LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

 

The recent nomination of Governor Tim Walz as the Democratic Party’s Vice-Presidential candidate has jogged some pleasant memories, and triggered this reminiscence.  The connection is tenuous indeed, but that’s the way with memory, and with blogging.  The connection is that Walz is a native of Nebraska, and that my wife, Annie, and I once visited Nebraska.  You could hardly have said that Nebraska, specifically Lincoln, was on our bucket list - unlikely to be on any Australian’s bucket list, really – and the story is a bit convoluted.

 

Our long-awaited extended trip to the USA was planned for 2013, but had to be cancelled because Annie had a bike accident and broke a humerus bone.  The trip had been planned around a conducted tour based on the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, and happily we were able to schedule the equivalent package for the following year; and the postponement allowed us to add in an extra week.  All up, our American journey was for eight weeks; and we had a memorable time on every day and in every place.  

 

We flew into Los Angeles and immediately transited to San Francisco for a few days of sightseeing that included the sequoias of nearby Muir Woods.   

Then a leisurely drive east as far as the Grand Canyon (viewed both from the rim and from the air), taking in Yosemite National Park and Death Valley on the way, plus a stretch of Route 66.  Then back to Las Vegas, via Monument Valley, for a flight to Washington.  Here commenced our Frank Lloyd Wright 18-day tour which, in addition to Washington and the Civil War historical locations, took in the art and sights of Chicago, Pittsburgh and New York. 

 

Post-tour we stayed in New York for a few days, then by train to Boston, thence driving through the New England States for the autumn display – including a notable stopover at the Mount Washington Hotel, the location of the negotiation of the Bretton Woods Agreement, the world financial and monetary system put in place after World War II.  

 Our New England sojourn terminated back in Boston, from whence we flew to Lincoln, then on to Houston, and home.

So why, in this checklist of tourism hot spots, did we include Lincoln, Nebraska?  Because Lincoln is home to the internationally famous Quilt Study Centre and its collection.  The deferment of our trip for a year had enabled us to incorporate a visit to the annual Houston International Quilt Festival, and fermented thoughts of a stopover at the Lincoln institution on the way.  And, so it was planned, and so it happened.  What we didn’t anticipate was that the Lincoln Quilt Study Centre is not a museum or gallery, and although it has rotating exhibitions from time to time, it has very few quilts on public display.  The bulk of the collection is in non-public conservation storage – 4000 quilts in cardboard boxes.  We were able to attend a short symposium at the Centre, but we had allowed for a couple of days in Lincoln and, essentially, we were left with unexpected free time to explore Lincoln itself.  That exploration proved to be both frustrating and rewarding.

 

I suppose William Jennings Bryan (1860 to 1925) is reasonably high in the American pantheon of notables, although he’s hardly known in Australia – except to the few who remember the 1960 Stanley Kramer film, Inherit the Wind.  This film was based on the Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee play of the same name, a loose dramatization of the Scopes “Monkey Trial”, the trial that enthralled America in 1925.  The Tennessee schoolteacher, John Thomas Scopes, was arraigned for teaching his schoolchildren about evolution.  This was contrary to a recently-enacted law that forbade the teaching of evolution in schools.  In the lead-up to the trial the local authorities sought to squeeze maximum publicity from the forthcoming event.  But it got out of hand.  

William Jennings Bryan was approached to be special prosecutor, and accepted, even though he had not appeared in a case for nearly forty years.

Clarence Darrow was then asked to act for the defence.  “Darrow originally declined, fearing his presence would create a circus atmosphere, but eventually realised that the trial would be a circus with or without him.”  The previous year Darrow had defended Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, the privileged young men who had “thrill killed” the schoolboy son of one of the families in their social circle.  The nation cried for execution, but Darrow’s eloquence during his twelve-hours (sic) closing argument achieved, instead, never-to-be-released life sentences.  Darrow’s fame brought nation-wide attention to the Scopes trial.  

The trial lasted for eight days, Scopes was convicted and fined $100, and the country, and the world, was outraged and/or amused – thanks in part to the reportage of the seasoned journalist H.L. Mencken.  The conviction was overturned a year later – on the technicality that the fine was imposed, not by the jury as the law required, but by the judge.  Bryan did not live to see his humiliation, he had died five days after the conclusion of the Scopes trial.

 

The relevance of the Scopes story to our travellers’ tale is that William Jennings Bryan lived in Lincoln for a number of years

 

Bryan had an illustrious career as lawyer, orator and politician.   He resided in Lincoln from 1887, and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1890.  He stood as the Democratic Party’s nominee for President of the United States on three occasions (1896, 1900 and 1908).  Later he served in Woodrow Wilson’s 1912 Cabinet as Secretary of State.  Bryan was widely known as “the Great Commoner”.  After his parliamentary years he “increasingly devoted himself to prohibition, religious matters, and anti-evolution activism”, while also advocating for the eight-hour day, a minimum wage, the right of unions to strike, and women’s suffrage – impressively progressive for the 1920s, in the USA at least.  

 

Bryan was, by consent, one of America’s more significant politicians……….and here we were in Lincoln, Nebraska, learning that Bryan had lived here, and learning that his former home was nearby, and open to the public.   William Jennings Bryan House (also known as Fairview) is located within the grounds of Bryan Medical Centre East Campus, a 664-bed nonprofit facility.  The land on which the medical complex stands was gifted by Bryan in 1922.  So, into a cab, and off to the hospital.  But failure awaited!  

   

The staff at reception regretted that we could not obtain access to Fairview because the current construction works require visitors to book two days ahead.  And we’d come all the way from Australia!  Long wait for a cab to return us to the Embassy Suites, our hotel in the CBD; but as we arrived back the foyer desk greeted us with the message that the Medical Centre had rung, they had obtained a key to Fairview, and we were welcome to return for a private viewing.  We didn’t go back, but sent our thanks for their concern and their trouble.

