Minutes-A-Day

New year; new library shop discards...

An old abandoned resolution?

1983

Packing Up

And taking the show down the road.

Parlez-vous?

Among the free books on the shelf this year, a 1949 textbook.

Authors:

Sadly, water damage has warped the book and its classic end papers. In front, La France—

The map highlights each province's sights and production agricole—

In back—

Illustrations include many photos, with captions often adding the author's deux centimes worth.

Fishermen along the Seine don't have much hope of catching fish, but they enjoy the rest and the scenery.

Louis XVI in full splendor. A little less splendor might have saved his neck.

Author-illustrator Huebener apparently took the photos and wrote the captions. Their humor is of a piece with the cartoons he clearly relished drawing to illustrate lessons.

In this textbook, a jolly time seems usually to have been had.

Les élèves quittent l'école.

Something seemed familiar about this author's credentials and tone. Sure, the silly jokes reminded me of favorite teachers who took a similar approach; decades later, I still remember material via corny jokes cracked by those clever teachers. There was something else I couldn't quite put my finger on, not until starting to re-read Kate Simon's memoir, A Wider World. In the 1920s Simon had defied her immigrant father to attend a New York high school. Writing sixty years later, Simon found that,  English and music aside, she had no memory of most classes and teachers. Two German teachers were exceptions, and one of them was

... Dr. Huebner, who became one of the heads of language studies in the city's schools later on... [He] was beautiful, as precisely featured as a Gothic carving, but unlike those dour saints and knights, he smiled a lot, teaching us a good deal of German by way of songs and simpleminded jokes. So we sang and laughed and earned high Regents' Exam scores for Dr. Huebner.

The French textbook gives a good idea of that pedagogical approach. Even so, at least one student remained unimpressed by the good doctor's efforts.

Women's Works

The Working Wives' (Salaried Or Otherwise) Cook Book  
Theodora Zavin and Freda Stuart, 1963

No illustrations; just a jacket cover missing from this copy. (Image from a source I've lost)...

After a dedication listing names of both authors' husbands and children ("the world's most charming testing laboratory"), the text briskly gets to the point—

We have never known a man who waxed nostalgic over his mother's ability to mop floors or one who boasted that his wife could wash socks better than anyone on the block. But oh, the lovely pedestal that awaits the woman who cooks!

The authors acknowledge that there were already lots of shortcut cooking books available, but say they had found those books inadequate. Inadequate for a number of reasons; "Most important"—

... the really good "quick" cook books enable the cook to get dinner on the table within one to one-and-a-half hours after arrival home, provided that she dashes madly from the front door to the kitchen without removing her hat and juggles pots, chops onions, and generally goes frantic for an hour or so before dinner is ready. This procedure has a few obvious drawbacks.

While we are second to none in our admiration of the working wife, it must be admitted that she lacks some of the fine lasting qualities of an electronic computer. After a long day's work, no respectable IBM machine feels a desire to take off its shoes or have a drink. Woman, at 5:45 thy name is frailty.

This is a tough hour of the day in which to scramble. It is just at this time that children (and husbands, too!) want and deserve attention. It's hard to listen to the story of today's baseball game, prescribe for a wounded doll, and measure out ingredients simultaneously. What's the alternative—other than hiring a cook or spending precious weekend time cooking and freezing for the week ahead? The solution lies in preparing most of each day's diner the night before. And that's the essence of our system.

We know several things about the working wife. She is not an habitué of the Stork Club. She spends many, if not most, weekday evenings at home. She gets her second wind after the children are in bed, and that's the magic time to do the few things in the kitchen that will enable her to spend most of her post-homecoming hour with a chuild on her lap or a drink in her hand (both, if she's a talented type), with only an occasional foray into the kitchen to pop things into the oven or onto the dinner table.

While this book was planned primarily by and for working wives, we think it has great value for what are (laughingly, we hope!) known as "nonworking" wives—those "ladies of leisure" with three preschool children, a once-a-week maid, eighteen committees, and questions like "Honey, do you mind if I bring Bob Kirk of our Atlanta office home for dinner one night this week?" The cook-ahead dinner makes for lovely entertaining because Frazzled Hostess is not served as the first course.

The basic system: on Friday evening check the next week's calendar, choose dinner menus suitable for the time available each night, draw up a shopping list, and buy the ingredients Saturday.

