CGU Exhibit Opening in November

The King James Bible was published in 1611, and to mark that quartercentenary Claremont Graduate University will host a three-month exhibition beginning in November at Honnald/Mudd Library. Here's what CGU has to say:

Claremont Graduate University to host exhibition celebrating 400th anniversary of the King James Bible

Claremont Graduate University (CGU) and the Claremont Colleges’ Honnold/Mudd Library will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first printing of the King James Bible by hosting a traveling exhibition examining the immeasurable impact the book has had on secular and religious culture.

Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible opens on Nov. 10 and runs through Jan. 6.

The traveling exhibit was organized by the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., and the American Library Association Public Programs Office. It is based on an exhibition of the same name developed by the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, with assistance from the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas. The traveling exhibition was made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Highlighting the exhibit will be a first edition of the King James Bible from 1611.

The story behind the King James Bible remains surprisingly little known, despite the book’s enormous fame. Translated over several years by six committees of England’s top scholars, and first printed in 1611, the King James Bible became the most influential English translation of the Bible and one of the most widely read books in the world.

For many years, it was the predominant English-language Bible in the United States, where it is still widely read today. Even many of those whose lives have been affected by the King James Bible may not realize that less than a century before it was produced, the very idea of the Bible translated into English was considered dangerous and even criminal.

Equally compelling is the story of the book’s afterlife—its reception in the years, decades, and centuries that followed its first printing, and how it came to be so ubiquitous. Essential to this story is the profound influence that it has had on personal lives and local communities.

The King James Bible has influenced everything from literature (Moby Dick, Shakespeare, comic books) to music (early American psalters, Handel's Messiah; contemporary reggae) to media culture (the recitation of Genesis 1:1 by the crew of the Apollo 13 spacecraft; the ending of "A Charlie Brown Christmas").

The traveling exhibition consists of high-quality reproductions of rare and historic books, manuscripts, and works of art from the Folger and Bodleian collections, combined with interpretive text and related images. The Claremont Colleges' Honnold/Mudd Library will supplement the traveling exhibit with rare artifacts and treasures from its Special Collections.

"Claremont Graduate University is delighted to have been selected to host this exhibition," said Lori Anne Ferrell, professor of early modern literature and history in CGU’s School of Arts and Humanities. "The King James Bible – both in Britain, its country of origin, and in America, where it has exerted greatest influence – is a work of historic importance, enduring inspiration, and ongoing fascination. This exhibition will document its remarkable religious, educational, literary, political, and cultural impact over four centuries."

The exhibition is free and open to the public. CGU and the Honnold/Mudd Library are sponsoring free programs and other events for the public in connection with the exhibition.

About Claremont Graduate University

Founded in 1925, Claremont Graduate University, the graduate institution of the Claremont Colleges Consortium, is one of the top graduate schools in the United States. Our nine academic schools conduct leading-edge research and award masters and doctoral degrees in 22 disciplines. Because the world’s problems are not simple nor easily defined, diverse faculty and students research and study across the traditional discipline boundaries to create new and practical solutions for the major problems plaguing our world. A Southern California based graduate school devoted entirely to graduate research and study, CGU boasts a low student-to-faculty ratio.

Absurdly Subtle

On his Daily Bulletin blog, David Allen has posted a photo of Claremont's attempt at subliminal messaging. Subtle. Really subtle.

Speaking of the theatre of the absurd, Allen also has his reading log for April, which includes Samuel Beckett's play Endgame. For the misogynists in the crowd, there's some Mark Twain, as well a smattering of sci fi.

In and Out of Town

There's lots going on in and out of town this week:

HELP WANTED

The restaurant that's going in next to the Claremont 5 Theatre in the Village Square is hosting a job fair Monday and Wednesday. If you're looking for a job, you might want to check this out:

CASA MORENO JOB FAIR

In December 2009, the City of Claremont awarded Casa Moreno Grill a job creation grant for their proposed new business in the Village Square, across from the City’s Public Plaza. The purpose of the grant was to create six full-time equivalent jobs for low-moderate income persons living within the Claremont area. Casa Moreno’s construction is well underway and they are now looking for qualified applicants to be members of their team. To that end, they are hosting two job fairs in which they will be accepting applications for the positions of hosts, bartenders, busboys, dishwashers,prep cooks, head cook, and line cooks. These job fairs will be located in front of their new restaurant and held on the dates and times below. Casa Moreno’s goal is to be open in early June. For more information regarding the Casa Moreno restaurant job fair,please contact Susan Moreno at (626) 339-9496.

