginning. And how can it not be? Still, I think it was unfair to put him on at the end. We knew it would be a barn burner; he doesn’t need the bump of having his voice be the last we remember.

‘Unfair’? I am involved.

* ‘To be honest’ is one of Simon Cowell’s trademark phrases.

As a public service: the First World War, part 1 of 12.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

From The Volume Library (1928).

If today was 1932.

If you were stationed at Pearl Harbor.

Boxing Program, 1932

Some phrenological figures for which we've lost the keys

Source: The Encyclopedia of Illustration

This is the Heidelberg Castle. It did not look like this when I was there in 2008. To my knowledge it has never looked like this. Not so small, and so white, so perfect. It looks both drawn and modeled, both flat and three dimensional. This is a dream of a place, on a postcard, sent from 1910. A circuitous route to my hands, holding it in San Francisco in 2008.

The caste as flat.

There are three things I’ve promised myself to do while unemployed charting my way towards self-employment. The first is concerned with said employment, and it’s probably the least interesting.

The other two things are joined endeavors: To read Don Quixote and to watch a full season of American Idol. These items are to be concurrent and not simultaneous. This sounds like a kind of contrived postmodern pairing, comparing high and low culture. The purpose is not to examine one in the light of the other, to draw comparisons between the Idol quest for fame and the man of La Mancha’s quest for chivalric legend.* No, it’s not about that.

Having invoked the analogy in my denial of it, here’s what this is about: Doing one thing I’ve attempted before (reading Quixote) and one thing I’ve never wanted to do before (watching Idol). And it’s about becoming involved in two long narratives, both occasionally daunting but full of their own brand of joy.

-Kent

* I am reminded of the Borges story ‘Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote’ in which Menard decries works that are ‘good for nothing but occasioning a plebeian delight in anachronism or (worse yet) captivating us with the elementary notion that all times and places are the same, or are different.’