December 2011 | Vol. X No. 4

One Civilized Reader Is Worth a Thousand Boneheads Life is a Cartoon

Every year, when the leaves through Theories of Everything Nancy Berg Professor of Asian and Near Eastern form red and yellow designs (2006): a guilty looking woman is Languages and Literatures scattered across the lawn, our standing in front of a store where a Ken Botnick Professor of Art Center is busy with the mul- sign over the window reads “Mom Director of Kranzberg Studio ticolored covers of new fac- and Pop Grocerette.” Pasted on the Gene Dobbs Bradford Executive Director ulty scattered across our windows are other signs that look Jazz St. Louis workspace. This is the busiest like advertisements, but rather than Elizabeth Childs Associate Professor and Chair of and happiest month for us. It is announcing sales they read “We Department of Art History and a pleasure to collect so many never see you any more!”; “What’s Archaeology Mary-Jean Cowell new books by Washington the matter, we don’t carry enough Associate Professor of Performing Arts University authors, fill out cards of your ‘gourmet items’?”; “Guess Phyllis Grossman with descriptions and authors’ you’re all grown up and have your Retired Financial Executive, LA66 Michael A. Kahn photos, and present them for the own life now”; and a poster of a Attorney, Author and annual Faculty Book Celebra- lonely-looking parental couple Adjunct Professor of Law tion. This year marks the tenth waving at passersby with the cap- Zurab Karumidze Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia year that we will host “Cel- tion “Don’t worry about us!” This Peter Kastor ebrating Our Books, Recogniz- cartoon makes you laugh, but it Associate Professor of History and American Culture Studies Program ing Our Authors.” (Please see also makes you think. Chris King page 10 for details.) So far, we Editorial Director I confess that I was not previous- The St. Louis American Newspaper have received permission to ly familiar with Chast’s cartoons. Olivia Lahs-Gonzales display 104 books representing Director I thought cartoons were designed Sheldon Art Galleries 76 authors, all published in the simply to be funny, to make you Steven Meyer last three years. If you see one laugh. So, at first I didn’t laugh Associate Professor of English or two you like, the Campus Joe Pollack at all. It took me awhile to “get Writer Bookstore will have more than but rather they balance depiction of it,” but when I did, not only did I Anne Posega 200 books available for purchase at the Head of Special Collections, Olin everyday human emotions with words laugh, but also I laughed at the context celebration. that sell the humor. In her cartoons, she of the joke. The power in Chast’s car- Qiu Xiaolong One of the keynote speakers for this toons is that she combines visual com- Novelist and Poet addresses ordinary human issues: guilt, Joseph Schraibman year is the cartoonist Roz Chast. It may anxiety, families, friends, money, real munication with a minimal text evok- Professor of Spanish seem strange to invite a cartoonist to a ing the social contexts of our everyday Henry Schvey estate, and aging. Although there are Professor of Drama book celebration, but Chast’s cartoons numerous multi-panel stories, even her world. Take, for instance, an older Chast Wang Ning are presented in the style of a graphic single-panel drawings express consider- cartoon from The New Yorker wherein a Professor of English, Tsinghua University made up of short stories. They crowd of travelers is standing around an James Wertsch able meaning. Take, for example, the Marshall S. Snow Professor of Arts and do not rely on just a funny drawing, cartoon about three quarters of the way airport baggage carousel labeled “Emo- Sciences Associate Vice Chancellor for International Affairs

Ex Officio Edward S. Macias Provost & Exec VC for Academic Affairs visit our blog site at http://cenhum.artsci.wustl.edu/pubs/blog.htm Gary S. Wihl Dean of Arts & Sciences editor's notes continued

looked at them the more I realized that cartoons are narratives, fairly easy to put into words. Of course, without the ingenious drawings the words are two-dimensional, but the meanings come through. The cartoon a few (un- numbered) pages past the “Mom and Pop Grocerette,” for example, contains the drawing of a dreary strip mall in the middle of nowhere. Like many such retail spaces, it has a large, pretentious sign above it. In this case the sign reads “Seven Deadly Sins Shopping Plaza.” Beneath the sign are seven tiny booth-like shops: the “Beauty Barn,” offering pride; the “Judo and Kick Boxing School,” offering wrath; the “Oooh, I love Your Dress,” offering envy; the “Adult Video” store, offering lust; the “All You Can Eat Belgian Waffles,” offering gluttony; the “Off Track Betting” shop, offering greed; and the “Lazy Day Bar,” offering sloth. The scary thing about the “Seven Deadly Sins Shopping Plaza” cartoon is that I am