Casa Moreno Restaurant Job Fair:
101 N. Indian Hill Blvd., Suite C2-103
Claremont (adjacent to Hotel Casa 425)
Monday April 19th, 9:00am-12:00 noon
Wednesday April 21st, 9:00am-12:00 noon
(These are the only dates/times Casa Moreno will be accepting applications.)

PARK OPENING

Parents and kids involved with AYSO will want to go to the Padua Park grand opening next Saturday, April 24, beginning at 10am. The turf is in at the park, is the restroom building and the park lights. Looks like a lot of the landscaping and walking paths haven't gone in yet, so the park as it stands doesn't look to offer much in the way of public space for walking or picnicking.
Those other amenities may have to wait until the city's finances are in better shape.

So, for the time being, it's pretty much a one-function park as opposed to a park like the Village's Memorial Park that is more conducive to family outings. Anyway, the city was wanting people interested in attending to call ahead. Here's the flyer for the event (just click on the image to enlarge it):



ROTARY CLUB FUNDRAISER

April 24 is also the day the Claremont Rotary Club hosts its annual Taste of Claremont fundraiser at Taylor Hall from 5pm to 8pm. Tickets are $50, and you can order them from the event's website or you can get them at any of the following Claremont businesses:

Bejeweled
260 West Bonita Ave.

Carkle Sudie
216 West Second St.

Euro Café
Mills & Baseline in the Von’s Center

Prudential Wheeler Steffen Real Estate
500 West Foothill Blvd.

Wolfe’s Market
160 West Foothill Blvd.

Xerxes
319 Yale Ave.

11th Annual Taste of Claremont

Date: April 24, 2010
Time: 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Location: Taylor Hall

1775 Indian Hill Boulevard
Claremont, CA 91711

LA TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

The Times may have done away with its Sunday stand-alone book section, but that hasn't stopped them from hosting their annual Festival of Books at UCLA next Saturday and Sunday.

There's a little branded something for all ages, from the Target Children's Stage to

The festival runs from 10am to 6pm Saturday April 24, and from 10am to 5pm Sunday April 25. General admission is free and parking is $10. Check out the Times website for details (as of 4:30pm today the site was down - never a good sign for a bankrupt media company).


UPCOMING ATH SPEAKERS

As always, Claremont McKenna College's Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum has an interesting slate of speakers lined up for the remainder of their spring speakers series.

M.M.C. Athenaeum
385 E. 8th St.
Claremont, CA 91711-6420
(909) 621-8244
Fax: (909) 621-8579
athenaeum@claremontmckenna.edu