 

If the Bryan episode can be termed a failure for us, then the Capitol episode was undoubtedly not.  That Capitol episode was an extended visit to the State Capitol building, including a comprehensive and expertly conducted guided tour.

 

The first thing to note is that Lincoln (population 295000), is the capital city of Nebraska but it is not the largest city.  The largest city in Nebraska is Omaha (480000 population).  The entire Nebraska population is a mere 1.9 million.  The area of the State is 200000 square kms.  [Contrast Victoria of 228000 square kms, total population 6.68 million, including Melbourne 5.3 million.]   

Given the modest population of Lincoln, indeed the modest population of Nebraska, the magnitude of the Capitol building is astonishing.  

This is somewhat explained by the fact that, in addition to the Parliament, the building also houses the offices of the State Governor, the Supreme Court of Nebraska, and the Nebraska Court of Appeals.  But it’s not simply its need for significant functional space, the building exudes a sense of triumphalism - explained, to an extent, by the fact that the building replaced not one but two earlier versions.  The Nebraska Capitol building is an emphatic statement of can-do optimism

 The central tower, rising 122 metres (15 floors) above the three-storey base (and visible for 30 miles), is capped with a dome - and a statue, The Sower, picturing a figure “casting the seeds of life to the winds”, the statue and its pedestal rising 9.8 metres above the dome.    

 

The building was constructed 1922 through 1932, following a design competition.  Under the Nebraska Constitution, State indebtedness is limited, and the legislature allocated $10 million to the project, to be payable not from borrowings but from future revenue on an ”as-you-go" basis.   Governed by  the old-fashioned concept that you shouldn’t spend what you don’t have, this arrangement resulted in the all-up cost being some $200000 under budget.  Old fashioned indeed!

 

Another unique Nebraska feature is that the State legislature is unicameral, that is there is one parliamentary chamber only, no upper and lower houses – an arrangement unique among the 50 American States.  It wasn’t always so.  When the Parliament building was constructed two legislative chambers were incorporated into the design, but the house of review was abolished in 1937.  That space remains as it was the day it ceased to have legislative purpose, and serves other civic (and tourism) functions.  The continuing chamber, known as the Senate, has 49 Senators, the lowest number of any of the 51 United States legislatures.  And of equal economy, the Senate meets only for 90 working days in odd-numbered years and for 60 days in even-numbered years – although the State Governor may proclaim a special sitting of Parliament…..at which only the proclaimed business may be considered!  A further distinction: the Nebraska parliament is nonpartisan.  The Senators’ political affiliations are nor recognised; and voting is by secret ballot.

 

Given that the construction of the Capitol building was programmed through several stages (during which the business of government continued as usual), and straddled the years of the Great Depression, it is perhaps understandable that the building is awash with “messages”.  There are numerous inscriptions, exterior and interior, including extracts from George Washington and Abraham Lincoln speeches.  The south facade’s bas-relief sculpture honours the magna carta; above the south entrance are limestone carvings of Julius Caesar, Akhnaton and Moses; there are tributes to the Magna Carta, to the Declaration of Independence, to the “Reign of Law”, and to “The Glorification of Faith”; and acknowledgement of the “law-givers”, including Napoleon.  The names of the 93 Nebraska counties are cut into the walls.  The names of the nine Native American tribes from the Nebraska region are emblazoned, together with carvings of bison and references to traditional agriculture.  And there is a Hall of Fame (dating from 1961) “to serve as inspiration for future generations”, with 26 bronze busts, including that of William Jennings Bryan. 

 

There’s no doubt that the interior decoration of the Capitol building’s public spaces is generously full-on, and - from the vantage of later times - reminiscent of the picture palace interiors of the era.  But, there’s no denying the splendour and the overarching inclusiveness.

 

The 2013 Alexander Payne film, Nebraska, is something of a road movie, with the curmudgeonly protagonist mistakenly believing that he has a winning lottery ticket, and journeying to Lincoln to collect the prize.  There are a number of shots with the tower of the State Capitol building prominent in the distance – almost fanciful above the flatness of its surrounds.  But no more fanciful than the real thing.

 

Gary Andrews

PERIODICALS I HAVE KNOWN

 These days, save for the daily paper, I subscribe to two periodicals only: The Monthly, and The Saturday Paper, both publications of current affairs and opinion.  But at times in the past I have been a subscriber or regular buyer of numerous other periodicals……..an enumeration of which will give an idea of where my lifetime interests have lain.  To give you a big hint I have sorted them into rough categories.    I note, parenthetically, that although I may have let my loyalties lapse, looking over today’s shoulder I see that many of these publications have expired before I have.  I have placed a hash symbol behind those periodicals that no longer exist.

 

TOPICAL

 

Nation #

 

Nation was the creature of Tom Fitzgerald, the financial editor of the Sydney Morning Herald from 1952 to 1970.  Separate from his day job Fitzgerald, in 1958, launched Nation as an “independent journal of opinion”.  It survived until issue #345, July 22, 1972.  It arrived when I was an undergraduate at The University of Melbourne.  I bought the first edition from the kiosk in the grounds, and bought every edition thereafter – even when in Sydney one time going so far as to make a trip to the Nation office to pick up a couple of editions that I’d somehow missed.  

Nation was a not-to-be-missed fortnightly, with informed comment on politics, current affairs generally, art, film, television, music, and books.  Nation was a profoundly important publication. 

 

Nation Review #

 

The complex interests of businessman, Gordon Barton, extended from his foundation of the parcels express company IPEC to Federal Hotels and to publishers Angus and Robertson.  Barton, in addition, founded a political party, largely in response and opposition to the Government’s pursuit of the Vietnam War. That party: the Liberal Reform Group, later named the Australia Party, later again the Australian Democrats.    And Barton had two newspapers, the Sunday Observer (1969 to 1972), and The Review (from 1970).  In 1972 The Review merged with Nation to become Nation Review.  