fairly certain I saw just such a strip mall on a recent trip to the West Coast. And that is the point: comedy should not always be comfort- able. It should expose the emotions and experiences we would rather hide or deny. Chast takes the tiny, seemingly insignificant details that are usually ignored and brings them to life in all their hilarity and pain. Her cartoons succeed because they make evident the unspoken truths about our lives. We at the Center for the Humanities and the Washington University Li- tional Baggage Claim.” We see the luggage arriving and one older business- braries invite you to come, listen to, and laugh with Roz Chast on Tuesday, man reaching for a plain-looking bag as he says, “There’s my resentment of December 6, at 5 p.m. A and reception in physical beauty!” the Formal Lounge of the Women’s Building will follow, I may not have been familiar with Roz Chast’s work, but millions of other where you may also browse through a fascinating col- readers have known and appreciated it for decades. More than 1,000 of her lection of faculty books published during the past three cartoons have been published in The New Yorker since 1978, and many oth- years. ers have appeared in a great many other magazines. She has also published a dozen books including Parallel Universes (1984), Unscientific Americans Jian Leng (1986), Mondo Boxo (1987), The Four Elements (1988), Proof of Life on Associate Director Earth (1991), Childproof: Cartoons about Parents and Children (1997), The The Center for the Humanities Party, After You Left (2004), Theories of Everything (2006), and What I Hate: From A To Z (2011). One characteristic of her books is that the "author photo" is always a cartoon she draws of, presumably, herself. The title page is also hand-lettered by Chast. Chast grew up in Brooklyn and started cartooning while still in high school. She received a BFA in graphic design and painting in 1977 from the Rhode Island School of Design. After graduating, she returned to cartooning, and less than two years later her name was added to those of some forty artists under contract to the New Yorker, where she has sent approximately 10 cartoons a week since 1978. Chast sees the universe through the eyes of a wife and moth- er, dreaming her dreams and trying to cope with reality. However, “In my mind's eye I will always be a short, frizzy-haired twelve year old," she told Sunday Morning anchor Charles Osgood. I have been reviewing a copy of Theories of Everything: Selected, Collected and Health-Inspected Cartoons, 1978–2006 in advance of Chast’s visit. This 1.5 inch thick book contains over 513 cartoons, 28 years of her works from the New Yorker and other periodicals. Although at first I thought it would be difficult if not impossible to write about cartoon drawing, the more I The Common Reader by Gerald Early

Review of Henry Kissinger, his National Security Advisor ist, but highly hegemonic foreign policy not only and later Secretary of State wrote, “He didn’t were being called into question but were on the enjoy people. What I never understood is why he verge of being completely discredited on a num- went into politics.” It is less remarkable that he ber of ideological fronts. Nixon emerged during should have become the first president to resign a time when the national security state was in considering the combination of his own per- absolute crisis. sonal traits and the particular times in which he Nixon straddled several positions, as most lived. If Nixon was, as Mark Feldstein writes in politicians of his importance and complexity Poisoning the Press , “ill suited to the rough-and- do. He was a rabidly anti-communist conserva- tumble of public life,” he enjoyed great success tive, which is how he made his reputation as a and in nearly every instance of failure or public congressman with the Alger Hiss case and as humiliation, even after his ignominious depar- the worst sort of red-smear monger in his suc- ture from the presidency, managed to resurrect th cessful senate campaign against Helen Gahagan himself in some measure. No politician in 20 Douglas, but as Eisenhower’s vice president he century American history seemed as skilled at never repudiated the welfare state. Eisenhower, reinventing himself. There were several “new in fact, solemnly supported it as a political fact Nixons,” as it were, a reincarnation every half- beyond ideological dispute. Nixon was not a dozen years or so during his public life, espe- Taft-wing isolationist—he was not above assas- cially from 1960 until the end of his life. It is sinating foreign leaders, overthrowing govern- no wonder that Nixon scholar Joan Hoff in her ments, and the like in the worst of the American Nixon Reconsidered (1994) called him “the Cold War tradition, but it is not clear at all that quintessential American politician since World having hundreds of thousands of ground troops War II.” in Vietnam was a situation that was ideally