April 19	Gil Hoffman, chief political correspondent and analyst, The Jerusalem Post; "Red States, Blue States and the Jewish State: Jerusalem-D.C. Relations from an Israeli Insider’s Perspective" (12:00 p.m.)
Monday, April 19	Musicians and Dancers from the Department of Dance, Minzu University of China; "Music, Song, and Dance of the Mongols and other Ethnic Nationalities of China"
Tuesday, April 20	George Roberts '66 P'93, founding partner, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company (KKR); "Lunch with a Leader" (12:00 p.m.)
Wednesday, April 21	Mark Juergensmeyer, professor of sociology and global studies, affiliate professor of religious studies; director, Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, U.C. Santa Barbara; author, Gandhi's Way: A Handbook of Conflict Resolution (2002) and Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (2000); "Religious Rebellion in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Afghanistan" (12:00 p.m.)
Wednesday, April 21	Mark Juergensmeyer, professor of sociology and global studies, affiliate professor of religious studies; director, Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, U.C. Santa Barbara; author, Gandhi's Way: A Handbook of Conflict Resolution (2002) and Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (2000); "Beyond Religious Violence in South Asia: Conflict and Reconciliation"
Thursday, April 22	Wayne Ferson, Ivadelle and Theodore Johnson Chair of Banking and Finance, Marshall School of Business, USC; co-author, Testing Portfolio Efficiency with Conditioning Information (2009) and Asset Pricing Models with Conditional Alphas and Betas: The Effects of Data Snooping and Spurious Regression (2008); "The Problem of Alpha and Performance Measurement"
Friday, April 23	Michael Armacost, Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow for Political Affairs, Asia-Pacific Research Center; Stanford University; co-author, "New Beginnings" in the U.S.-ROK Alliance: Recommendations to the Obama Administration (2009) and Asian Policy Challenges for the Next President (2008); "President Obama's Foreign Policy: A Preliminary Reckoning After One Year" (1:00 p.m.)
Tuesday, April 27	David Schulman, Renee Lang professor of Humanistic Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; co-author, Textures of Time: Writing History in South India, 1600-1800 (2003) and co-translator, God on the Hill: Temple Poems from Tirupati (2005); "Dark Hope: Working for Peace in Israel and Palestine"
Monday, May 3	Ken Rogoff, Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and professor of economics, Harvard University; co-author, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (2009) and Foundations of International Microeconomics (1996); "McKenna Lecture on International Trade and Economics"

Art Imitating Art

A recent NPR story about an updated Jane Austen classic surely had the ladies of the Jane Austen Book Club up in arms. Is nothing sacred?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Seth Grahame-Smith, has Austen's Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy facing off against legions of the undead. George A. Romero, welcome to Hertfordshire:

As Mr. Darcy walked off, Elizabeth felt her blood turn cold. She had never in her life been so insulted. The warrior code demanded she avenge her honour. Elizabeth reached down to her ankle, taking care not to draw attention. There, her hand met the dagger concealed beneath her dress. She meant to follow this proud Mr. Darcy outside and open his throat.

But no sooner had she grabbed the handle of her weapon than a chorus of screams filled the assembly hall, immediately joined by the shattering of window panes. Unmentionables poured in, their movements clumsy yet swift; their burial clothing in a range of untidiness. Some wore gowns so tattered as to render them scandalous; other wore suits so filthy that one would assume they were assembled from little more than dirt and dried blood. Their flesh was in varying degrees of putrefaction; the freshly stricken were slightly green and pliant, whereas the longer dead were grey and brittle – their eyes and tongues long since turned to dust, and their lips pulled back into everlasting skeletal smiles.

Personally, we'd like to see Mrs. Bennet match up against the living dead. We think Elizabeth's excitable mother would take your average zombie in three rounds, her palpitations notwithstanding. We've seen first-hand what mischief a whole community of fully mobilized Mrs. Bennets can achieve.

Now, taking on a human-hunting alien, that's quite another matter. In February, the Guardian carried the news that there's a movie project called "Pride and Predator" in the works:

It might prove something of a boon to those who reach for the remote control when yet another costume drama comes on television: Elton John's Rocket Pictures is developing a new spin on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, this time featuring a nefarious seven-foot extraterrestrial with hideous mandibles and a penchant for human blood. Yes, it's Pride and Predator.

Will Clark, best known for his award-winning gothic comedy short The Amazing Trousers, will direct the film, which is being produced by Rocket partners Steve Hamilton Shaw and David Furnish.

There's definitely something aloft in the ether. A sign of Apocalypse, perhaps?

Small Things Done Well

A reader writes to tell us that Claremont poet B. H. Fairchild will be giving a reading at the Los Angeles County Central Library on Tuesday, April 7, at 7pm as part of the library's ALOUD speaker series.

Fairchild and poet Elise Paschen will be reading their respective works. Admission is free, but seating is limited, so you'll have to reserve a spot.

Fairchild's collection of poems The Art of the Lathe (Alice James Books, 1998) won the Kingsley Tufts Award, the William Carlos Williams Award, the California Book Award, and was nominated for the National Book Award. His collection Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest (W. W. Norton, 2002), won a National Book Critics Circle Award.