As a lively Sunday newspaper, ”aimed at Australia’s new urban, educated middle class”, it survived until 1981 only.   I was with it to the end.  Notable contributors included Phillip Adams, Morris Lurie, Mungo MacCallum, Germaine Greer, Michael Leunig, Bob Ellis – you get the picture. 

 

The Bulletin #

 

The Bulletin was Australia’s principal voice of dissent, more specifically the organ through which non-mainstream speakers had a voice.  At least, that’s how it was in the years of its founder, J.F. Archibald, and the years that followed.   Known in the day as the “bushman’s bible” it spoke to nationalist sentiment through an array of radical writers and cartoonists.  I quote the National Museum of Australia: “The early support of a distinctly Australian style helped to create a sense of national pride in opposition to the British focus of many papers of the time.”  That support dated from inception in the 1880s, but by the 1960s The Bulletin had much changed, now in the Packer stable and much more conservative.  By the 1990s it was not able to compete with the on-line world, and circulation plummeted.  Continuing losses, and the death of Kerry Packer in 2005, forced sale to new private equity owners….…who gave up its ghost in January 2008.  128 years is an impressive life-span nonetheless, and I was a loyal reader for more than 40 of those years.  

The Bulletin of my era was a “great read” - a general interest magazine, with pages of current affairs and the arts, and its disappearance was and is a serious loss.  Last word to Wikipedia: At the end, its “ageing subscribers (ugh!) were not being replaced and its newsstand visibility had dwindled”.

 

Time

 

At one time, when in my early 20s, I had a workmate who had come to Australia with his father who was on secondment here for a year.  My new chum had taken time off from his university course.  In getting to know my American friend I found that he knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about Australia and Australians.  For his part, he was amazed that I knew so much about the United States and Americans. His ignorance was explained by the abysmal insularity of Americans of that era.  My knowledge was significantly attributable to my weekly encounter with Time magazine.  My initial engagement with Time dated from the launch of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in October 1957.  It was such a momentous event that I had to read as much about it as I could – enter that week’s Time.  I bought a newsstand copy; and continued as a reader and subscriber for decades.  

Sure, from the get-go in 1923, Time reflected the conservative views of founder, Henry Luce, but its weekly coverage of so many areas of interest (to me) easily counteracted the political bias.  Anyway, if the political skewing became too blatant I could always buy Newsweek…….. but I rarely did - the Time “style” was too entertaining.  For instance, the penchant for each entry in the week’s Obituaries column to be crafted as a single sentence - the more prominent the recently-deceased, the more tortuous became the one-line obituary.  By the way, my hundreds of post-1957 Time magazines were at one time added to by a pile of pre-1957 editions that the University’s Rowden White (recreation) Library wanted to shed.  I obliged.  I myself haven’t figured how to shed the hundreds of (by now “classic”) Time magazines to which I’m still affording free rent.

 

GENERAL INTEREST 

 

The New Yorker 

 

Thank the gods of publishing that The New Yorker is still with us.  The miracle is that it has survived, since 1925, despite its apparent focus on one city only.  The founder, Harold Ross, was said to have wanted “to create a sophisticated humour magazine”.   He succeeded, and more.  I can do no better than to quote the internet:  The New Yorker is “a national weekly magazine that offers a signature mix of reporting and commentary on politics, foreign affairs, business, technology, popular culture, and the arts, along with humour, fiction, poetry, and cartoons.”  It does all this within the myth that it is New York focussed.  Well, it is, and it isn’t.  It is New York centred as the many pages devoted to New York theatrical, film and other cultural activities attest, but these pages are for the locals and for intending visitors.  And, also for the vicarious pleasure of those of us who wish.  But the heart of The New Yorker is cosmopolitan.  Planetary indeed.  

The great writers of America have been its contributors, and their topics have had no limits.  Alongside, The New Yorker has provided the outlet for each generation of cartoonists and illustrators.  Over the years there have been a number of compilations of cartoons that had previously appeared in The New Yorker, and the ability to see these works en masse has highlighted their striking originality and topicality.  What will the January 2025 hundredth anniversary edition bring?  Over the years I have followed, and relished, stories of writers and other characters associated with The New Yorker.  I have acquired occasional copies (and wished I had acquired more), and have them still.  Notwithstanding the ephemeral nature that “weekly” implies, I can think of nothing that less personifies the term “trash” than The New Yorker.

 

Parade #

 

You know what to expect with any story that begins with the words “Once upon a time” – well, I’m about to disabuse you with a true story.  Once upon a time (when I was a lad and the world was new) I submitted a history essay that was better than fair average quality.  My teacher, having the need to find some grievous fault, took serious exception to the fact that I had focussed much of my research on articles from Parade magazine.  Why undertake time-consuming research into source material and fusty texts, when the writers for Parade had done that research for you, and produced a neat distillation?  My history teacher didn’t see it that way.  All this was not the fault of Parade, which remained an entertaining monthly magazine (originally quarterly) for some 35 years (1946 to 1981).  

I see that, at different times, it described itself as “Australia’s foremost quarterly magazine of fact stranger than fiction”, or “The monthly magazine of intimate life-stories of famous men and women who shaped history”.  Clearly, it was devoted to “once upon” affairs rather than current ones.  But historical information about the magazine itself is scant. Published in Melbourne, each issue was around 60 pages, and had a dozen articles about historical figures and events – but no indication of who “really” owned it or ran it.  And, typically, no acknowledgement of the authorship of individual pieces.  Dare I suggest that the writers were moonlighting from their history department or daily newspaper jobs.  Anyway, my stack stretches from No. 6 (January 1949) to No. 99 (February 1959)…..and in having a nostalgic dip I’ve found an attribution – to “articles selected from Daily Mirror Features”.  So, I’m guessing that Parade was a spin-off from the Daily Mirror, the Sydney afternoon newspaper.