That's from the Introduction, followed by—

THE WHEREWITHAL (OR, APPLIANCES YOU COULD LIVE WITHOUT, BUT WHY?)

To say that we are fans of the time-saving, labor-saving, woman-saving electric appliance would no more reflect the depth of our passion than to say that Rome had a "crush" on Juliet. We have been sisters-in-law for several years, and one of our great contributions to each other's welfare has been that the gadget not discovered by one of us has been unearthed by the other....

Top of the list is a dishwasher. After a couple of pages disposing of arguments against having one, the authors note of expecting husbands to wash dishes—

...the working wife must, of necessity, always be aware that the mere fact of her working may to some degree impinge on her husband's feeling of masculinity. She must be doubly cautious about not heaping "women's work" on him. We have the impression that most working wives are so sensitive to this that, whoever that beleaguered, emasculated, domesticated husband may be whom the magazines are always decrying, he is not the husband of the working wife.

Here, the authors cite research from a doctoral dissertation—

... In her study of 44 families with working mothers, Dr. Greenwald found that in only 17 of 44 households did the husband regularly take any part in doing the dinner dishes and in 14 of these 17 families, the wife was doing dishes right along with him.

The study found that amount of limited dish-washing was by far the highest rate of husbands' participation in household chores.

This cook book was published in 1963, the same year as this. Something was in the air...

Zavin and Stuart took a practical view of Woman's Work. They had found a system that gave them control, and they felt they could benefit other women by encouraging them to adopt it.

The recipes tend toward variations on a theme of meat cooked in a base of canned tomato (stewed and/or sauce). There are a few simplified items based on ethnic cooking ("Kusa Mihshi: Stuffed Squash in the Lebanese Manner"; "East Meets East: Syrian Meat Balls with Indian Curry Sauce"), and some recipes in the period style of women's magazine food writing ("Tropikabobs": cooked ham with canned mandarin oranges and pineapple chunks).

As in the introductory sections of the book, the text preceding some of the recipes is entertaining.

Instructions for making "Mrs. Albini's Baked Lasagna" opens—

Every time our friends, Emilia and Thayer Taylor, have a baby, Emilia's mother... comes down from Gloversville for a couple of weeks to help out. At some time before she goes home she cooks what she deprecatingly calls "just an old-fashioned Italian dinner" for a few of the Taylors' lucky friends. As a result, these may be the only babies in the world whose birth announcements make the recipients lick their chops in happy anticipation.

And introducing a group of molded salad recipes—

...if the traditional method of unmolding a gelatin salad (dipping the mold in warm water and then running a knife around the edge) doesn't leave you too happy, here's a very safe method you can try. It was suggested by our friend Marion Brown, whose cooking terminology seems to have taken on a slightly medical air, transmitted, no doubt, from her doctor-husband's office. (Marion is the only woman we know who makes a bouquet garni using medical gauze).

Followed by steps for Marion's method of loosening a gelatin mold with a hot towel ("She describes this as 'putting hot compresses on the mold.'")

The sister-in-law authors were a highly simpatico pair. With perhaps one exception: the ingredient list for Chicken Soup with Matzo Balls calls for

1 to 2 teaspoons of salt (sorry, the two of us don't agree on the amount; you'll have to make up your own mind.)

I've also lost the source of this image, but here's the back cover—

According to the author bios—

FREDA STUART is that rarity, a New Yorker who has always lived in the city where she was born. She graduated from the City College of New York. Later she was associate editor of a trade magazine. At present, Mrs. Stuart is an (unsalaried) Working Wife and cooks for her husband, one daughter and friends.

She may have remained a non-salaried wife, as I don't find reference to a further career or published work.

Theodora Zavin, on the other hand, had a very public career at the time she collaborated on this book. A lawyer who had co-written legal books aimed at laypeople, she was in 1963 vice president of Broadcast Music, Inc.

From a 2004 BMI obituary, after Zavin's death at 82—

BMI and the BMI Foundation mourn the passing of Theodora Zavin, one of the music industry's most respected copyright attorneys, who served as a senior executive at BMI....

Zavin served at BMI for 49 years, joining the company in 1952 as head of its legal department, rising to Senior Vice President and Special Counsel at her retirement in 2001. She founded the BMI Foundation, Inc. in 1985, serving as its President until her retirement and President Emeritus until her death.

