Reaching With Preaching

The public library book shop's reject carts are always heavy on religious titles. Along with bible copies and guides for what practices to follow, there are all manner of self-help and counseling, fiction, and children's books. Titles by Protestant fundamentalists rub against similar offerings by right-wing Catholic writers and multiple copies of The Book of Mormon. There's a fair amount of Judaica, too. Christian books in languages other than English make a decent showing, and there are the occasional volumes representing other world religions, or sects thereof.

Even Jains have gotten into the act, with The Jain Way of Life having made it to the free cart. It's a total self-help program: along with guidance for diet and prayer, the author offers life tips (and rating scales) that are pretty indistinguishable from those of any business consultant—

Are you happy and engaged at your job? Are you using your best strengths and developing them into your recognized core competencies? Does your boss praise you and recognize your work? Or are you frustrated with the quarreling, turf wars, and endless delays in decision making in your workplace?

Internalizing and practicing our core Jain values helps us excel in our work place and greatly enhances the environment for team work and higher productivity. Evaluate your corporate leaders – are they are following these Jain core values?

There's more, in a pdf of the chapter, "Excelling in the Workplace," along with other topics from the book.

Religious titles tend to be from the last ten or fifteen years, but here's an exception—

Reaching People From The Pulpit
1958 (First Edition), Harper & Brothers

Other titles in this series—

The authors start with the basics of speech production. Ah,yes: those good old organs of speech illustrations...

... Never to be forgotten, no matter how long ago that linguistics course was taken—

Reaching People From The Pulpit and the other series titles were connected to the mainline Protestant churches of their era. As part of the Establishment, those churches were certainly influential, yet they would have found it unthinkable to muck with elections, as do today's right-wing churches. And speaking of "Reaching"—in 1958, there was nothing like the reach of the media empires controlled by the Pat Robertsons of our great [tax-exemption granting] nation.

Just to show how very different things were in 1958: when the authors write that natural, "living gestures" can accompany a minister's spoken points, this example from page 63 is what they chose to illustrate the idea—

Suppose we ask you a question. "What is the price of a Lincoln automobile?" If you are an average preacher, your reply will probably be, "How should I know? Preachers don't have that kind of money!" These were your words, but you said more than can be read in words alone. You raised your eyebrows, you wrinkled your forehead; you shrugged your shoulders, and lifted your hands from your elbows, palms upward. ...

Not necessarily the obvious direction of a ministerial palm today.

As it happens, there's just been appropriately big news in the religion biz; via Harry Shearer's LeShow segment, "News of the Godly: Church gets an agent," it's this Hollywood Reporter story—

WME [William Morris Endeavor] is getting some religion. In a first for Hollywood, the agency has signed global megachurch Hillsong to its client roster. Although WME already is home to celebrity pastors T.D. Jakes and Joel Osteen as well as Mark Burnett and Roma Downey's faith-focused LightWorkers Media shingle, Hillsong marks the first known instance of a major agency working on behalf of a church itself. But the massive, media-savvy Hillsong is an ideal brand for capturing the faith-based market.

The Pentecostal church, which draws nearly 100,000 attendees to its rock concert-like services in 11 countries around the world each week, is a favorite among young celebrity churchgoers....

...

WME will help the church, which has more than 10 million social media followers and 9 million annual visitors to its website, expand its TV viewership of more than 10 million globally (in the U.S., services can be viewed on multiple cable channels). The agency also will work to find film and digital opportunities. Warner Bros. had been set to release Let Hope Rise, a documentary about its worship band, in April, but distribution talks fell through in January.

Shearer adds, "They tried praying... 'Now, let's get an agent!'"

Pirandello in Weimar

Jeder nach seiner Art
Eine Komödie in zwei oder frei Akten
Alf Häger Verlag – Berlin, 1925

In Italian: Ciascuno a suo modo, 1924.

English rendering is Each in His Own Way (a comedy in two or three acts)...

The German title page, in full—

.

..Mit Zwischenshpielen: "with interludes."

Front and back covers use a very nice watercolor effect.

Spaces between the color blocks have faint traces of gilt, though it's too worn to show well in images.

I don't find any history for this publisher, just references to a few titles issued. Also from 1925 is this Pirandello edition, with another embossed gilt cover—

Along with avant garde theater as represented by Pirandello, in 1925 the company published books on Indian Buddhism and Jainism. Those titles are cited in some books on Indian religions written decades later in the twentieth century.

Alf Häger Verlag also published a 1924 work by Thomas Mann, Okkulte Erlebnisse (Occult Experiences).

The author of this article about Mann notes owning an autographed copy that was number 49 of 75.

It may be that this company published small runs of works on specialized intellectual interests. Volumes were handsomely made; perhaps not so unusual, considering the craftsmanship of the period, but the Pirandello cover designs were executed with care. Perhaps these and the other titles were collectors' volumes issued by a publisher in business a short time.

