Subject
[Fwd: VNCOLLATION--2001/2002]
From
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. NABOKV-L's editors woud like to thank Suellen
Stringer-Hye for her long-running series surveying VN in the popular
press. Without the contributions of Suellen (and many others) NABOKV-L
could not exist. So, Happy Nabokov's Birthday, Suellen.
----------------------------------
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: VNCOLLATION--2001/2002
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 15:29:59 -0500
From: "Suellen Stringer-Hye" <Stringers@LIBRARY.Vanderbilt.edu>
Organization: Vanderbilt University
To: chtodel@gte.net, NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
*******************************************
PREFACE
I was surprised when Don recently mentioned that NABOKV-L is
now in its tenth year. When the listserve first went online, I
proposed to Don an idea for a monthly column; a collection of
references to Nabokov in the popular press. For the first time
access to this material was possible; it was very novel, very
exciting, and even I would say revolutionary, to be able to search
an electronic index and retrieve not only a citation to an article but
the full text of the article as well. Only a few years earlier a
researcher compiling a similar collection would have spent many
hours with the "Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature", locating
references to the articles and then many days in the library rooting
the said articles out. For the first time an amateur and time
constrained scholar could conduct informal research on the object
of one's passion, in my case the author Vladimir Nabokov.
Admittedly, some of the early pleasures I found absorbed in the
pages of my computer generated printout (since you were paying
for the online time you had to print it out to read it) were those of a
fan scouting for the bolded name in a paragraph to connect with the the
activities of a favorite celeb. But my real and continued
objective over the last ten years is the same as that originally
stated --- to study the mechanics of fame and reputation, the play
between what the author has left behind, and its reception by the
"general public" (if only defined as readers of the popular press).
Although time and attention necessitated a lengthening from the
monthly to the yearly, I continue to enjoy the quest and hope the
readers of nabokv-l share some of my enthusiasm. On another
note, I have personally been nourished for the past ten years by the
quiet, intelligent, often humorous, unique, nabokv-l, so ably guided by
Don Johnson and his co-editor Galya Diment. Thanks
Don and Galya, for letting me participate in the enterprise.
--------------------
------------------
Student says VN won't pay the bills!
Readers Opinions in the Journal-Constitution regarding a previous
article written by a female graduate of Yale complaining about her
inability to find suitable employment elicits this response:
Despite their extensive merit, Charles Dickens, Vladimir
Nabokov and Virginia Woolf won't pay the bills. Unfortunately,
today's Ivy League does not always do a great job of preparing
its pampered students for the real world. Even hard work does
not always pay off when and how you expect, and the world
does not owe you anything, despite your academic
credentials.
ERIC WACHTER Wachter, of Marietta, is a law student at
Harvard University.
******************************************
Is this one online?
>From the March 11, 2002 Independent (London)
ONE OF the year's most curious film premiers captured the late
Richard Burton in a role that became a legendary part of his life
story without ever reaching the silver screen.
The Bradford Film Festival showed eight minutes of Burton's ill-
fated role in Laughter In The Dark, a movie based on Vladimir
Nabokov's novel of the same name, as part of a feature entitled
Unfinished: Films That Never Were. Burton, at the height of his
powers and married to Elizabeth Taylor at the time, walked off the
set several weeks into screening, though the reason remains
unclear. Tony Richardson, the director, later said he fired Burton
because he was "hours late, unpleasant to the crew and other
actors, sneering about the script" and "would disappear into his
caravan" for hours with Taylor. An alternative version of the same
legend has Burton storming off in contempt. Either way,
Richardson started again from scratch with Nicol Williamson in
Burton's role as an art dealer and the initial rushes were junked.
The fragments, from a time in Burton's troubled career when he
was still capable of brilliance, provide a glimpse of how different
the film would have been to the version Richardson eventually
made. They also shed light on whether Laughter would have been
another hit for Burton or the beginning of a slide into
temporary decline. He appeared in a series of disastrous roles
until artistic recovery in 1975.
*****************************************************
Nabokov helps grassroots crusaders save Telluride
Colorado's
valley floor.
>From the March 6, 2002 Denver Post
TELLURIDE - Spotted cows, Vladimir Nabokov and Big Bird
Geezus all played a role this week in a newly amped-up
grassroots effort to save Telluride's valley floor.
