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Cleveland State University EngagedScholarship@CSU The Gamut Archives Publications Winter 1986 The Gamut: A Journal of Ideas and Information, No. 17, Winter 1986 Cleveland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/gamut_archives Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, Business Commons, Medicine and Health Sciences Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! Recommended Citation Cleveland State University, "The Gamut: A Journal of Ideas and Information, No. 17, Winter 1986" (1986). The Gamut Archives. 15. https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/gamut_archives/15 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Publications at EngagedScholarship@CSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Gamut Archives by an authorized administrator of EngagedScholarship@CSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ISSN 0275-0589 Enjoy The Gamut for life. Life subscriptions to The Gamut are available for individuals and corporations at the rate of $100 each. The editors gratefully acknowledge readers who have already made this commitment to the magazine. Names of life subscribers will be published in forthcoming numbers. The Gamut RT 1216, Cleveland State University Cleveland, Ohio 44115 A JOURNAL OF IDEAS AND INFORMATION Number 17 Winter, 1986 CONTENTS 3 Louis T. Milic: Stories of Love-For Women Only Authors reveal a glimpse into the competitive world of romance-writing. 20 James G. Thompson: Historical Errors About the Ancient Olympic Games Historians have been wrong about the Olympic Games since they began. 25 Bonnie Herbst: She Ducked into a Phone Booth ... Havens for superheroes, G-men, and stocking-straighteners-how did we ever do without them? 35 Gary Fincke: Short Story, "Binghamton Bus" 42 Robert Cluett: The Fall of the House of Cruse-The Politics of Wine The story behind the scam that shook the French wine industry. 55 Lester Adelson: Handguns and Criminal Violence Cuyahoga County's deputy coroner takes a stand on the handgun control issue. 61 Peter Salm: Undoing Babel The perils of translation-can it be both beautiful and true? 67 John Hinds: The Mysterious Language of Japan How to address a Japanese greengrocer, and the solutions to other language problems in Japan. (Latest of The Gamut's "Languages of the World" series.) 72 David B. Guralnik: Word Watch. Neologisms: A Corporate Vocabulary 74 Bethany S. Oberst: The Case of Dr. Berjot: a Lesson in Creative Autobiography The elusive line between life and literature. 81 From"A Voyage to New Orleans" by Dr. E. Berjot. 87 Jesse Bier: Humor in Israel Is it OK to be funny at the Third International Conference on humor in Tel Aviv? BACK MATTER 92 John A. Flower: Professional Art and Popular Art: Principles and Prescriptions 95 David Evett: New Play House Not For Plays 2 Editor: Louis T. Milic Co-Editor: Leonard M. Trawick A JOURNAL OF IDEAS AND INFORMATION Managing Editor: Mary Grimm Circulation Manager: Susan Dumbrys Intern Editor: Michael Gavin Advisory Board John A. Flower Robert Cheshier David Guralnik Julie Haug Ronald Haybron Roberta Hubbard Herbert Kamm Katherine Torgerson Cover: Cleveland artist Constance M. Abelson has Diana Tittle created a "sensual romance" cover especially for Tile Gamut, using one of the stock poses of the pa perback covers and such cliches as galloping Editorial Board horses and a Southern mansion. For examples of Stephen R. Coleman the real thing, see the article on romance writing that begins on p. 3. George A. Coulman Fred E. Ekfelt Gary Engle John Gerlach Stuart A. Kollar William R. Martin Photography: Louis T. Milic Tile Gamut: aJournal of Ideas and Information is published in the fall , winter, and spring of each year by Cleveland State In Coming Issues University, Cleveland, Ohio. Subscription rate: one year Beauty and Mathematics (three issues), $12.00; two years, $20.00; three years, $25.00. Library rate, $15 .00 per year. Foreign subscrip In Vitro Conception tions $3.00 per year additional. Single copies, $5.00; back issues, $6.00. Claims for missing issues honored within Education in China six months of publication. Niihau-the Unknown Island The Gamut invites commentaries for its "Back Matter" Mail Art section and also the submission of new articles and crea tive works, especially by Ohio writers and artists, on top ics of interest to readers of this region. Preliminary inqui photography, poetry, fiction ries are welcome; detailed information for contributors on request. Submitted material will be returned if accompa Special issue on The Future nied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Address all correspondence to: The Gamut, Room 1216 Rhodes Tower, (Fall, 1986-see contest notice Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH 44115. on inside back cover) Copyright c 1986 by Cleveland State University. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. ISSN 0275-0589. 3 Louis T. Milic Stories of Love-For Women Only Although there has been much recent in the third person, primarily from the hero concern about the decreasing interest in liter ine's point of view. However, the hero's per ature of the American public-perhaps even spective may be used to enhance tension, its decreasing literacy-it is a fact that fiction plot or character development . " has made a strong comeback in the last dec Because love and sex are of central in ade or two. A new class of readers has terest in the romance, there is a good deal of emerged whose consumption of books is feverish description of sexual activity, rang nothing short of phenomenal. This group ing from the euphemistic to the no-holds seems to consist of women (mainly between barred explicit. Though the settings vary ge the ages of 18 and 45 although some are older ographically and historically, these novels and a few much older), who buy one of every can be classified into a few distinct catego four books sold in the United States. The ob ries. Indeed "category fiction" is another ject of this voracious consumption is called a name for this genre. Eileen Fallon, a former romance, and it can be found on metal racks in romance editor, has divided these into the bookstores, five-and-tens, supermarkets, following "sub-genres"': drug stores, newsstands, and even gas sta 1. The sweet romance was the original Harle tions. The volumes are paperbacked and av quin and Silhouette product. It has a virginal erage 150-300 pages; the cover depicts an at heroine, aged 18-23, whose first love is de tractive young couple embracing. Harlequin, scribed in 50,000-55,000 words. Avon, Silhouette, Fawcett, and Dell are the 2. The sensual romance came into being in publishers' names most often found on the 1973 with the Harlequin Presents line and title pages of these works, which are likely to matured in Dell Candlelight's Ecstasy series bear such titles as Moonstruck Madness, Pas in 1982. The heroines are sexually experi sion 's Blazing Triumph , or Sweet Savage Love. enced, between the ages of 24 and 39, and Not only the readers of these romances but have a consurnrnated affair with the hero the writers and the editors are mainly fe well before the end of the book, which also male. In other words, the enormous market runs 50,000-55,000 words. for romance fiction is run by women for con 3. The longer romance derives from Silhou sumption by women for the ultimate profit ette's Special Editions. It focusses on the de- of-men. Until recently the term romance re ferred to medieval adventure stories involv ing knights, kings, giants, and noble ladies, in fanciful quests and escapades. The stories of King Arthur, Amadis de Gaule, and Tris tan and Ysolt are romances, and so turned the mind of Don Quixote that he tried to em ulate their heroes. The romance that we are speaking of is a completely different animal. It is basically a love story in the course of which an unattached young woman is courted and won by a strong, sexually attrac tive man of whom she is initially afraid or whom she initially rejects. The canonical form of the romance has a happy ending in volving a union, either sexual or formal, be tween the two protagonists, told in such a manner that the woman's feelings are the fo Cover cameo for Golden Illu sions by " Sarah cus of attention. Silhouette, for example, no Crewe" (Virginia Blanford) in the "Second tifies its writers: "Your story should be told Chance at Love" Series. 4 LOUIS T. MIlle veloping love relationship between the main tending "romance authors." The guidelines characters but introduces more secondary for each category have most of the following characters. The heroines and the level of sen headings: "Length," "Plot," "Style," suality are similar to the previous category. "Sex," "Heroine," "Hero," "Setting," and Length is 70,000-75,000 words, but has gone "Submission Format." There are variations even higher. among the guidelines for different series be 4. The teen-age romance is a shorter sweet ro yond those resulting from their differing au mance with a young heroine getting in diences. The style of the Harlequin Romance volved with a boy for the first time. Scholas series is expected to be "Generally light and tic's Wildfire series was the progenitor but natural; humorous, but only if you have a Bantam's Sweet Dreams and Silhouette's bent for humor and humor fits naturally into First Love carried the type forward. the story. Do not allow long passages of nar 5. The historical, which can be set in the de rative unbroken by dialogue.