 

UNESCO Courier

 

The war in Europe ended in May 1945, and the atomic bombs fell on Japan in August 1945, bringing World War II to an end.  Prior to War’s end there had already been plans to establish a post-war organisation to replace the League of Nations – which itself had been established in 1919 in the aftermath of World War I with the objective of maintaining long-term world peace.  Mightily discredited, the League was unable to continue after the second War.  The San Francisco Conference (April through June 1945, before the War had concluded) established the United Nations, which officially began in October of that year with a wide remit.  UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, also had its origins in 1945; and the UNESCO Courier appeared in 1948.  

The Courier aims to “maintain a platform for the dialogue between cultures and provide a forum for international debate”.  In pursuit of its aims, Courier covers such areas as “literacy, human rights, environment, culture, science and arts”.  In its print format Courier is a profusely illustrated handsome publication.  I was a collector, reader, and admirer for decades.

 

Current Affairs Bulletin #

 

I’m not sure why the acquisition of this publication was mandated for students at Melbourne High School in the 1950s, but we each received a copy each month; and I continued with a subscription for years after. 

Every edition was a long essay on a specific topic, albeit not necessarily a topic that might be considered “current”.  Nevertheless, there was plenty of interest, and plenty for youngsters to learn – if you were of a mind to read them…..because the topics covered by the monthly issues were not correlated to the curriculum.  So read if you want to, not because you have to.  The Current Affairs Bulletin was published from 1942 to 1998.

 

National Geographic

 

In a sense, the ubiquity of National Geographic has made it invisible or, at least, a publication that doesn’t come immediately to mind in this sort of survey.  That’s because it’s always been with us, and appears changeless.  The long-time publishers, the National Geographic Society of Washington, wouldn’t say so; and, indeed, National Geographic has always changed with the times or, put another way, kept up with the changes that have been occurring.  But National Geographic has nevertheless been undone by the remorseless change of modern times.  In 1989 it had over ten million subscribers (and who knows how many readers), but by 2015 it was “obliged” to sell 73% of its ownership to Murdoch’s Fox; then Disney took over Fox.  Early in 2023 National Geographic sacked the last of its staff writers, committing its remaining future to freelance journalists.  From the internet: “With the advent of digital media, the meticulously curated, visually spectacular, and deeply researched articles of National Geographic appear to have fallen out of favour.  Its subscriber base has dwindled, and the once omni-present yellow-bordered print publication will cease to adorn newsstands starting 2024.”  Not being emotionally equipped simply to shed my many copies of National Geographic, many of which have op shop origins, and a number of which date from the 1920s, I have kindly passed them over to son Dan for safekeeping – an easy transition, really, from garage open shelves to garage cupboard.  Poor Dan.  Speaking of National Geographic and of changing times – which I was just now – some years ago I attended a Council of Adult Education one-day course on…..you won’t believe this! I forget the subject matter - something to do with China.  And, you also won’t believe that I’ve thrown away the course material.  Anyway, the nub of my story is that the course presenter, an academic from The University of Melbourne, bemoaned the absence of material pertaining to China prior to the Communist era.  I knew I had something at home that might be apropos – and, indeed it was.  I was able, later, to contact the lecturer, and to cite National Geographic Index 1888 – 1988, a comprehensive volume of some 1215 pages.  The Index lists some 98 articles on China, many of them published before 1949 and before the Peoples’ Republic, the earliest from 1894.  Not peer-reviewed scholarship, I guess, but what a trove!  The lecturer hightailed it to the University library.

SERIOUS MUSIC

 

The Gramophone

 

The noun doyen means the senior or most experienced member of a group of men (doyenne if women), but it can also mean the oldest example in a category.  The Gramophone is undoubtedly the doyen of magazines devoted to serious music.  It was founded by Scot, Compton Mackenzie, and thrives to this day.  Mackenzie (1883 to 1972) was a prolific writer – more than 100 books, ranging from fiction (adults and children), to biography, to history – with a life of sufficient moment to warrant a ten-volume autobiography.  He had a passion for serious music, and that passion led to the foundation in 1923 of The Gramophone, a monthly magazine with articles about music, and reviews of recordings.  Mackenzie remained editor of The Gramophone from its inception to 1961.  For anyone aspiring to compile a record collection The Gramophone was (and doubtless is) the go-to publication.  

I discovered it in the late 1950s, by which time the former 78 rpm shellac discs had been comprehensively superseded, and the new 33 1/3 rpm LP microgroove discs were saturating the landscape, with new recordings, and with new pressings of previously-released 78s.  The Gramophone was my musical Bible through the 1960s and beyond.  The boxes of upwards-of-65-years-old magazines in my garage, I’m sad to say, have ceased to amuse, and have become an albatross around my neck…….. but I will not bin them.

 

International Classical Record Collector #

International Opera Collector #

International Piano Quarterly 

 

I was passionate about collecting these quarterly magazines in the 1990s.  They were offshoots of The Gramophone, and each focussed on a specific area of serious music, contained extended record reviews, and had authoritative articles on historical and contemporary music, often extensive biographies.  They were of most attractive presentation, on fine paper, in the unusual A5 format (148 x 210 mm), each around 100 pages.  They were very collectable.  Many of their contributors were writers for The Gramophone.   International Classical Record Collector appeared in 1995.  It had two subsequent name changes – to Classic Record Collector, then Classic Recordings Quarterly – and ceased, after 20 years and 80 issues, with its Spring 2015 issue.  Given the more than 100 years history of classical recordings (and the ability to update the meaning of “classic” as time went on), it is no surprise that the magazine lasted for 20 years. I regret having not followed it all the way.

