1. “How Industries Survive Change. If They Do.”
“Inventors have created more user-friendly writing implements than fountain pens, more dependable time-keeping devices than mechanical wristwatches, and more efficient ways to heat houses than fireplaces. Yet, many consumers still gladly opt for the cultural cachet of technologically more primitive goods.
“These older technologies have survived by recasting themselves as luxuries and by marketing their sensory, aesthetic and nostalgic appeal. Their producers emphasize their experiential rather than functional qualities.”
2. “Lose the BlackBerry? Yes He Can, Maybe”
“For all the perquisites and power afforded the president, the chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive. Mr. Obama, however, seems intent on pulling the office at least partly into the 21st century on that score; aides said he hopes to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office, making him the first American president to do so.”
3. “Pop Music’s Dreamgirl Awakens Her Earthy Side”
“‘I realized what an important story it was, especially for my generation,’ she said. ‘We don’t know where rock ‘n’ roll came from, we don’t know that the Beatles and the Rolling Stones got their inspiration from people like Muddy Waters and Little Walter.’”
4. “Saving Buffalo’s Untold Beauty”
“Buffalo was founded on a rich tradition of architectural experimentation. The architects who worked here were among the first to break with European traditions to create an aesthetic of their own, rooted in American ideals about individualism, commerce and social mobility. And today its grass-roots preservation movement is driven not by Disney-inspired developers but by a vibrant coalition of part-time preservationists, amateur historians and third-generation residents who have made reclaiming the city’s history a deeply personal mission.”
5. “They Couldn’t Get Past the ‘Mimbos’”
“Playgirl was started 35 years ago as a feminist response to Playboy and Penthouse … Over the years, the magazine changed ownership, began catering more to gay men, and whittled its operations down. Still, the magazine drew an avid readership … selling 600,000 copies per issue in more than three dozen countries.”
6. “What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?”
“Twenty-five years ago, more young women in colleges and universities were drawn to computer science than today. From 1971 to 1983, incoming freshman women who declared an intention to major in computer science jumped eightfold, to 4 percent from about 0.5 percent.”
7. “My Hybrid Is Bigger Than Your Hybrid”
“The Escalade is by definition proudly decadent, unapologetic in its message of chromed, big-rimmed excess, and that style is wildly at odds with the righteous conservationism proclaimed by most hybrids. A hybrid Escalade is like alcohol-free Scotch, a hemp-banded Rolex, a cinematically subtle Jerry Bruckheimer movie. The socially conscious Escalade is a contradictory formula, and with the hybrid labels plastered all over the thing, it’s as if G.M. is telling the Escalade it should be ashamed of itself.”
“As literary lives go, Plimpton’s was a doozy. Well born, well bred, the father of four, a witness to the great, the good and the gifted, he epitomized the ideal of the life well lived. He sparred with prizefighters and competed against the best tennis, football, hockey and baseball players in the world, and along the way he helped create a new form of ‘participatory journalism.’ He palled around with Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal and William Styron, and drank with Ernest Hemingway and Kenneth Tynan in Havana just after Castro’s revolution. He also edited and nursed that durable and amazing literary quarterly, The Paris Review, which published superb fiction and poetry and featured author interviews that remain essential reading for anyone interested in the unteachable art of writing.”
“With the backing of the University of Chicago, Robert Maynard Hutchins, Mortimer Adler and a few others whittled the literary, scientific and philosophical canon down to 443 exemplary works. They had them bound in 54 black leatherette volumes, with the overall designation Great Books of the Western World, then hired genial salesmen to knock on suburban doors and make promises of fulfilment through knowledge.”
10. “Enough With the Sweet Talk”
“The vast majority of book reviews are favorable, even though the vast majority of books deserve little praise.”
“You’ve been booed off stages recently. No, I haven’t. I’ve been booed on stages. I’m a little bit tougher than to walk off a stage because someone says something ugly.”
“Hyde has been writing and publishing for more than three decades, and he has received numerous high-profile awards, including a MacArthur “genius grant” in 1991, but his name is still obscure to most readers. His body of work is slim; he has published two books, a volume of poems and a smattering of essays, translations and edited anthologies. His reputation, however, is rich.”
RE: A Great Idea At The Time: The Rise, Fall, And Curious Afterlife of The Great Books
by Alex Beam
Argumentum ad Hominem
The subtitle should have read, Every Negative Fact and Innuendo I Could Dredge Up
Although he was not particularly unkind to me in the book, I found virtually every page to be a smart-alecky and snide diatribe of the worst order against the Great Books, Adler, Hutchins, et al. Plus the book is replete with errors of commission and omission.
As an effective antidote, I prescribe Robert Hutchins’ pithy essay, The Great Conversation.
If the Great Books crusade is as bleak as Beam purports, then happily, not many will read his invective book.
Max Weismann,
President and co-founder with Mortimer Adler, Center for the Study of The Great Ideas
Chairman, The Great Books Academy
Thanks, Max, for sharing your perspective.
I like that Hyde had the courage to leave the University of Iowa, walk away from the unfulfilling academic life where he wasn’t appreciated into an uncertain and insecure future where he found himself, his art and his genius. Lucky for us. What a Gift!