You could probably go on and on about the numerous honors Fairchild has received. What surprises us most is that he isn't more recognized here in Claremont. It may be that Fairchild's work, which often draws on the working-class lives of the farmers, machinists, welders, and oil field hands of the poet's small-town Midwestern youth, gets dismissed by some readers as local color. However, it's difficult to deny the honesty, the craftsmanship, or the psychological and philosophical complexity of a poem like "Beauty."

Fairchild, incidentally, is the second great poet to come out of Liberal, Kansas. The other being William Stafford. If you're interested in reading a sampling of Fairchild's work, you can find some here.

If you're interested in the April 7th reading but can't attend, you can also hear a reading Fairchild did last year at the Lannan Foundation in New Mexico.

Poetry Society of America Image
(Click to Enlarge)

ALOUD
Tuesday, April 7 - 7pm
B. H. Fairchild &
Elise Paschen

LA Central Library
Mark Taper Auditorium
Fifth & Flower Streets,
Downtown Los Angeles

Parking
524 S. Flower St.

Contact Information
programs@lapl.org
(213) 228-7025

Second Story Books to Close

Wes Woods II at his Claremont Now blog reports that Second Story Books is going out of business. Second Story opened at the end of November, 2007, taking over from Claremont Books & Print, which had been there for over 20 years.

Woods tells us that Second Story is selling off its inventory at 50-75% off. Woods writes:

There are more than 10,000 second hand and antiquarian books of all genres and types.

The store is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesdays through Saturdays at 128 Yale Ave. upstairs in the Claremont Village and above Aruffo's Italian Restaurant.

Information: 909-624-0757

Back in November, 2007, Brenda Bollinger had an article in The Claremont Courier about Second Story and its owners, Kyle Hernandez, Stephanie McIlwain, and Laura Hernandez. We're sorry to see them go, and wish them all the best.

Second Story's closing leaves the Village without a bookseller, other than Huntley Bookstore at the Claremont Colleges and the small used book store the Claremont Forum has in the Claremont Packing House.

Pomona Library News

We're going to need a special blog roll just for Pomona. Ms. Lois, a library specialist over at the Pomona Public Library Children's Room, reminded us that the PPL has a great blog of its own, full of photos, PPL news and other library-related tidbits, including a story of pumpkin pie. It bills itself as the children's library blog, but there are plenty of things written by and for grown ups.

The PPL blog's header gives us some institutional history:

Ms. Clara Webber was the first children's librarian of Pomona Public Library. A long time correspondent with Mrs. Laura Ingalls Wilder, she was instrumental in having the Children's Room named in honor of Mrs. Wilder on May 25, 1950. Today, we house the original hand written manuscript for the novel Little Town on the Prairie. Every February, we host the Laura Ingalls Wilder Sociable in honor of Mrs. Wilder's February 7th birthday.

Lois' pumpkin pie travails reminded me of a throwaway line from Garrison Keillor a couple weeks ago about how the best pumpkin pie you ever tasted isn't much different from the worst.

Keillor, by the way, performed his show live at Bridges Auditorium on the Pomona College campus 23 years ago, before he started doing his Prairie Home Companion road performances in larger venues like the Greek Theatre. Willie Nelson was a special guest performer that long-ago night at Bridges.

We saw PHC live at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium about 8-1/2 years ago. The then-red-hot newgrass band Nickel Creek, headed up by three young people who grew up together in San Diego, performed and sang, among other things, the old timey song "The Fox."

The band's no longer together, but mandolinist Chris Thile struck it really big and pops up on all sorts of records now.

Nickel Creek - The Fox

Literary Ramblings

Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen, who spent the first quarter of 2008 reading Moby Dick, last week wrote in his blog about another of his literary journeys.

This time, Allen talks about reading novelist Larry McMurtry's memoir Books, in which the author describes his time as a bookstore owner. Allen related one bit that tied things back to Allen's earlier Melville reading:

As McMurtry tells it, the British edition of "Moby-Dick" had always been published in three volumes, and a certain editor, one Charles Reade, had been tasked with reducing the novel by two-thirds to fit into one book. The copy McMurtry viewed was Reade's working copy, the book he had marked up with passages for deletion.

Such deletions began on the first page.

"Charles Reade was not a man to be intimidated by a mere American classic," McMurtry wrote.

