Anomaly Archives eNews 2/23/2016

Books, eNewsletter, News,

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February 23rd, 2016 – No time for introductions this week. There’s a wealth of news and information contained in the newsletter below.

Thank you all for the continued support and especially for the positive feedback to this newsletter.

Be Sure To Check Out The Latest Book-Of-The-Week

Plus News Headlines & Event Info below…

See you next week!

– SMiles Lewis / Founder

AnomalyArchives.org
SMilesLewis.com

Book of the Week:
Hot Corn – Life Scenes in New York Illustrated
by Solon Robinson (1854)

This is one of the rare old books from our Robert C. Girard Collection. To my knowledge, it has nothing to do with anomalies research and is just an example of his rare book collecting. The book is one of the oldest in our collection and appears to be a first edition. While it may not contain any paranormal folk tales it seems that it was a notable literary contribution in its day, despite much criticism…

hot-corn-life-scenes-1854“The book is a collection of stories set in New York City’s impoverished Five Points neighborhood, and first appeared in the New York Tribune in 1853.

One of stories was that of Little Katy, a hot corn seller on the street, who is beaten to death by her alcoholic mother who needs Katy’s income to support her drinking, after Katy’s corn supply is stolen.

hot-corn-girlThough it garnered some positive press for promoting morality, especially in religious newspapers (for example, the Christian Secretary of Hartford, Connecticut said “The Hot Corn stories are eloquent appeals in favor of temperance and virtue”), the book (and stage adaptations) were also the subject of much scorn by critics. The New York Herald faulted the book for “giving minute descriptions of life in fashionable houses of ill-fame, and entering into the details of seduction, licentiousness and debauchery, with a gusto, ill concealed by the pretence of morality.” The Southern Literary Messenger excoriated the book, proclaiming that “to say that the man who deliberately writes and prints such perilous and damnable stuff deserves a place in the penitentiary, is feebly to express our notion of the enormity of his offence.”

Author Henry James wrote in his autobiography he was prevented from reading Hot Corn as a child; a copy was given to his father with the admonishment that it wasn’t proper for children to read. James wrote that “so great became from that moment the mystery of the tabooed book, of whatever identity; the question, in my breast, of why, if it was to be so right for others, it was only to be wrong for me….. Neither then nor afterwards was the secret of “Hot Corn” revealed to me …” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow took his sons to see one of the plays in April 1854 and called it “wretched stuff.”   – Wikipedia.org

Check out some more links about this book, or read digital copies of it at the links below:

[Illustration above is of a “Hot Corn girl” from the book Hot Corn

by John McLenan, engraved by Nathaniel Orr]

Read More…

In Memorium…
As we mentioned in last week’s newsletter, much of our efforts at preserving the legacies of various Anomalist / Fortean seekers is necessarily the result of their passage from the world of the living into the great beyond. Some contributors to the eternal search for knowledge and truth aren’t necessarily considered “researchers” per se, but they have made significant contributions through their writing nonetheless. Therefore, in honor of such visionaries and writers on the human condition and the philosophy of existence, we remember two recently departed souls for your consideration…

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Umberto Eco – (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016)

“…was an Italian novelist, essayist, literary critic, philosopher and semiotician. He is best known for his groundbreaking 1980 historical mystery novel Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose), an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory. He later wrote other novels, including Il pendolo di Foucault (Foucault’s Pendulum) and L’isola del giorno prima (The Island of the Day Before). His novel Il cimitero di Praga (The Prague Cemetery), released in 2010, was a best-seller.    – Wikipedia.org