They learned from Deborah Brosnan, founder of the Sustainable
Ecosystems Institute, that the valley floor is 'as cosmopolitan as
New York in terms of species.'
The wetlands and meadows have, ironically, been overgrazed by
the valley cows, and they contain mine tailings piles. But they are
also home to an estimated 40 species of butterfly, carpets of high-
altitude bog violets, 155 different birds and a stretch of one of the
last undammed rivers in the country.
Brosnan noted that Nabokov visited and studied butterflies in this
area during a 1958 trip to Telluride and called it one of the four
best spots in the United States for butterflies.
********************************************************
Why is it so hard to get Nabokov right?
>From a review of Castaways," a collection of four modern
playlets held in... The Out of the Box Players' staging of Vladimir
Nabokov's "The Pole" is the most sedate and bland movement of
this dramatic quartet. An imagined re-creation of the final fatal
moments of Robert Falcon Scott's failed expedition to the South
Pole, Nabokov's piece picks up on Mrozek's theme of survival, replacing
the ocean with desolate Arttic snowfields. Caught in a blizzard just 12
miles from safety, Scott's group was experiencing a slow, tortured
death. Seated in four chairs, the actors speak their lines directly
out at the audience. Dressed in suits, they hardly look as if they're
stuck in a snow squall. The production tries to draw a parallel
between the
sense of wasted life in the expedition and the desperation of
modern business executives, but the stagnant staging and the
uninspired deliveries send this segment of "Castaways" adrift.
*********************************************************
Origins of "Talk" Magazine
Harvey wants, in short, a radical new magazine. It's a great idea:
he wants a PORTABLE magazine, a magazine that can be
moved from one room to another, a magazine full of words to look
at and pictures to read. He wants a magazine that stops the
disconnect between our literary and domestic culture by getting,
like, Top Homemaker Martha Stewart to write on the use of the
apostrophe in the works of sex-obsessed genius Vladimir
Nabokov, or doyen celebrity serial killer PAR EXCELLENCE
Charles Manson to tell all about how to make that truly
scrumptious Thanksgiving Loaf just like Mom used to bake it.
*******************************************************
Best Seller Lists
>From the Ottawa Citizen
In Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller
1900- 1999 (Barnes and Noble; $20 U.S.), Michael Korda, editor in
chief at Simon & Schuster, surveys a range of annual bestsellers
lists to comment on American literary tastes and trends over the
20th century. Before the lists appeared, American publishers
reprinted European books without asking the authors' permission or
paying them royalties. So boasting about sales would have been
hazardous. Only with passage of the international copyright law in
1891 did U.S. publishers see the benefit of the list: nothing
succeeds like success, and advertising high sales attracted
further sales.
The lists compiled before 1900, before American culture had
acquired confidence, offered far more international fare than
modern lists, but otherwise, reading tastes seem to have
remained consistent over the century. Mysteries, a century of
Danielle Steels and John Grishams, but also serious fiction
(Evelyn Waugh, Isak Dinesen, Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis,
Vladimir Nabokov, Umberto Eco are among the many surprisingly
highbrow authors who have made the lists); books about the
current events of the day, self-help and religion. There are some
telling parallels. The Man Nobody Knows (1925), which portrayed
Jesus as a talented chief executive and salesman, foreshadows
the current Wall Street Journal bestseller Jesus CEO.
************************************************************************
Herbert and Tolkien right there next to Bellow and Nabokov
>From the December 26, 2001 San Francisco Chronicle.
Artists and writers don't work in vacuums: They thrive on
inspiration, take cues from the masters and endeavor to form their
own style. We asked several Bay Area authors what book they
would most like to save written.
-- Dave Eggers, author, "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering
Genius."
"I guess I first think of writers whose styles just kill me, and when
I think of writers like that I think first of (Vladimir) Nabokov and
(Saul) Bellow. They both manage to put so much of the world
onto each page -- even if, or especially when, their protagonists
are sitting in one place -- while at the same time breathing so
much lyricism into each sentence. "Wait, scratch all that. I wish
I'd written 'Dune.' Frank Herbert and his ilk don't get enough
credit. They create entire worlds, scientifically sound, logical and
intensely moral worlds of sand or gas or whatever, and too often
we marginalize them. These people are titans! In a pluralistic
world, which is what we're in -- and books should reflect this -- we
have to be able to put Herbert and Tolkien right there next to
Bellow and Nabokov, don't we? 'Dune' it is."