to his But Nixon had more than “cunning and tenac- liking or that, had he been elected president in ity,” as Feldstein credits him. Those qualities, by 1960, he would have created. Nixon felt strongly themselves, would not have been enough. Nixon that, in crisis, leaders and managers should take Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack An- was intelligent, shrewd, and truly a political risks, in fact, “[couldn’t] understand people who derson, and the Rise of Washington’s Scandal animal. He may not have enjoyed people, but won’t take risk.” Whether he would have found Culture he immensely enjoyed politics. Kissinger was Vietnam in the early 1960s a worthwhile risk is By Mark Feldstein wrong: one does not have to enjoy people, even anyone’s guess. He claimed that he always “hat- like them, to be successful in politics or to desire ed” the war. The Vietnam War was the dream/ Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2010, 416 pages politics as one’s life work. Politics, after all, is nightmare of the consensus liberals who involved with index, , footnotes, and photos not really about people but about the pursuit and the United States in it. Nixon as president was in Do we leave the memory only of the battles we exercise of power. And Nixon was fascinated the somewhat odd position of repudiating liber- fought, of opponents we did in, of the viciousness by power, fascinated by how one fights to get it alism, in part, as we had come to understand it we created, or do we leave possibly not only the and keep it, and what one does with it. Nixon, as in post-World War II America, to get elected by dream but the reality of a new world? president, did not think he had enough power but disrupting the old Roosevelt coalition, among --Richard Nixon, 1973 this hardly made him sinister or unique. other things, while being expected to rescue it from its own excesses. It was not really expected I don’t like to hurt people. I really don’t like it at Joan Hoff writes, “In 1968, when Nixon finally captured the highest office in the land, he inher- that Nixon was going to dismantle or even try all. But in order to get a red light at the intersec- to dismantle the welfare state—although Nixon tion, you sometimes have to have an accident. ited from Lyndon Johnson not only the Vietnam War but the plan for the Great Society. This gave the impression to whites that he was going --Jack Anderson transfer of power occurred at the very moment to stop the wild, angry, and ungrateful blacks of the pent-up and economically powerless ghettoes Part 1: Alas, Poor Richard when both endeavors had lost substantial support among the people at large and, most important, from rioting in their attempt to get more from Richard Nixon (1913-1994) was a corrupt, among a significant number of the elite group of the government trough—and it was expected he venal, cold-blooded, vengeful, insecure, and decision makers and leaders of opinion across would try to get the United States out of Vietnam off-putting politician. He is also one of the in some way that resembled victory or at least th the country—including Nixon, who, as early as most extraordinary figures in the history of 20 1966, had begun to sense ‘serious flaws’ in the that was not an admission of defeat. It was not century American politics. It was remarkable social programs of the Great Society.” Nixon so easy for the world’s major power simply to that he wound up President of the United States, came into office when the very assumptions of shrug its shoulders and abandon a war, no matter that he had such success because he seemed liberalism in its creation of the welfare state and how misbegotten a venture it was. unsuited in many ways for his profession. As the pursuit of an anti-communist, anti-imperial- The Common Reader by Gerald Early

Part 2: The War of the Words dumped from the ticket.) Plucking wax from his sibling relations, and inner drives resulting from ear with a paper clip and emerging from restau- an internalized sense of inadequacy, Feldman Mark Feldstein’s Poisoning the Press is about rants with a toothpick clamped between his teeth, gets down to the business of telling the story of the intersection of the careers of two men who Anderson seemed like a seedy refugee from a the two men as highly skilled professionals in became adversaries, politician Richard Nixon film noir. He was obsessed with scandals and, their fields. Anderson surely broke big stories and journalist Jack Anderson (1922-2005), both in many ways, wound up lowering the standards about Nixon’s machinations: his Howard Hughes- reaching their height as public figures at around of his trade as Nixon lowered the standards of his financed slush fund, the ITT bribe, the secret the same time, the late 1960s and early 1970s. office. This, I think, is the thematic burden of widening of the Vietnam War with the Cambodia Indeed, so bitter was the conflict between An- Feldstein’s