"He began his editorial work by drawing a bold line through 'Call me Ishmael.' "

McMurtry's usually a good read. Watching how the social and local government scene unfolds here in Claremont, we find ourselves thinking often of The Last Picture Show. Though we're about as far as you could get from McMurtry's Thalia*, Texas - culturally if not quite physically - sometimes it seems as if a flock of Jacy Farrows (that's the Cybill Shepherd character in the Peter Bogdanovich-directed film) swooped in here from West Texas and never left, becoming now-stodgy, clucking 60-year-old duennas, guardians of a self-created town mythology.

We've always felt more kinship with the Ruth Poppers of the world (Cloris Leachman to you movie fans). There's much to be said for enduring, even if you occasionally want to chuck that china cup and coffee pot against the wall out of frustration, anger, disappointment, or fill-in-the-blank. You get past it, whatever "it" may be, the way an oyster gets past an irritating grain of sand by enveloping, enclosing, walling it off.

"Never you mind, honey. Never you mind...."

As an Amercian novelist of another era once wrote, "The lowly and invincible of the earth - to endure and endure and then endure, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow."


*[In the 1971 movie version Anarene for some unknown reason. ]

Packing House Book Signing Saturday

Our friends at the Pomona's Art Colonists sent us notice of a Saturday book signing by artist Karen Green at Beautiful Crap, located upstairs in the College Heights Packing House at 532 W. 1st St. #212 in downtown Claremont.

The event takes place this Saturday, December 13th, between noon and 4pm. The information on Pomona's Art Colonists says:

Beautiful Crap and Spineless Books
invite you to an Open Studio and Book Signing for
here/gone: AN ABC FLIP BOOK FOR GROWN UPS,
an artist's book by Karen Green
published by Spineless Books.
Eat. Drink. Stare. Meet the artist. And publisher.
Buy the book or the exclusive limited edition.
Support art. Push the ocean uphill.

Saturday, Dec.13 12:00-4:00 p.m.
Upstairs @ The Packing House
532 W. First Street #212
Claremont, Ca. 91711
Call 909.291.5685 for more information

Private viewing by appointment.

You can learn more about Karen Green on her website. Her publisher, Spineless Books, also has a site with information about their wares.

Call Him Ishmael

David Allen has come back to tell the tale. Allen is reading, and enjoying, the Herman Melville novel "Moby-Dick," according to one of Allen's recent blog posts:

Well, at the one-month point, a progress report: I'm at page 243, out of 577, or Chapter 53 of 135. At this rate I'll finish by the end of March, which isn't bad; I initially thought it could take me to the end of April.

Did you know Barack Obama cites "Moby-Dick" and "Beloved" as his favorite books? When I read that, I suddenly became an Obama fan.

"Moby-Dick" is an amazing book -- there's a reason classics are classics -- although it's not what you would call a quick read, owing to long sentences filled with semi-colons that sometimes require a second or third reading to decipher. Some of the language is jaw-droppingly lyrical, though. My schedule is such that it's rare I can find even a half-hour a day to read it, further limiting my progress.

The Wikipedia entry for "Moby-Dick" notes that the 2002 Norton Critical Edition of "Moby-Dick" included this quote from a letter written to Richard Dana while Melville was working on his novel:

I am half way in the work ... It will be a strange sort of book, tho', I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho' you might get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree; — and to cool the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature of the thing, must be ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves. Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this.

Maybe a lesson to us all in this absurdly literal land of Claremont (no, the white whale isn't a racist comment). A columnist like Allen could probably confirm there's truth and poetry to be mined in even the most mundane human activity. The trick is to mine that poetry with respect, humility, and patience.

And the heck with the literalists. Truth is more than a simple agglomeration of facts, and art can help us find the way to understanding. As author Thomas Berger reminded us at the end of his novel "Arthur Rex":

Now to all the ladies of the world Guinevere and Morgan la Fey and the Lady of the Lake are exemplary, and these are the three who took King Arthur away in the barge, the not-so-wicked, the not-so-virtuous, and the supernatural.... But in these fair laps we must leave King Arthur, who was never historical, but everything he did was true.