*******************************************************
Another Magazine
>From the November 24, 2001 Daily Telegraph
Don't let the title fool you. Another Magazine isn't just another
magazine. Former editor-in-chief of the edgy Dazed & Confused,
Jefferson Hack,is at the helm of this new biannual "fashion and
cultural" tome and it's pretty . . . well . . . I'm not sure,
actually.
The contributors' list is seriously A with photographers including
Helmut Newton, who deserves a gold star for his brooding shoot
with actor Jude Law, Terry Richardson, Nick Knight (he shot the
cover, incidentally) and Mario Sorrenti. Stella McCartney is the art
director of a nude centrefold of celeb couple Kate Hudson and
Chris Robinson and there's a literary insert with extracts from
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and Virginia Woolf's Orlando. Hack
says the cover shot of "real people" embracing is radical and
indicative of the mag's philosophy, which is to "keep a sense of
romance alive in the world where ideals are often replaced by
deals". It's a little art-school, very earnest, provocative with a
capital SV (as in shock value, yawn!) but it is kinda different.
****************************************************88
Humbert's Clues
>From the November 4, 2001 Sunday Times
Schools force-feed books to children but parents can get better
results with a few simple tricks In Nabokov's great novel Lolita,
the corrupt Humbert Humbert has an obsession, apart from the
obvious one of Lolita herself. "I could never make her read any
other book than a comic book," he says. "Any literature a peg
higher smacked to her of school." There are two clues in Humbert's
words about clever children who are reluctant readers. One is the
word "make". Nobody should make anyone read anything. If we
manage to make a child read anything, we damage the business
of reading itself, we damage that child, and we damage that
child's relationship with the book we are force-feeding them. The
second clue in Humbert's words is "school". Both this government
and the last have managed to make many wonderful books semi-
official by stuffing them into the moist concrete of the national
literacy strategy. And there could be no more effective way of
curbing children's enthusiasm than the invention of the "literacy
hour".
*********************************************************
'Lolita' is a great work of Western art?"
From the October 31, 2001 Newsday (New York, NY)
Washington -
Could the U.S. government outlaw a film version of "Romeo and
Juliet"? That was the hypothetical question before the Supreme
Court yesterday, as the justices heard arguments over the
constitutionality of a 1996 law banning the use of sexually explicit
computer-generated images of children.
A group of adult entertainment producers called the Free Speech
Coalition, supported by civil libertarians, argues that the law,
which criminalizes material that "appears to be" of sex by
minors, or is promoted in such a way that it "creates the
impression" the images are real, sweeps in too much legitimate
speech - such as, potentially, Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"
or Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Lolita."
Questions from several justices implied they were concerned that
the law could be read to penalize sexual depictions that do not
directly harm actual children, including those in some popular
Hollywood films.
Justice Stephen Breyer asked Deputy Solicitor General Paul
Clement whether Breyer could be prosecuted "if I go to a video
store and buy copies of 'Traffic,"Lolita' and 'Titanic,' each of
which
has a scene of simulated sex among 17-year-olds." Such films
would not be covered by the law, Clement responded, because
they might have been made using body doubles.
"I didn't see any of those movies," Justice Antonin Scalia
interjected.
"They were pretty good, actually," Breyer responded. When the
Free Speech Coalition's attorney, Louis Sirkin, warned of the
"radical, tragic consequences" of a law that, he said, could
preclude artistic or educational depictions of adolescent
sexuality, Scalia sounded skeptical.
"What great works of Western art" did Sirkin have in mind, Scalia
asked.
Sirkin mentioned the film adaptation of "Lolita." Scalia responded:
" 'Lolita' is a great work of Western
art?"
"Well, it received critical acclaim," Sirkin said. " 'Traffic' got an
Academy Award. Then there's 'The Tin Drum,' and the Brooke
Shields movies, which some people didn't like, but ... "
"With respect," Scalia insisted, "this is not the Mona Lisa or the
Venus de Milo."