book: “The most hated politician and bombings, the overthrow of the Allende gov- derson and Nixon that it is Feldstein’s contention reporter of their time rose to power through unre- ernment in Chile. Nixon worked valiantly and that, in something like a move resembling Henry mitting attacks on their opponents.” In the arena, megalomaniacally to protect the prerogatives of II’s anguished wish to be rid of Thomas Beckett, as Nixon called it. his office, at times with the “tough” and uncom- Nixon’s men—namely Charles Colson, E. Howard promising instincts of a gangster combined with Hunt, and Gordon Liddy—plotted to assassinate Interestingly, both Nixon and Anderson were the indulgent self-pity of the misunderstood and Anderson in 1972. None of this is very clear, and ultimately brought down by their hubris, not under-appreciated. Poisoning the Press tells a it is hard to know now whether people who say just mere egomania about the levers of power or fascinating story even if the assertions with which this plot was afoot are simply ladling out a lot of public opinion they could manipulate but their in- the author concludes about the rise of right-wing pulp (ten-cent intrigue to aggrandize themselves) media through deregulation (an especial bête noir or if it actually was something that was truly of liberals, who seem more jealous than anything close to being enacted. Of course, it is chilling to else about the gas bag success of Limbaugh and think that Nixon’s men, at Nixon’s fevered, para- his ilk and Fox News), the intense partisanship noid suggestion, might have considered killing of journalism today, and its “abdication of its a journalist who opposed the president. None- watchdog role on issues of substance” might be theless, there was always something odd, even challenged. Feldman’s deterministic history creepy, about Anderson as a journalist whose since Nixon’s presidency is that of Republicans major claim to fame was leaking government seeking power at all cost while committing the documents verbatim in his columns, which he insane mistakes of the ideologically wrong and learned from being Drew Pearson’s legman. He the brutally incompetent versus stalwart reformist was not a good writer (although he won a Pulitzer Democrats thwarted at every turn by dirty tricks because fame will often get you prestige if noth- and public brainwashing. No version of Ameri- ing else can), nor was he a particularly trenchant can presidential politics can be quite this Mani- analyst , although he understood well how politi- chean or this simple. Nixon, alas, was no more cal power worked. He was, to use the formula- aprincipled, to use Joan Hoff’s term, than many tion of sociologist David Riesman, that peculiar others who have worked their way to the top of kind of American huckster called the “inside our aprincipled system of power. Anderson, too, dopster.” Anderson seemed to combine the was aprincipled: morally unconscious and repre- instincts of a down-at-the-heels gumshoe work- senting nothing. Power, in the end, was all about ing for a divorce lawyer—he loved going through getting people to support you by either doing the trash of J. Edgar Hoover and other powerful something for them or to them. figures and, like Nixon, looking for “queers” in the closet—with the stentorian declamations of an ability, in the end, to maintain control over events Hoff also reminds that us that Nixon gave us oracle looking out for the public’s right to know which they thought they could and should control: expanded affirmative action, the Environmental and the public good, whatever that happened to the more Nixon tried to frustrate the Watergate Protection Agency, revenue sharing (the New Fed- be. (St. Louisans might be inclined to dislike investigation, the worse he made matters; and by eralism), health and welfare innovations, détente, Anderson because of his irresponsible and unsub- the time Watergate broke as a major story, Ander- and an opening to China. No modern president, stantiated claims that Senator Thomas Eagleton son was no longer the nation’s leading muckraker. however conservative his pronouncements, fancies had been arrested several times for drunk driving Other investigative reporters had out-maneuvered himself a reactionary. Every president thinks issued at the time when Eagleton was desperately him. Both men became, in some ways, relics of himself a reformer acting in the public interest, trying to stay on the 1972 Democratic presiden- their old vendettas. Both wound up like Gloria a restorer of the American social contract and tial ticket as the vice presidential nominee after Swanson’s character in Sunset Boulevard: ghostly protector of the American Dream, no matter how public disclosures that he had undergone electro- parodies haunting the fringes of memory. troubling his private entanglements in the cords shock treatment for two nervous breakdowns. By After a bit of a psycho-biographical beginning, and wires of the power elites, from which, in the the time Anderson chose to retract his false relating the childhoods of both men, religious end, no president can ever hope to escape. allegations, Eagleton had already been influences (Mormon and Quaker), parental and Faculty Fellows The Speed of Turtles