Zavin was legendary in the music copyright community for her fierce defense of the rights of musical composers both here and abroad. Over her long career she also developed close personal relationships with many seminal composers including John Williams, Lionel Newman, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, John Kander and Fred Ebb, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, Alan Menken and Maury Yeston.

A graduate of Hunter College, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and The Columbia School of Law, where she was Notes and Comments Editor of the Law Review, she served as President of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., was a member of the United States Copyright Office Advisory Committee, and the Copyright Committee of the Bar Association of the City of New York. Internationally, she represented American interests as a leader of the Legal and Legislative Committee of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC).

Zavin combined her legal talents with a deft personal touch with songwriters, composers and music publishers at BMI. In 1965, she was appointed Vice President, Performing Rights, leading the company for more than 20 years during one of its most dramatic periods of growth, personally signing representation agreements with such songwriter/artists as Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Billy Joel, Carole King, Mort Shuman and Doc Pomus, and Neil Sedaka, such legendary Brill Building music publishers as Don Kirschner and Al Nevins, and international figures such as Beatles' publisher Dick James.

Zavin wrote prolifically for leading law journals on copyright and was co-author of several books aimed at demystifying and making the law accessible to the layman, including Rights and Writers and Your Marriage and the Law. One of the music industry's best-known hostesses, Zavin also authored two well-received cookbooks, The Working Wives Cookbook with Fredda [sic] Stuart, and The Everybody Bring a Dish Cookbook.

The Motion Picture Edition

The title had worn off the spine, and the book was in poor condition when I spotted it on the free cart.

"Motion Picture Edition" of this—

"Illustrated with photographs from the RKO Radio film," 1946 (2nd printing). The movie title was familiar, but this was my first encounter with Ethel Lena White, a popular and prolific British crime fiction writer of the 1930s and '40s.

The title citation—

"For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away."

HAMLET

The story was contemporary when published (1933), but its setting is a Victorian mansion looming over a lonely, forbidding bit of Welsh countryside. The spooky old house is inhabited by members of the wealthy Warren family; the action takes place during a storm of epic proportions, with a serial murderer loose somewhere in the vicinity.

The Warrens and their staff lend the story varied personalities and British class distinctions. Among the employees is Helen, a young woman whose deceased parents were poor, but of good breeding. Details are left vague, but because of Helen's background, the Warrens grant her special considerations (her bedroom is upstairs, and she's allowed to dine with the family). Pure of heart and eager to earn her living, Helen finds herself surrounded by unpleasant characters, all of them waiting for the family's frightening matriarch to die. Helen's place at the dinner table and freedom to move about the house give her plenty of opportunities to observe the Warrens. Her optimism and Christianity are pitted against what the author portrays as a fashionable 1930s nihilism that's held by such over-educated types as the Warrens.

Not to fear: the fast-paced Hollywood movie version offers no introspection or ideology—or, no ideology beyond the usual "endangered helpless woman in need of rescue" theme.

The movie's setting is New England at the beginning of the 20th century—the better to make use of spooky old house, gaslight, and candle effects.

Here, Helen is often cheery, though not chatty as in the novel—the movie Helen is mute. Which makes her particularly vulnerable: in this version, the murderer kills young women who have some kind of "affliction."

Another Hollywood change was to turn the novel's scary matriarch into a role for the beloved Ethel Barrymore.

Mrs. Warren becomes an invalid of the crusty, but kind, type. She's affectionate toward Helen, who in this version works as her companion.

There's more Americanization of characters—

Another interesting discrepancy: photos are publicity stills, some quite different from scenes in the movie. Illustrations are full page stills, with this montage on the endpapers—

I had never seen the movie, so finding this volume motivated me to watch a library DVD. The film has its moments, with a good cast and Dorothy McGuire impressive in a silent role. I also found the novel an interesting period piece. After sampling both, the "Motion Picture Edition" seems a little jarring, as the RKO stills supposedly illustrate a novel set decades later and populated by specifically British characters. But reprinting a novel and linking it with a successful film was a sales gimmick.

Some history of movie tie-in books.

According to Photoplay Edition (1975), by Emil Petaja, the first movie serial, "What Happened to Mary?" was released by Edison in 1912. After Selig's "Adventures of Kathlyn" appeared the next year, it was followed by a photoplay edition. Once established, the format caught on. Petaja notes that a photoplay edition could offer the public a more connected version of weekly filmed episodes produced from hastily written scripts. The book format also appears to have been part of heavy publicity given to serials.