Free Books (at a price...)

Some of the most interesting publications I've ever found come from years of dropping by the local library's book sales. It's the source for much of what I've posted to date, and there's so much more to try getting to (some day...)

The sale itself has been one of the best things about living in this town. Held Saturdays and Sundays much of the year, it's presented more opportunities to browse than I've had time or energy to invest. Even if I've usually gone just three or four times a year, it's been all too easy to accumulate more interesting stuff than I have shelf space. But the pickings have been just that enticing: some library withdrawals, but mostly donated items covering a never predictable range of subjects.

The sale is a popular event that gets everything free and is run by volunteer labor; for years this has raised extra money for the library. Well, that all would seem to have been too good—once the library director and members of the Board decided this was not something they wanted on the premises. That's according to varied local scuttlebutt; I assume it would be sheer snobbishness on the part of Board members, and a careerist move by the director. Since the latter came to town, nearly all neighborhood libraries have been replaced by cavernous new buildings with a maximum of screens and minimum of books. Then voters defeated a 2012 bond issue to replace the downtown library with a mega-version of the new branch buildings. Had the proposal passed, it would have given the director her biggest capital project yet; presumably, she needs to add this to her resumé before moving on to greener fields.

It takes more than losing an election to discourage the upper echelon, so there have been various maneuvers since 2012. Most important is the current Plan B: a remodel of the lower floor (where sales had been held) into activity space for children and teenagers. If it might be a worthwhile use of space, its focus won't be on books or literacy, but on entertainment—and free babysitting. Certainly the PR around youth programs shows this is meant to sell parents on approving the library bond, next time around. And as more newcomers with kids move to the area—the revised pitch will no doubt work.

Meanwhile, a new book shop space opened late last year: in a small space that had been the Young Adult section. Book cases have been jammed so tightly that it's awkward for two people to be in some aisles at the same time. I've found that trying to read spines is so much of a strain on the eyes and neck that it's hardly worth bothering. Worst of all, there's no space given to my old favorites: odd pamphlets and interesting ephemera.

The rest of the plan is a phase-out of the larger sales. The building's lower level was opened in December for a pre-Christmas sale, and a quarterly "Special Sale" will be held through 2015. After that, weekly sales will be limited to the claustrophobic new shop. That's unless the new shop was opened for its value as a hostage; I predict a future bait and switch promise of added sale space—if we build the director and the Board that new building.

The library still receives the usual volume of donations, and several carts crammed with giveaways are in the lobby daily. Over the last couple of years there have been times when unsold books were left for the taking, and I've appreciated the interesting finds. (Childcraft is among the things I got then.) But that was weekly sale overflow; the current free carts play a part in ending sales altogether.

It's a shame, but part of the same old post-'80s mentality: executives in public services and non-profits follow the lead of the corporate big boys, undermining their institutions until they are rewarded by better-paying gigs, undermining other institutions...

For this year, I'll post some recent items from the giveaway carts. There have been finds I've taken away for closer inspection, but most of what's on the cart is easy to leave for someone else.

Although... it was hard to pass up Fun!—

Someone eventually went for this one—

—autographed by the author, after the Chocolate Extravaganza—

Of the takeaways—sure, it's nice that they've been free. But I don't like the price: losing a local institution that—with the peculiar forms local gentrification is taking—was one of the last good things left.

We Return You To Our Regular Programming

New Year's charming little girl was evidently young enough to be allowed the gift of "A whole New Year — for me!"...

Artist: M. Hauge

But that was it, for such tomboyish ways; elsewhere, Childcraft rhapsodizes on the theme of housewives in training.

Artist: Meg Wohlberg

Page Turner

Artist: M. Hauge

Putting The"X" in Xmas

Japanese Christmas card, 1985—

Opening it reveals a popup scene: the priest, a sugary "traditional Japanese Christmas cake"...

... Surprise!

No, that's not Who it would seem; the cartoon represents this guy. This was during his early career, as TV's popular "Beat Takeshi"—

The targets of his jokes were often the socially vulnerable, including the elderly, the handicapped, the poor, children, women, the ugly and the stupid. Complaints to the broadcaster led to censorship of some of Kitano's jokes and the editing of offensive dialogue. Kitano confirmed in a video interview that he was forbidden to access the NHK studios for five years for having exposed his body during a show when it was totally forbidden.

The explanation I got for this card is that the cartoon portrays a recurring bit on the Takeshi show. When a character does something naughty, the star materializes on a cross, hollering,
"ダメ!" ["Damé!": bad], while holding his hands in an "X"(a Japanese signal for, "No!")

Well, Christianity is exotic to most Japanese, so related trappings serve well as comic props. All in good fun... Though I have always marvelled at the US corporate connection to Sanrio's card creation...

Twelve Ways to Decorate a Dog: December

1976's crafting ends with sparkles—

A couple of special b-days—

And a variant spelling—