Lutz Koepnick Lutz Koepnick, Professor of German, Film and Media Studies, and Comparative Literature, and Chair of the De- partment of Germanic Languages & Literatures in Arts and Sciences, was a Faculty Fellow at the Center for the Hu- manities during the Spring semester of 2011. During this time, he worked on a book project entitled “On Slowness: Towards a Contemporary Aesthetic of Deceleration,” which explores the viability of a different framing of slowness and proposes a new understanding of modern culture and aesthetic practice based on a critical engagement with a contemporary desire to slow down the pace of progress and reflect on the interplay of past, present, and future.

It is said that Bohemians in mid- attend to the latest technological innovation. nineteenth century Paris used to walk But then again, let us recall that nineteenth- turtles on a leash to slow down their century walkers used their turtles not to speed amid the traffic of their me- defy speed and mobility altogether, but to tropolis. Their hope, not simply, was to uphold the viability of aternative rates of conspicuously, as it were, challenge the movement; they pursued a certain sense of ever-increasing tempos of modern life deceleration not to step out of modernity, and create better conditions to observe but to become true contemporaries; they their surroundings; it was also, and embraced slowness as a mode of reflecting perhaps as importantly, to improve their on and refracting modernity’s obsession chances of being seen and thereby to with uninhibited progress with the inten- beat modernity’s regime of fleetingness tion of envisioning the future as something and ongoing movement at its own game. fundamentally open and indeterminate. To As curious as it might seem, to walk a be out of step with the speeds of their time, turtle was not meant to reject the central for them, served as the precondition for elements of modern life—transforma- recognizing their age in all its complexity tion, mobility, contingency, and speed— and multiplicity. It allowed them to experi- altogether. Instead it was to probe new might very well turn out to be the twenty-first ence time as a realm of freedom and agency possibilities of looking modern life straight in the century’s most important battles. Yet in the eyes rather than of self-propelled motion. eye: to assume viable positions within the very of many, the humanities are seen as being ill I think of the humanities as an import and flows and velocities of modernity from which one prepared to participate in these struggles. They necessary tool to teach us the art of taking and could experience things with great care, intensity, prioritize unhurried , seeing, and listen- measuring time—not in order to practice mere and attentiveness, and hence, with the keenness of ing over speedy data processing; they privilege idleness, but to critically reflect on the course of a contemporary. protracted interpretation and debate over instanta- history and progress. There is no need at all, as The speeds of our own moment in time cannot neous gestures of dislike or approval; and instead scholars in the humanities, to consider the speed but make us think about the nineteenth century as of advocating immediate gratifications, they em- of scientific or technological advances as inher- a period of enormous sluggishness and immobil- phasize the work it might take to generate mean- ently dangerous to the future of meaning, value, ity. What thrilled and intoxicated Paris flaneurs ing and partake of aesthetic pleasure. They make and pleasure. Or to demonize the ever-acceler- circa 1850 will strike most inhabitants of the us pause when most of us want to rush forward; ating presence of search engines, e-book read- twenty-first century as unbearably slow and lan- they ask us to look sideways or even backwards ers, electronic screens, social networking sites, guid. We communicate across the globe in frac- precisely when nothing appears more urgent than and text messaging—or whatever pundits love to tions of a second; we travel at speeds fifty-times to face what comes next in our daily itineraries. identify as the downfall of humanist knowledge, faster than those of horse-carriages or early trams; It is easy to disparage the humanities as being depth, and rigor. On the contrary. To be slow, for we absorb multiple streams of information on a helplessly out of step with the velocity of our con- scholars in the humanities today, simply means to 24/7 schedule; and we rarely have the patience temporary age and its many tools of real and vir- account for the plurality of stories, memories, and anymore