  

International Opera Collector, which appeared in 1996,clearly breathed a more rarefied air, but there was, nonetheless, plenty to write about – singers and conductors, current performances, recordings (historical and latest), and operas and opera per se.  Plus, a calendar of up-coming opera performances around the world – not of much general interest, I suppose, but of specific interest to those Ring Cycle tragics who chase performances across the globe.  I have been unable to ascertain the date of the tragic death of International Opera Collector; on this occasion the internet having fallen short.  

International Piano Quarterly, which later changed its name to International Piano, dates from 1997, and continues to be published.  Over its 25 years it has changed its ownership, and switched to a fortnightly, and returned to The Gramophone camp.  The principal feature of each edition over the years has been a full-scale report on a selected pianist, complete with full discography.  A 1990s for instance: Jorge Bolet, John Ogden, Dinu Lipatti, Artur Rubenstein, Georgy Cziffra, Vladimir Horowitz.  From the Summer 2000 edition the magazine transitioned to A4 format; and, from September/October 2001, because of “unprecedented demand”, it became a bi-monthly and dropped the “quarterly” name.

Classic CD #

 

An unique feature of this monthly British magazine was the accompanying CD, containing clips from the music reviewed within.  Hence my consequent row of CDs nearby to the pile of magazines.  This too-good-to-be-missed feature, however, didn’t attract sufficient long-term support: Classic CD lasted from May 1990 to August 2000 only.  On-line speculation suggests that Classic CD didn’t fit within the business strategy of its new owners, or that it was due to the modernisation of its rival, The Gramophone.  Whatever! the effect was the same.  Classic CD was a valiant attempt to draw a more general readership to the field of serious music.

 

Soundscapes #

 

These are the words of the founder and inaugural editor of Soundscapes, in his first editorial (January/February 1993): “This magazine is primarily intended to fulfil the needs of a burgeoning classical CD industry……..and we also hope to regularly profile artists (and their respective recordings).”  And, so it proved.  

From its initial 60-pages-plus it grew to short of 100 pages of exemplary professional presentation.  I can’t recall whether I lost touch with It, or whether it lost touch with me; but a search of the internet has proved singularly unhelpful.  There are some references to articles that appeared in Soundscapes, but no entry on the publication itself.  Tellingly, despite all the early promise, the catalogue of the State Library of Victoria indicates that the Soundscapes lifespan was five years only.  Somebody lost interest, and I’m guessing it wasn’t the readers.  I read that the April/May 1998 issue was the last……..so now I know that I have a full run!

 

FILM

 

Sight and Sound

 

The British Film Institute was established in 1933.  It is “a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom”.  It holds the world’s largest film archive (some 50000 fiction films, 100000 non-fiction, and over 600000 television programmes); and since it is funded by the National Lottery it’s financial future is secure.  [I make this comment somewhat flippantly, because the funds provided by the Lottery are small beer compared with the Government’s annual grants in the 70+ millions of pounds range.]  Among the BFIs extensive range of responsibilities is the monthly publication of Sight and Sound.  

Sight and Sound had begun a couple of years earlier than the BFI, as an adult education magazine, and came under the auspices of the BFI in 1934.  [As a sort of aside I mention Monthly Film Bulletin.  This 10-pager, also published by the British Film Institute, was produced from 1934 to 1991, when it was merged into Sight and Sound. It was an information periodical, illustration free, with sections of reviews/critiques of “Entertainment Films” and “Non-Fiction and Short Films”.  

Each reviewed film was given an “Audience Suitability” rating, ranging from A for adults only, B for adults and adolescents, C “family”, that is containing “no scenes or characters likely to frighten or disturb children”, to D for children over seven – "films which children will enjoy and which contain no frightening or disturbing elements”.  Simpler times!]  Sight and Sound was – and, I suppose, is – the world’s premier film magazine; although I have no current exposure to the opinions of those who might disagree.

 

Screen News #

 

The movies were public entertainment big time in Australia, from the 1920s, I suppose to the 1960s.  Talkies had become widespread by the early 1930s, and the weekly night out at the local movie house had become an entrenched national pastime.  The powerful influence of Hollywood and the major studios extended not only to distribution cartels in Australia but to theatre ownership.  Hence, the Hoyts movie theatre chain owned (from 1930) by 20^th Century Fox.  The worldwide activities and ownership of Hoyts in the most recent 40 years is more convoluted than the Khyber Pass, but back in the settled days of the 1950s the Hoyts chain was able to produce a weekly film magazine for patrons, Screen News.  Available at Hoyts theatres only, ninepence as I recall, heaps of photographs (of film stars), and upbeat articles – all of which referencing current Hoyts releases only, releases from the studios of 20^th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Universal, and RKO.   If you were intending to see an MGM or Columbia film at the rival Greater Union movie house up the street forget it if you expected to see some reference in Screen News.  

I acquired many copies of Screen News over the years, somewhere between eight and ten inches of them, but can’t be more precise because a few years back I gave them to a friend.  Holy Moley, I’ve just found 120 copies of Screen News for sale on e-Bay, broken run 1951 through 1962, for $5000!

 

Film 

 

Film was and is the magazine of the British Federation of Film Societies.  I’d forgotten about this little publication – 30 to 40 pages, 8½ by 5½ inches – and forgotten that I had an almost complete run of the early years 1955 through 1970.  

Film is still going strong.  I don’t have the first two issues of Film, but a glance at issue No. 3 gives an indication of how mature this publication was from the outset. There are articles on: “The Gorky Trilogy”, “Documentary at the BBC”, “Chaplin as Chaplin”, “Judy Holliday”, and “Nobody Loves the Censor!”.  From issue No. 55 Film doubled its dimensions and became A4-sized.   I daresay it was not possible to double its quality.