---------------------------
Suellen Stringer-Hye
Jean and Alexander Heard Library
Vanderbilt University
stringers@library.vanderbilt.edu
Stringer-Hye for her long-running series surveying VN in the popular
press. Without the contributions of Suellen (and many others) NABOKV-L
could not exist. So, Happy Nabokov's Birthday, Suellen.
----------------------------------
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: VNCOLLATION--2001/2002
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 15:29:59 -0500
From: "Suellen Stringer-Hye" <Stringers@LIBRARY.Vanderbilt.edu>
Organization: Vanderbilt University
To: chtodel@gte.net, NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
*******************************************
PREFACE
I was surprised when Don recently mentioned that NABOKV-L is
now in its tenth year. When the listserve first went online, I
proposed to Don an idea for a monthly column; a collection of
references to Nabokov in the popular press. For the first time
access to this material was possible; it was very novel, very
exciting, and even I would say revolutionary, to be able to search
an electronic index and retrieve not only a citation to an article but
the full text of the article as well. Only a few years earlier a
researcher compiling a similar collection would have spent many
hours with the "Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature", locating
references to the articles and then many days in the library rooting
the said articles out. For the first time an amateur and time
constrained scholar could conduct informal research on the object
of one's passion, in my case the author Vladimir Nabokov.
Admittedly, some of the early pleasures I found absorbed in the
pages of my computer generated printout (since you were paying
for the online time you had to print it out to read it) were those of a
fan scouting for the bolded name in a paragraph to connect with the the
activities of a favorite celeb. But my real and continued
objective over the last ten years is the same as that originally
stated --- to study the mechanics of fame and reputation, the play
between what the author has left behind, and its reception by the
"general public" (if only defined as readers of the popular press).
Although time and attention necessitated a lengthening from the
monthly to the yearly, I continue to enjoy the quest and hope the
readers of nabokv-l share some of my enthusiasm. On another
note, I have personally been nourished for the past ten years by the
quiet, intelligent, often humorous, unique, nabokv-l, so ably guided by
Don Johnson and his co-editor Galya Diment. Thanks
Don and Galya, for letting me participate in the enterprise.
--------------------
------------------
Student says VN won't pay the bills!
Readers Opinions in the Journal-Constitution regarding a previous
article written by a female graduate of Yale complaining about her
inability to find suitable employment elicits this response:
Despite their extensive merit, Charles Dickens, Vladimir
Nabokov and Virginia Woolf won't pay the bills. Unfortunately,
today's Ivy League does not always do a great job of preparing
its pampered students for the real world. Even hard work does
not always pay off when and how you expect, and the world
does not owe you anything, despite your academic
credentials.
ERIC WACHTER Wachter, of Marietta, is a law student at
Harvard University.
******************************************
Is this one online?
>From the March 11, 2002 Independent (London)
ONE OF the year's most curious film premiers captured the late
Richard Burton in a role that became a legendary part of his life
story without ever reaching the silver screen.
The Bradford Film Festival showed eight minutes of Burton's ill-
fated role in Laughter In The Dark, a movie based on Vladimir
Nabokov's novel of the same name, as part of a feature entitled
Unfinished: Films That Never Were. Burton, at the height of his
powers and married to Elizabeth Taylor at the time, walked off the
set several weeks into screening, though the reason remains
unclear. Tony Richardson, the director, later said he fired Burton
because he was "hours late, unpleasant to the crew and other
actors, sneering about the script" and "would disappear into his
caravan" for hours with Taylor. An alternative version of the same
legend has Burton storming off in contempt. Either way,
Richardson started again from scratch with Nicol Williamson in
Burton's role as an art dealer and the initial rushes were junked.
The fragments, from a time in Burton's troubled career when he
was still capable of brilliance, provide a glimpse of how different
the film would have been to the version Richardson eventually
made. They also shed light on whether Laughter would have been
another hit for Burton or the beginning of a slide into
temporary decline. He appeared in a series of disastrous roles
until artistic recovery in 1975.
*****************************************************
Nabokov helps grassroots crusaders save Telluride
Colorado's
valley floor.
>From the March 6, 2002 Denver Post
TELLURIDE - Spotted cows, Vladimir Nabokov and Big Bird
Geezus all played a role this week in a newly amped-up
grassroots effort to save Telluride's valley floor.