Excerpt below from Down the Rabbit Hole: Curiouser and Curiouser – EsoterX.com

“A passage from Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum succinctly captures the warp and the weave, the want and the wish, the way in which we work towards belief and understanding. The wise occultist Dr. Agliè, commenting on a fictional work called The Secret Language of the Pyramids, explains how the author measured the Great Pyramid of Cheops and determined that esoteric knowledge was encoded in its dimensions, proceeding to do the same with a newspaper kiosk in downtown Paris. Eco’s conspiracy enthusiasts are disconcerted, assuming that Agliè consequently rejects all numerologies out of hand. Agliè protests, “On the contrary, I believe firmly. I believe the universe is a great symphony of numerical correspondences, I believe that numbers and their symbolism provide a path to special knowledge. But if the world, below and above, is a system of correspondences where tout se tient, it’s natural for the kiosk and pyramid, both works of man, to reproduce in their structure, unconsciously, the harmonies of the cosmos. The so-called pyramidologists discover with their incredibly torturous methods a straightforward truth, a truth far more ancient, and one already known. It is the logic of research and discovery that is tortuous, because it is the logic of science. Whereas the logic of knowledge needs no discovery, because it knows already. Why must it demonstrate that which could not be otherwise? If there is a secret, it is much more profound. These authors of yours simply remain on the surface”.“

Harper Lee – (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016)

“…was an American novelist widely known for To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. Immediately successful, it won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. Though Lee had only published this single book, in 2007 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature. Additionally, Lee received numerous honorary degrees, though she declined to speak on those occasions. She was also known for assisting her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). Capote was the basis for the character Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird.

The plot and characters of To Kill a Mockingbird are loosely based on Lee’s observations of her family and neighbors, as well as an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old. The novel deals with the irrationality of adult attitudes towards race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s, as depicted through the eyes of two children. The novel was inspired by racist attitudes in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.

Another novel, Go Set a Watchman, was written in the mid-1950s and controversially published in July 2015 as a “sequel”, though it was later confirmed to be To Kill a Mockingbird’s first draft.”   – Wikipedia.org

Headlines

Here are a some other headlines of note for this week:

Featured Audio / Video Podcasts –


Exploring The Bizarre: Gray Barker Memorial Special

See also… other spotlighted news & event links below!

Membership Drive 2016

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Then Become An Official Member TODAY!

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Monthly Public Meetings

Monthly discussion on the latest news and research into the fields of inquiry covered within our anomalous collections including: UFOs and Ufology, Consciousness, Parapsychology, Fortean and Paranormal Phenomena, Cryptozoology, Parapolitics and Conspiracy, Human Potential … and MORE!

The Anomaly Archives holds monthly meetings (usually) on the Fourth Saturday of each month. Contact SMiles Lewis or Mark Muecke via email for updates. The meetings are FREE (Donations Welcomed!) and held from 1-3pm at the INACS / Anomaly Archives headquarters located in North West Austin. (Map)

 

Source: Anomaly Archives eNews 2/23/2016

 

 

About Scientific Anomaly Institute

The Anomaly Archives is the lending library of the Scientific Anomaly Institute, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that seeks: Preservation and dissemination of scientific research into anomalous phenomena Research and analysis of accumulated collections Education of the public regarding scientific investigations into these phenomena Purposes of the Institute: * Managing and developing an archive and library for documents and literature with regards to a multi-disciplinary approach to anomalous phenomena, * Supporting, promoting and pursuing research to obtain increased knowledge about anomalous phenomena, and * Pursuing and stimulating a critical, scientific discussion of anomalous phenomena, and providing a forum for information, support, and sharing among researchers while, Functioning as the archives and library for like-minded organizations, and other groups in the community that have similar interests. Our collection houses over about 5,000 books as well as research materials such as, videos, documents, magazines, and personal correspondence. Along with the S.A.I. collection, we also curate the collections of "Rare UFO & Paranormal Book Collector/Seller" Robert C. Girard, INACS (Institute for Neuroscience And Consciousness Studies), and others. And previously those of Austin MUFON (Mutual UFO Network), Austin IONS (Institute Of Noetic Sciences) and JSA (Jung Society of Austin). We house many great books that discuss a wide range of scientific subjects including: -UFOs and Ufology -Consciousness -Parapsychology -Fortean Phenomena -Cryptozoology -ParaPolitical Science -Human Potential Please come pay us a visit!

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