Dickens' 200th birthday gives UCLA Library chance to reencounter author
Before Scrooge, the Artful Dodger and Miss Havisham became imprinted on our collective memories with their delightful quirks and singular charm, the imagination that conceived of these and countless other unforgettable characters was born. Now through March 29, 2012 in the Lobby Gallery of the Young Research Library visitors can explore his works and celebrate his live in the exhibit “’. . .the Sum of a Life’: Charles Dickens at 200.” The display covers three aspects of Dickens — his life, the serialization of his novels and his American tours. The items in the exhibit come primarily from UCLA Library Special Collections, as well as other UCLA Library and University of California holdings. The exhibit was organized by Jonathan H. Grossman, UCLA Department of English and Dawn Setzer, UCLA Library Communications. In addition to the exhibit, on February 7th, Dickens’ birthday, Grossman will deliver a talk at noon “’A Tale of Two Cities’ and the Passengers of History." Then at 1:30 p.m., there will be an exhibit viewing with the organizers in the research library, followed by a dessert reception. Then at 3 p.m. in Humanities 193, a free screening of David Lean’s acclaimed film, "Great Expectations," will take place, hosted by the Department of English.
Mysterious "twins" go for a "pizza run"
By Yasmin Damshenas, Center for Primary Research and Training
Just about anyone who has been part of a third-grade class, a soccer team, or a debate club remembers the drill. Everyone lines up by height, gets herded into rows, balances precariously on risers or squats low—all to produce the sort of group photo that sometimes ends up in the archives. In 1843 Austrian Joseph Puchberger became one of the first people to figure out how to make a panoramic camera work. While much of the resulting technology was focused on vistas and landscapes, reproducing the feeling of "being there," another use emerged: the panoramic group photograph; the cinemascope of group photos. To cover the most sweeping degree of vision, the rotating panoramic camera was developed, allowing the camera to pan across an image, take a timed exposure and record a larger field. One of the first rotating panoramic cameras was the hand-cranked Cirkut camera. I recently unrolled a Cirkut photograph about 32" long while processing the John W. Fisher Papers. It was a group photograph of attendees of the 25th Annual Convention of California Building - Loan League, taken in the spring of 1930 at the Hotel del Coronado near San Diego.
In the sea of three-piece suits and cloche hats, we noticed something odd. The men standing at either end of the photograph looked strikingly similar.
These were either twins who liked dressing alike after the age of 8 or some other explanation was at play... After some discussion and Googling (and making up some elaborate stories along the way), we concluded that this Cirkut photo is an excellent example of the photographer's trick now known as the "pizza run." As the camera panned from one end of the group to the other, anyone standing at the far end where the photograph began being taken could (if their timing was right) run and take their place on the opposite side just as the camera completed panning. A recreation of the process by staff at the Library of Congress can be found here, should you ever want to plan a pizza run of your own.
The Eric Zeisl Papers at UCLA
This Thursday, January 26th, will see a performance of Concerto Grosso for Cello and Orchestra (1955-56) written by Eric Zeisl and performed by the UCLA Philharmonia, conducted by Neal Stulberg, cello soloist Antonio Lysy at Royce Hall Auditorium at 8PM. What many may not know is that the piece to be performed forms a part of the Eric Zeisl Papers held by UCLA Library Special Collections in its Performing Arts Collections.
LSC Receives Gift of Bebe & Louis Barron’s Copy of House of Incest, Inscribed by Anaïs Nin
UCLA Library Special Collections is pleased to announce the recent gift by Adam Barron of a unique copy of Anaïs Nin's House of Incest, Number Four in a limited edition of 50 copies, published in New York in 1947 by Gemor Press, and signed and numbered by the author. The text is illustrated with original engraved prints signed by the artist Ian Hugo, pseudonym of Nin's husband, Hugh Guiler. But what makes this copy so exciting is the inscription by Anaïs Nin, dated September 19, 1953, addressed to Adam's parents, Bebe and Louis Barron. The Barrons, pioneers in the field of electronic music who wrote the first electronic music for magnetic tape, and created the first electronic film score for the movie Forbidden Planet, first met Anaïs Nin in 1947 in San Francisco, when they attended her reading of House of Incest, and asked if they could record the session with a tape recorder they had received as a wedding gift. It was the beginning of a long friendship between the two couples, which endured over the years they lived in New York and, later, Los Angeles.
Adam's generous gift, made in honor of his parents, complements LSC's extensive Anaïs Nin holdings, which include another copy of House of Incest, copy Number Eight of the 1947 Gemor edition; almost 100 of Nin's holograph diaries to 1965—including her first diary begun in 1915 at the age of 12; manuscripts of some of her short stories and erotica; correspondence; and taped interviews, speeches, and appearances by Nin in underground films. By Jane Carpenter and Lilace Hatayama, Collections Management
Collection of Motion Picture Stills Now Available Online
The first portion of LSC's extensive Collection of Motion Picture Stills (PASC 195) is now available online.
The collection consists primarily of American motion picture film stills, and includes black and white photographs and some color prints and slides. Also included are publicity stills from various studios. The bulk of the collection dates from the early 1920s on. The online images represent only a fraction of the collection, so to search the collection in its entirety, please consult the finding aid.
Upcoming Lecture: Parallel Lines Never Meet: Dolphins and Anchors and Aldus/Book Historians and Numismatists and Roman Coins
This denarius is a companion piece to the Ahmanson-Murphy Aldine Collection of publications by Aldo Manuzio, his family, and imitators and the Ahmanson-Murphy Collection of Early Italian Printing, both held in the Department of Special Collections of UCLA Library Special Collections. The Aldine collection at UCLA has become the foremost collection of these works in North America. Parallel Lines Never Meet: Dolphins and Anchors and Aldus/Book Historians and Numismatists and Roman Coins, a lecture at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library given by Terry Belanger (Founding Director, Rare Book School, Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia). Co-sponsored by Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections. Thursday, February 9, 4:00 p.m. Reservations open until February 3rd. Please fill out a reservation here In 1501, the celebrated Venetian scholar-publisher Aldus Manutius first used the motif of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor as his firm's device or logo, and he subsequently employed it many times on title pages and colophons - as did a variety of piratical imitators, publishers who also appropriated Aldus's handsome italic typefaces and convenient octavo formats. The dolphin-and-anchor motif was later adopted by William Pickering in nineteenth-century London and Nelson Doubleday in twentieth-century New York, and it remains perhaps the best known of all publishers' devices. Erasmus tells us that Aldus derived the anchor-and-dolphin image from a first-century AD Roman silver coin, incorrectly attributing it to the reign of the Emperor Vespasian. In fact, the anchor-and-dolphin device was used only on silver denarii successively issued by Vespasian's two sons, the Emperors Titus (79-81) and Domitian (81-96). Following Erasmus, historians of the book have ever since consistently misattributed the anchor-and-dolphin denarius, which they tend to exalt as one of the most celebrated of all ancient coins, comparable in importance to the 30 pieces of silver and the widow's mite. Numismatists take a different view: the coin has never been of much interest to students of Imperial Roman coins, who almost never mention the Aldine connection. Terry Belanger's illustrated lecture, accompanied by a three-dimensional handout, is a case study in the way that different scholarly disciplines can sometimes fail to recognize the utility of evidence easily available from fields outside their own immediate areas of interest.