They learned from Deborah Brosnan, founder of the Sustainable
Ecosystems Institute, that the valley floor is 'as cosmopolitan as
New York in terms of species.'
The wetlands and meadows have, ironically, been overgrazed by
the valley cows, and they contain mine tailings piles. But they are
also home to an estimated 40 species of butterfly, carpets of high-
altitude bog violets, 155 different birds and a stretch of one of the
last undammed rivers in the country.
Brosnan noted that Nabokov visited and studied butterflies in this
area during a 1958 trip to Telluride and called it one of the four
best spots in the United States for butterflies.
********************************************************
Why is it so hard to get Nabokov right?
>From a review of Castaways," a collection of four modern
playlets held in... The Out of the Box Players' staging of Vladimir
Nabokov's "The Pole" is the most sedate and bland movement of
this dramatic quartet. An imagined re-creation of the final fatal
moments of Robert Falcon Scott's failed expedition to the South
Pole, Nabokov's piece picks up on Mrozek's theme of survival, replacing
the ocean with desolate Arttic snowfields. Caught in a blizzard just 12
miles from safety, Scott's group was experiencing a slow, tortured
death. Seated in four chairs, the actors speak their lines directly
out at the audience. Dressed in suits, they hardly look as if they're
stuck in a snow squall. The production tries to draw a parallel
between the
sense of wasted life in the expedition and the desperation of
modern business executives, but the stagnant staging and the
uninspired deliveries send this segment of "Castaways" adrift.
*********************************************************
Origins of "Talk" Magazine
Harvey wants, in short, a radical new magazine. It's a great idea:
he wants a PORTABLE magazine, a magazine that can be
moved from one room to another, a magazine full of words to look
at and pictures to read. He wants a magazine that stops the
disconnect between our literary and domestic culture by getting,
like, Top Homemaker Martha Stewart to write on the use of the
apostrophe in the works of sex-obsessed genius Vladimir
Nabokov, or doyen celebrity serial killer PAR EXCELLENCE
Charles Manson to tell all about how to make that truly
scrumptious Thanksgiving Loaf just like Mom used to bake it.
*******************************************************
Best Seller Lists
>From the Ottawa Citizen
In Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller
1900- 1999 (Barnes and Noble; $20 U.S.), Michael Korda, editor in
chief at Simon & Schuster, surveys a range of annual bestsellers
lists to comment on American literary tastes and trends over the
20th century. Before the lists appeared, American publishers
reprinted European books without asking the authors' permission or
paying them royalties. So boasting about sales would have been
hazardous. Only with passage of the international copyright law in
1891 did U.S. publishers see the benefit of the list: nothing
succeeds like success, and advertising high sales attracted
further sales.
The lists compiled before 1900, before American culture had
acquired confidence, offered far more international fare than
modern lists, but otherwise, reading tastes seem to have
remained consistent over the century. Mysteries, a century of
Danielle Steels and John Grishams, but also serious fiction
(Evelyn Waugh, Isak Dinesen, Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis,
Vladimir Nabokov, Umberto Eco are among the many surprisingly
highbrow authors who have made the lists); books about the
current events of the day, self-help and religion. There are some
telling parallels. The Man Nobody Knows (1925), which portrayed
Jesus as a talented chief executive and salesman, foreshadows
the current Wall Street Journal bestseller Jesus CEO.
************************************************************************
Herbert and Tolkien right there next to Bellow and Nabokov
>From the December 26, 2001 San Francisco Chronicle.
Artists and writers don't work in vacuums: They thrive on
inspiration, take cues from the masters and endeavor to form their
own style. We asked several Bay Area authors what book they
would most like to save written.
-- Dave Eggers, author, "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering
Genius."
"I guess I first think of writers whose styles just kill me, and when
I think of writers like that I think first of (Vladimir) Nabokov and
(Saul) Bellow. They both manage to put so much of the world
onto each page -- even if, or especially when, their protagonists
are sitting in one place -- while at the same time breathing so
much lyricism into each sentence. "Wait, scratch all that. I wish
I'd written 'Dune.' Frank Herbert and his ilk don't get enough
credit. They create entire worlds, scientifically sound, logical and
intensely moral worlds of sand or gas or whatever, and too often
we marginalize them. These people are titans! In a pluralistic
world, which is what we're in -- and books should reflect this -- we
have to be able to put Herbert and Tolkien right there next to
Bellow and Nabokov, don't we? 'Dune' it is."