 

Movie #

 

The fate of Movie magazine is a mystery to me.  I have “consulted” the internet, but am confounded by the magazine’s generic name – there are simply too many (irrelevant) links to the word “movie”.  So, because I can find no reference to the magazine, I am presuming that it no longer exists – a presumption reinforced by the fact of my collection ending in June 1963!  Movie, going by my eight issues, was a very well-produced British publication, with a topical “what’s on” listing, current reviews, and leading serious articles.  Some of those articles: “Hitchcock and the Mechanics of Suspense”, “The Testament of Vincente Minnelli”, “Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess”, “Howard Hawks”, “Interview with Robert Bresson”, “Robert Aldrich”, and “The Cinema of Nicholas Ray”.  I could cherry pick another dozen.  Really good stuff, clearly influenced by the emergence from France in the mid-1950s of the auteur theory of filmmaking – author (director) as creator.

 

Melbourne Film Bulletin #

 

The cravings of cinema addicts at the University of Melbourne in my day were somewhat assuaged by the weekly screenings of the Melbourne University Film Society; and to satisfy the post-University cravings of recent graduates a bunch of alumni formed a separate film society which presented monthly screenings at the nearby Carlton Theatre.  This was in March 1960.  This new society was known as Melbourne University Film Group, within a year to become University Film Group.  Initially there was a four-sided brochure with notes on the films being screened but, in a little over a year, the brochure had morphed into U.F.G. Quarterly – still modest, sixteen sided, but with ambitions: “If the circulation can be expanded, then the size of the journal may also be increased and more ambitious writings attempted.  We are optimistic.  May we prove justified.”  That special pleading was not exactly the trigger for resounding publishing success, and although one edition managed 32 pages, by issue number 7 of 1963 it had shrunk to four sides – and had dropped the periods between the U the F and the G.  And then later changed its name to UFG Bulletin.  Somewhere along that path I was cajoled (not unwillingly) by erstwhile campus friends to join the committee, and so began years of friendship interspersed with the vagaries of magazine production.  I can’t recall why, but in issue number 8 of 1963 we went full ape and renamed the magazine University Film Group Bulletin, and thus it remained until it became Melbourne Film Bulletin in April 1968.  

It was all fun, not least the typing and printing at my office, and the around-the-table collating and stapling of each issue; not to forget the trip to the GPO for the concessional bulk posting.  And the magazine?  Well, it may have had a somewhat amateur hour appearance, but the content was better than FAQ, and better than one had the right to expect from a magazine principally intended to provide film club members with information about forthcoming screenings.   A number of people later to make a mark in the film world found their voice with Melbourne Film Bulletin.

 

Films in Review

 

Due respect has to be paid to the self-described “America’s Oldest Film Publication”.  And to the organisation behind its publication.  The National Board of Review dates from 1909 (sic), when “a group of right-minded New York City activists mobilized against motion picture censorship”, culminating in the code that resulted in the words “Passed by the National Board of Review” appearing in the credits of American films released between 1910 and 1950.  There were a couple of precursor titles before the National Board’s 10-issues-a-year Films in Review, appeared in 1950. My collection runs from 1954 to 1974, with a few breaks. 

 The magazine, described as “digest sized” (19 cm x 14 cm), has film reviews, book reviews and “articles”.  These articles are far-reaching.  Of particular interest (to completists) are the articles devoted to full filmographies of filmmakers.  Films in Review ran out of financial steam in the 1990s, and it was “sold off” to a concerned long-time contributor; then, after a couple of years, was forced to “go on-line”, a move which their web page describes as “wildly successful” – not so much, I gather, for its publishing of new material, but because of its stockpile of historical material: “The FIR archive……going back forty, fifty, and sixty years into the publication’s past”, and “long-lost articles from our vault including famous filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock” etc.  The Films in Review website is peppered with images of numerous front covers, many of which can be seen on my shelves.  P.S.: Films in Review, before its days of financial crisis, took itself very seriously, so much so that it funded the indexation of its contents in occasional separate bound volumes.

Senses of Cinema

 

Senses of Cinema is the odd one out in this reminiscence of periodicals I have known - it is the only magazine that is and has since its launch (in December 1999) been an on-line publication.   It proclaims that it “has set the standard for professional, high quality, film-related content on the internet”, and it manifestly has!  It comes loosely under the wings of RMIT University, but is in every way independent, and the organ of its committee and its current editors.  The internet means that its reach is worldwide but, more important, it has since inception fostered authorship and input from a worldwide array of expert contributors.  I was privileged to be on the Senses committee for a few years, and have the utmost praise and respect for the team of editors who solicit material and organise each issue.  It publishes three or four times a year, and its thousands of words are all still there on the sensesofcinema.com website.  The May 2024 Issue is its 109^th.  

 

Films and Filming #

 

Back in the day I was a devotee of Films and Filming, one of the magazines published in Britain by Hansom Books in a series promoted as the Seven Arts Group – that name tipping its hat to the seven liberal arts of medieval education: grammar, dialectic (logic), rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. The seven magazines published over time by Hansom Books were Art and Artists, Books and Bookmen, Dance and Dancers, Music and Musicians, Plays and Players, Records and Recordings – and Films and Filming.  These magazines were of uniform size, 11 inches by 8 ½ inches, and of equivalent fine presentation.  It all started in 1950, and it was fun while it lasted - until bankruptcy in 1980, followed by the suicide of the founder.  Once I had discovered Films and Filming I forthwith bought a subscription, my completist genes went into overdrive, and I sent away for back copies.  And, while I wasn’t loyal to the end, my groaning shelves stretch from the “second number”, November 1954, to December 1972.  Quite a stash.  

 

Stereotypical film magazine content, I suppose – comprehensive reviews of current releases, leading articles featuring actors or production people, extended film analyses – but, additionally, the monthly format facilitated a letters column, a q & a section, and much else.  With its upwards-of-80 pages and atypically small typeface Films and Filming was not only packed with words but also with images.  So much more than a fan magazine.

