In advance of the May 2008 opening of There’s a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak—the Rosenbach’s very large exhibition of the work of Maurice Sendak—I thought it might be fun to get the ball rolling on this blog and provide a few sneak peeks of the exhibit while also opening up discussion of Sendak’s work. …
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The Joys of Smoking
Lets take a moment here to examine smoking in the Rosenbach collections! The inspiration for this course of study is greatly inspired by the recent publication of The Joys of Smoking by author James Fitzgerald (who is also my father). The Rosenbach brothers were smokers, their generation was the “smoking generation” when cigarettes became king …
Fine Press Americana – Wau Bun–“The Early Day” in the Northwest
The two shelves to the left of the Holford Defoe collection hold a selection of Fine Press books . This collection (approx. 600 volumes in the Rosenbach collections) provides an overview of the best of the 19th-20th century printing. These presses were interested in the production of the “book beautiful.” In addition to the publications …
From the crypt
Pinouris, Son of Hor perches on top of a column in the east Library. Pa-iu-en-hor, known in Greek as Pinouris, was “God’s Father” and the “Prophet of Amun in Karnak.” Pinouris holds lettuce leaves in his hands, these are symbolic of fertility to the Egyptians. The three columns of text on the back pillar contain …
Max Roach
We’re holding a musical vigil in the library office today in tribute to Max Roach who died yesterday at the age of 83. By any measure, Mr. Roach was one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century. As others have and will eulogize him more adequately than I can, I’ll only add two things: …
“My Dear Kid”: Or, Why Can’t We Have A Nice Blog Post About a Happy Milestone in a Young Man’s Life Without Some G_ddamn Neo-Nazis Butting In?
Our magisterial current exhibition, Chosen: Philadelphia’s Great Hebraica, closes in a couple of weeks. I recently stumbled across the letter above. In honor of the exhibition, I thought I’d post it here. Click on the image above and read it. It was written by Morris Rosenbach (pictured left) to his younger brother A.S.W. (a.k.a. Kid, …
Spooky
We’re doing some cleaning and reorganizing around here. Somebody left the head of Molly Bloom, wrapped in plastic, outside the basement bathrooms. It’s been sitting there for days. It makes me think of poor Laura Palmer. I keep expecting Bob to show up. It’s creepy. Don’t go down there.
Dakota Lessons
The Dakota language primer shown above contains several woodcut illustrations. Most of them are bucolic, Currier & Ives type jobs — farmers working the fields, bonnetted little girls holding flower baskets in quaint cottage door ways, children sailing on a windy, but not threatening, lake, etc., etc. (Most of them depicting scenes not in the …
Newsflash! Vacuum Cleaner Sucks Up Budgen!
After posting about Frank Budgen (pictured above) last week, I was reminded about another important role Budgen played in the production of Ulysses. I was most certainly remiss in excluding it from the previous post. Our esteemed Associate Director, Mike Barsanti (see artist’s conception to the right), who is piled higher and deeper in these …
Deadwood on the Line
I’m all giddied up because the third season of Deadwood came out on DVD last week. I don’t have HBO, let alone cable, so I can’t watch the episodes as they air. I guess that makes me a cable t.v. shoobie. I’ve recently been looking through some letters that relate to Deadwood, S.D., and have …