to sit through an entire opera, a lecture, a tual mobility. Much of what we do may look like ideas of progress that constitute people’s lives in reading, a concert, or even a film without secretly walking a turtle along the electronic superhigh- each and every one of their moments. To go slow, hoping to shift the passing of time with the help of ways of our times, our steps being way too slow for us, does not necessarily imply to yearn for some electronic button. in order to catch up with the breathtaking pace a pre-technological past or resist what drives us Struggles over the speed of change and progress of scientists next door, our minds being way too into the future. It simply means to take preoccupied with symbolic intricacies in order to continued on page 7 Faculty Fellows

The Speed of Turtles Why Internships are an Awesomely Stupid Idea –– And Why They Are Not the time—like the nineteenth century’s turtle walker—to gaze straight into the face of the present and insist on A Review of guy actually told me, “If you get a girl both the fact that nothing is ever absolutely necessary or pregnant, at least people will know that impossible and the promise that everything could also be you know how to hit it.” Two married men different from how it is now and has been in the past. came onto me there. My sheltered middle- This summer, my family spent some time in Costa Rica class sensibilities were shocked, and I was as volunteers in a sea turtle conservation project. The embarrassed that I was shocked. I had project organizers made us work hard during all times of already been in college—the grand intro- day and night, patrolling and cleaning up the beach, find- duction to life for young people—for three ing new nests in the sand, watching relocated nests in the years. I didn’t realize I was sheltered still. hatchery for hours on end. During the very last night of My second (much less disorienting) our stay, the first eggs of the season began to hatch—and it internship got me my current job. So I was was our task to release ninety-seven turtles safely to where curious, nay, intrigued about the prospect they belong. It is impossible to describe the magic of the of reading Ross Perlin’s intern exposé moment: the sight of baby turtles slowly making their way to the edge of the water and then disappearing in the giant Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and darkness of the Pacific. As I recall their departure, I cannot Learn Little in the Brave New Economy. help but think of their slowness as an ideal medium for The first —about the eight thou- facing what is unknown and fundamentally open about sand “interns” working at Disney World as the future. Though many of them will perish within hours, cooks, valets, and bellhops—will convince days, and weeks, they approach the currents of the ocean even the most hard-core intern enthusi- with unwavering determination and steadfastness. Their ast that something’s gone terribly wrong. slowness—similar to that of the humanities—is nothing to These students displace full-time employ- be embarrassed about. I instead think of it as a way of see- ees; have no health benefits, sick time, or ing and experiencing the world with heightened intensity; vacation; work twelve-hour shifts; and as a powerful reminder have to pay Disney for the room and board not to allow the present, in they are required to take. That they’re paid all its heterogeneity, to be minimum wage saves Disney millions. Intern Nation: washed away by nostalgia Perlin wants to expose the abuses in a for the past and hasty one- How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the system—a sort of replacement of the ap- track races into the future. Brave New Economy (Verso, 2011), prenticeship arrangement—with nebulous By Ross Perlin definitions and no oversight that is, never- 258 pages with notes, appendix, and index theless, endlessly boosted by college career centers. “Tens of thousands of unpaid and My first internship was at the now de- low-paid internships each year—at the funct Q95.5 (KATZ FM), a hip-hop radio very least—are illegal under federal or station here in St. Louis. No one taught us state laws that are rarely enforced,” Per- how to run the radio equipment, how to lin writes. The Wage and Hour Division The Figure in the Carpet online program a show, or how to learn the art of regulations state that a trainee doesn’t have being on-air disc jockey; instead we went to be paid so long as six criteria are met, to clubs and businesses (using our own gas) Expanded versions of the September and among them that the trainees don’t displace where Q95.5 had a promotional gig. We regular employees, that they work under The Figure in the Carpet October issues of can be hung up banners and ran errands. One staff close observation, that the training is for found online at http://cenhum.artsci.wustl.edu. They member sent me to buy her lunch and she the benefit of the