 

Miscellany of Film Magazines

 

My nostalgic dip into boxes of memorabilia has unearthed several film magazines - sometimes single copies, magazines mostly long gone.  Not magazines that I “collected”, but I acquired and kept them nonetheless.  

         ABC Film Review #          Plenty of photographs and illustrations, well written text.  June 1955 edition.  Started life in 1951, finished in December 2008.  In 1955 it announced “Stories and pictures of the films coming your way”; in later years it said “Britain’s longest-running film magazine”.

         Movie News #           A latter-day Hoyts publication, in the “popular” vein, for sale at the cinema door.

         Film Chronicle #                “A new magazine of film criticism and research”, published by the Melbourne University Film Society.  First edition June 1968.  Among its start-up supporters were Antony I Ginnane, Peter Carmody, David J. Stratton and Ross Robson.  Its first editorial came out swinging: “One role of the critic should be to alert the public to films worth seeing.  It is the opinion of those associated with Film Chronicle that this duty is being sadly neglected by the so-called professional critics of the daily and weekly press.  The one interested critic in Melbourne is committed to a dogmatic policy injurious to the visual appreciation of film and dedicated to perpetuating the widely accepted heresy of literary criticism of cinema.”  I’m unable to ascertain whether there was ever a second edition.

         Film Digest #            Film Digest was published by the WEA Film Study Group in Sydney.   I know not whether it still survives, I presume not, certainly not in its 1967 typewritten and roneoed format, the format of so many of its “amateur” contemporaries.  

         Film Journal #           Although I was a long-time member of the Melbourne University Film Society I was never involved with running the show……although, I recall, they were foolish enough one time to appoint me the auditor of their financial statements.  In my time, programme notes were produced for each weekly screening and, by the time of my graduation, these notes had evolved into Film Journal.  This name has been used by other publications, and an internet search has proved somewhat cluttered by imposters, so I can’t say whether Film Journal a la MUFS still exists.

         Cahiers du Cinema in English #                This French film magazine began in 1951, and is described as “the most prestigious and influential film journal ever published”.  The English-language version dates from 1966.  It chose not to effect the translation from “cahiers” to “notebooks”.  Despite its prestige and influence it did not survive Anglicization, and (from what I can ascertain) existed for 12 issues only.

       Film Quarterly           Published quarterly by the University of California Press, this prestigious magazine (back in the day) was of large pocketbook format, quality paper, 64 pages, with a modest number of illustrations.  It commenced in 1945 as Hollywood Quarterly, from 1951 to 1957 it was The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television, and then Film Quarterly.  It immodestly describes itself as “one of the most authoritative academic film journals in the United States”.  My few copies are from 1962 through 1967.  I can find no online image of Film Quarterly today, so have no sense of how its print format may have evolved; but it still exists.

OTHER

 

Port of Melbourne Quarterly # 

 

The operations of the port of Melbourne were overseen by the Melbourne Harbour Trust from 1877 until the Trust’s management was superseded by the Port of Melbourne Authority in 1978.  For many years the Trust’s headquarters were in its grand 1930-vintage free-standing building in Market Street; and it was to an office in this building that I traipsed one time in the 1950s [there is no commemorative plaque, by the way] to secure a bunch of back issues of the Port of Melbourne Quarterly, the house magazine of the Harbour Trust.  The publication was unashamedly focussed on the port areas of Melbourne, and the comings and goings of imports, exports, and people through the port.  

On the reflection that sixty sober years affords, I should have thought that such a magazine would have had very little interest for the general reader, and I have no memory whatever of why it interested me at the time.  Maybe my interest was triggered by an impending school project – each issue contained numerous photographs of ships!  I was a dutiful buyer, reader, and collector of these glossy magazines for a number of years, but I no longer have them, and have no recollection of their fate.  The publication history is from the January/March 1948 edition to the April/June 1984 edition.

 

Oz #

The Living Daylights #

 

These magazines are paired because of their shared origins, and because of their shared iconoclasm.  Oz was famous in its day for its no holds barred pokes at “the establishment” and authority, and The Living Daylights continued in that vein.  Think underground, think counterculture, think dissent.  Oz was published In London from early 1966, and in that UK incarnation was notorious (“notorious”, you understand, is a very fluid adjective, rarely used by people to describe themselves) - notorious for being prosecuted after being targeted by the Obscene Publications Squad.   The obscenity prosecution of editor, Richard Neville, and others, was a gladiatorial event in London in 1971, and had the serious overtone that the obscenity prosecution had been framed under an archaic law that confronted the defendants with the theoretical possibility of life imprisonment.  John Mortimer (a.k.a. Rumpole) and Geoffrey Robertson appeared for the “others” and Neville represented himself.  The charges stated that the defendants conspired “to produce a magazine containing obscene, lewd, indecent and sexually perverted articles, cartoons and drawings with intent to debauch and corrupt the morals of children and other young persons and to arouse and implant in their minds lustful and perverted ideas.”  The indictment also included the charge of conspiracy to corrupt public morals.  Yes, this was the 1970s.  The defendants were found not guilty of the conspiracy charge, but convicted of the lesser offences and sentenced to imprisonment.  The forcible cutting of their long hair added to the public outcry.  At the appeal the convicts appeared wearing long wigs, there was much criticism of the trial judge’s behaviour, and acquittal resulted.  Wikipedia suggests that leading parliamentarians had intervened and that, indeed, the Chief Justice had had a secret meeting with Neville and co, had said the trial judge had ”made a mess of it”, and indicated that they would be acquitted on appeal.  The ways of British Justice move mysteriously!   The circulation of this unambiguously non-mainstream magazine rose to 80000 after the trials……although by November 1973 (issue number 48) Oz was gone from the UK.  Anyway, all this is by way of preamble to Oz, the Australian precursor to the UK version of Oz.   Oz (Australia) was published from 1963 to 1969.  Same old, same old.  University student creators Richard Neville, Richard Walsh (later a successful editor of mainstream newspapers), and Martin Sharp were prosecuted on charges of obscenity.  They pleaded guilty to avoid custodial sentences; in the meantime, the first edition had sold 6000 copies on its day of publication.  That edition led with a hoax about the collapse of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and had articles on abortion (which at the time was illegal in New South Wales), and the history of the chastity belt.  Succeeding issues dealt trenchantly with police brutality, Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam war, homosexuality, and the White Australia Policy.  