By 1914, photoplay editions of feature films appeared. Since features were likely to have narratives more coherent than those of serials, writers could turn them into early "novelizations" (a term which came into use at this time). If a successful feature was based on a novel that was already popular, then illustrations could be added for the novel's reprint as a movie tie-in.

Some photoplay editions of early features were lavishly illustrated, with as many as thirty to fifty photos. Often, says Petaja, early books "boasted better photographic reproduction than did later ones; some remind you of the great Civil War pictures made from glass negatives."

By the mid-1930s the publications had nearly disappeared. Petaja quotes a silent era marketing slogan, "Read the book, then see the movie." He suggests that sound made these books superfluous, once "the movies spoke for themselves." Radio, too, had its impact, quickly becoming the cheapest, most available source of popular entertainment. Although photoplay publishers issued deluxe editions of such titles as "Gone With the Wind" and "Rebecca," those already had been blockbusters, in both novel and movie form.

Then, says Petaja—

... it was World Publishing Company's Forum Motion Picture Editions that revived the concept of the photoplay edition during the 1940s, for a time at least. They were nicely set-up, with attractive dust jackets, with montages on the end pages, and several glossy bled-off stills inside, printed back to back.

Twenty or more titles appeared, the largest number since the heyday of the 'teens and 'twenties. They were printed, however, on wartime paper of poor quality. Judging from the deterioration of my copy, paper quality doesn't seem to have changed by '46.

The remaining stills, in order of the movie's action—

(This, I think, is the only one that looks identical to a final scene. I especially like how visible the painted background is here)—

Reader's Leader

What caught my attention here was that this is a hardback, and I didn't realize the publisher had ever issued them.

I see that the company is older than I had realized. The look is cheap, and I would guess this came close to the end of hardback editions.

On the back cover—

This seal/logo appears inside, where it's more apparent that the children are not romping to church, but are riding a magic carpet...

The subject at hand—

From the author—

Getting a look at page one...

...I had assumed that Jimmy was beamed at the ballgame. But it happens on July 5, when a kid finds and throws an unexploded firecracker, and it hits Jimmy.

After his release from the hospital Jimmy will have new lessons to begin learning...

Jimmy goes off to guide-dog school, where he's also taught daily life skills. When he comes home with Leader, there will be trials and tribulations. To attend his previous school, Jimmy will be forced to leave Leader during the day. The dog will accompany Jimmy's return to his Boy Scout troop, but resentful Mike (the kid who threw the firecracker) is there, too. After Mike repeatedly teases Leader, the dog bites him and is quarantined. Ultimately, Jimmy and Mike will make peace, and Leader will be cleared to come home (instead of the other possible outcome Jimmy is told to prepare for).

As the conclusion draws near, plucky Jimmy has learned the many coping skills he will need in life. A Scout trip follows, during which Leader not only saves Mike from drowning, but guides a group of lost boys back to camp.

At their next meeting, the scoutmaster gives a speech to recap Jimmy's accomplishments, "reminding the patrol that in spite of his blindness Jimmy was going to public school, selling newspapers and making money at it, and now had kept up with the best of them on a camp-out with the troop." Suggesting Leader deserves "an honorary life-saving award," he hands Jimmy a piece of blue ribbon—

"Put this around the dog's neck and you can demonstrate how good you are at tying a butterfly bow."

Leader sat like a statue while Jimmy tied the ribbon and the boys again applauded.

"Sir!" Mike spoke up when the noise had subsided. "I move that we adopt Leader as our mascot and that we change our name to the "'Dog Star Patrol.'"

The Scouts cheer and pass the motion, then gather round to pet Leader. When the dog soon nudges him that it's time to go home, Jimmy lets the gang know

—"He'll make a swell mascot in his spare time, but he knows his main job is being four-legged eyes for me."

Then, moving toward the door, with a wide smile and a cheerful wave of his hand, Jimmy gave the command—"Forward!"

And now: a final word from our sponsor.

March Comes In

Around these parts, it's not really a lion's roar: it's Old Man Winter dumping more snow. But Childcraft represents the more usual idea of the season—

Illustration: [Mary] Latham

I do like those post-war fashions.

And unlike what happened to gents, the March wind of yesteryear never dared interfere with a lady's hat.