*******************************************************
Another Magazine
>From the November 24, 2001 Daily Telegraph
Don't let the title fool you. Another Magazine isn't just another
magazine. Former editor-in-chief of the edgy Dazed & Confused,
Jefferson Hack,is at the helm of this new biannual "fashion and
cultural" tome and it's pretty . . . well . . . I'm not sure,
actually.
The contributors' list is seriously A with photographers including
Helmut Newton, who deserves a gold star for his brooding shoot
with actor Jude Law, Terry Richardson, Nick Knight (he shot the
cover, incidentally) and Mario Sorrenti. Stella McCartney is the art
director of a nude centrefold of celeb couple Kate Hudson and
Chris Robinson and there's a literary insert with extracts from
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and Virginia Woolf's Orlando. Hack
says the cover shot of "real people" embracing is radical and
indicative of the mag's philosophy, which is to "keep a sense of
romance alive in the world where ideals are often replaced by
deals". It's a little art-school, very earnest, provocative with a
capital SV (as in shock value, yawn!) but it is kinda different.
****************************************************88
Humbert's Clues
>From the November 4, 2001 Sunday Times
Schools force-feed books to children but parents can get better
results with a few simple tricks In Nabokov's great novel Lolita,
the corrupt Humbert Humbert has an obsession, apart from the
obvious one of Lolita herself. "I could never make her read any
other book than a comic book," he says. "Any literature a peg
higher smacked to her of school." There are two clues in Humbert's
words about clever children who are reluctant readers. One is the
word "make". Nobody should make anyone read anything. If we
manage to make a child read anything, we damage the business
of reading itself, we damage that child, and we damage that
child's relationship with the book we are force-feeding them. The
second clue in Humbert's words is "school". Both this government
and the last have managed to make many wonderful books semi-
official by stuffing them into the moist concrete of the national
literacy strategy. And there could be no more effective way of
curbing children's enthusiasm than the invention of the "literacy
hour".
*********************************************************
'Lolita' is a great work of Western art?"
From the October 31, 2001 Newsday (New York, NY)
Washington -
Could the U.S. government outlaw a film version of "Romeo and
Juliet"? That was the hypothetical question before the Supreme
Court yesterday, as the justices heard arguments over the
constitutionality of a 1996 law banning the use of sexually explicit
computer-generated images of children.
A group of adult entertainment producers called the Free Speech
Coalition, supported by civil libertarians, argues that the law,
which criminalizes material that "appears to be" of sex by
minors, or is promoted in such a way that it "creates the
impression" the images are real, sweeps in too much legitimate
speech - such as, potentially, Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"
or Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Lolita."
Questions from several justices implied they were concerned that
the law could be read to penalize sexual depictions that do not
directly harm actual children, including those in some popular
Hollywood films.
Justice Stephen Breyer asked Deputy Solicitor General Paul
Clement whether Breyer could be prosecuted "if I go to a video
store and buy copies of 'Traffic,"Lolita' and 'Titanic,' each of
which
has a scene of simulated sex among 17-year-olds." Such films
would not be covered by the law, Clement responded, because
they might have been made using body doubles.
"I didn't see any of those movies," Justice Antonin Scalia
interjected.
"They were pretty good, actually," Breyer responded. When the
Free Speech Coalition's attorney, Louis Sirkin, warned of the
"radical, tragic consequences" of a law that, he said, could
preclude artistic or educational depictions of adolescent
sexuality, Scalia sounded skeptical.
"What great works of Western art" did Sirkin have in mind, Scalia
asked.
Sirkin mentioned the film adaptation of "Lolita." Scalia responded:
" 'Lolita' is a great work of Western
art?"
"Well, it received critical acclaim," Sirkin said. " 'Traffic' got an
Academy Award. Then there's 'The Tin Drum,' and the Brooke
Shields movies, which some people didn't like, but ... "
"With respect," Scalia insisted, "this is not the Mona Lisa or the
Venus de Milo."
---------------------------
Suellen Stringer-Hye
Jean and Alexander Heard Library
Vanderbilt University
stringers@library.vanderbilt.edu