The prosecution of Oz led to a virtual embargo by the publishing industry, until a printing lifeline was thrown by Francis James, writer-publisher of The Anglican.  [Francis James is a story for another day: using The Anglican to campaign against the Vietnam War; fined 50 pounds for publishing Oz; having published an expose of the Chinese nuclear bomb capability, being imprisoned in China for three years.]  A second obscenity trial of the three Oz principals, in April 1964, was more momentous in view of the previous convictions.  History tells that the magistrate was seriously hostile, and “made an example” by sentencing the plaintiffs variously to six and three months in prison with hard labour.  The three were released on bail pending appeal, and there followed an uprising of support.  The appeal judge noted that the trial judge had misdirected the jury with prejudicial instructions, and the convictions were overturned.  Neville and Sharp departed for the UK in February 1966 (where the world of UK Oz awaited) and, under Walsh, a reduced version of the Australian Oz survived until 1969.  Upon return to Australia, the indefatigable Neville (together with Walsh), published The Living Daylights - more anarchy, this time of tabloid dimensions.   

I had a small collection of the Australian edition of Oz, and a full run of The Living Daylights.  I sold them some years ago, as part of a job lot of magazines and other ephemera, to my Sydney bookseller friend for $300 the lot.  The net tells me that some optimist out there has the 25-edition set of The Living Daylights for sale at $5000!

 

Mad #

 

I remember Mad from high school days, not read by teenagers under the desk like some sort of forbidden fruit, but group-read by classmates, collectively incredulous at its irreverent and anarchic take on the world.  Principally the American world, I suppose, but with the universalisation of American “culture”, that meant our world too.  Mad survives in the compilation and reprint world, but the old Mad died in 2019, after 67 years.  

There had never, since its emergence in 1952, been any shortage of subjects for satire; and one of Mad’s endearing attributes had been to overlay straightforward satire with a dash of mayhem – its illustrators saw to that.  One source describes Mad as an “unique mix of adolescent silliness and political humour”, but it’s important to note that there were readers other than adolescents – at the 1974 peak Mad’s readership was 2.1 million.

 

Outback

 

Outback is a monthly magazine about life in the bush, about rural affairs, about everything in the “outback” including those unique folk who have made rural Australia their homes and their lives.  It is a handsome glossy, profusely illustrated, and within the concept of “outback” it is free to explore an endless range of topics…..including pieces with a town mouse/country mouse flavour.  

For a former country boy the sentimental lure of Outback was not to be ignored, and I followed it for years, escaping the lure of the bush after issue number 100, April/May 2015.

 

Australian Forest Grower #

 

I guess it was in the 1970s when I joined a discussion group of accountants and lawyers practising in the taxation field (this on top of my membership of two other groups for accountants only), and it was immediately suggested that I should prepare a paper for delivery to a forthcoming meeting.  I chose to speak on the implications of taxation for the afforestation industry, first because I knew there were some industry-specific rules in the tax and death duty codes, rules not traversed by the typical practitioner, second because I myself had no real knowledge of “tax and forestry”, and thought that researching and writing a paper would be the ideal way to learn.  The paper I prepared gained a bit of broader exposure, and a little later I was invited to address the inaugural meeting of the Southern Chapter of the Australian Forest Development Institute – later to change its name to Australian Forest Growers.  AFDI’s focus in its home state of New South Wales had begun with the poplar industry, then widened to other plantation trees; the initial focus of the Southern Chapter was the pinus radiata industry.  Historically, the growing of pine trees had been the province of the state Forests Commissions, but private afforestation was the new vogue - with tax benefits………analogous to a wheat crop, the costs of planting a pine plantation were a tax write-off in the year of planting even though the proceeds (and taxation) of the crop might be many years hence.  In time, pinus radiata, with its 25-plus years rotation period, has been largely superseded by eucalyptus globulus (Blue gum) which can produce a cash crop in fewer than ten years.  From that first meeting my association with Australian Forest Growers extended over many years: I was promptly appointed to the committee, over the years presented papers to a number of conferences, and was involved with Australian Forest Grower, the magazine that followed - indeed led – the progress of the organisation.

In time I handed my copies of the magazine to a friend with a professional and passionate interest in soil biology and conservation.  Australian Forest Grower ceased publication in 2017.

 

New York Review of Books

 

I mention this publication, not because I’m a regular reader, but because of its importance in the publishing world.  I much regret not having been an avid reader, or not having become better acquainted with it, but somewhere around here there’s a little pile of back copies.

  Even a modest acquaintance with this publication will convince the reader that they have found the gold standard.  I’ll let Wikipedia do the talking for me:  The New York Review of Books has “articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs”, and “is inspired by the idea that the discussion of important books is an indispensable literary activity”.  The New York Review of Books has been published since 1963.  The Washington Post has described it as “a journal of ideas that has helped define intellectual discourse in the English-speaking world”, and Esquire has termed it “the most respected intellectual journal in the English language”.  The roll call in Heaven will be no more illustrious than the roll call of writers for this journal – and there may be some overlapping.

 

--------------

 

Well, there they are.  I had no sense of how many publications would be unearthed when I started to trawl through the shelves, the boxes, and the grey matter.  It has been a nostalgic excursion for me, hopefully an interesting one for you,

 

Gary Andrews