trainee, and the employer include additional articles and images didn’t give me enough money so I had to gets no immediate benefit from it. (Even pay for it myself. She never paid me back. that are not in the print versions. though Disney pays their interns, their pro- The gig, such as it was, got me out of gram occupies a definite legal gray area.) my college’s insulated bubble. The people “There are very few situations where who worked there were not like my liberal- you can ask someone to do real work for minded, socially conscious friends. One free,” Perlin writes. “Working for free is a way of radically underbidding the competition places hire employees based on internships, from interns on the ground are more supplemen- and prompting ‘a race to the bottom’—after all, which he never establishes. One student Perlin tary anecdotal evidence, which forces the reader why should an employer pay for something ever talked to was interning at Saturday Night Live, to take the book more seriously. These aren’t again once it can be had for free?” hoping to become a scriptwriter. If you want to just kids griping because their internships didn’t Whether or not “race to the bottom” in rela- write for Saturday Night Live you go practice lead to jobs; instead they are entangled in a wide, tion to internships is an overstatement, Perlin stand up, perform with Second City, or write international trend of exploitation, the scent of certainly finds troubling abuses. Unpaid interns for Harvard’s National Lampoon. What’s the which turns us all into Marxist bloodhounds can’t file a lawsuit against an employer under chance that a writer at SNL is going to take seeking righteous reform. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act for sexual some intern under his or her wing and teach Perlin’s greatest contribution, though, is to harassment because they aren’t being paid and him or her the craft? If you want to work for point out how internships have devalued some as such aren’t considered real employees. Many a major newspaper, why not work your way “menial” work. I always thought (and I don’t be- employers require that a student earn college up through regional papers in places where lieve I’m alone here) most interns never did work credit for the internship, forcing many interns to the cost of living is cheaper? Or maybe you worth paying for and that was why companies pay thousands of extra dollars to their universi- might work at someone’s blog or start your could get away with not paying for it. But as Per- ties to take a job that doesn’t pay. Then there’s own, as Perez Hilton, Ben Smith, and Michelle lin explains, “Every time young people scramble the egregious internship market where outfits Malkin did very successfully. A more convinc- for an unpaid position, they reinforce the flawed such as Dream Careers, Inc. sell eight-week ing example would have singled out industries perception that certain kinds of work have lost summer internships in places like Barcelona, where internships play a key role in landing a all value.” Among the work currently devalued Hong Kong, and New York in fashion, enter- job, like public relations or finance (90 percent are things like fact-checking at magazines and tainment, and finance for upwards of $1,000 of Goldman Sach’s entry-level hires in 2009 had newspapers, background research, mailroom a week (including room and board). Anna interned there), and pointed out how only the work, and work that was once the domain of Wintour, editor in chief of American Vogue, well-connected and rich can get or afford those assistants like picking up coffee, making copies, famously auctioned off a one­-week internship at internships (though many of these companies and pulling together material for meetings. But her magazine for $42,500 in April 2010. legitimately recruit a wide swath of students and hasn’t all that do-good volunteering that under- pay their interns). These internships aren’t about getting your grads, as I recall, were so hot to do—like tutor foot in the door or even gaining work experi- Then, I thought about my first, mostly useless, underprivileged kids and clean up sidewalks— ence. It’s a status symbol. Perlin argues that internship and realized I had gotten something devalued that work, too? Why the heck are dumb, “internships quietly embody and promote tangible out of it: swag, including free CDs, untrained undergrads doing that crap instead inequalities of opportunity that we have been concert tickets, party invites, and a signed poster of people who actually know something about striving diligently to reduce in courts, schools, from hip-hop artist Talib Kweli. I still wish that teaching people or people who could use the and communities.” Rich kids can get the more staffer had paid me back for her lunch, but Perlin pay for cleaning up sidewalks and parks? Judges prestigious internships more easily; most stu- never seems to consider perks as a form of re- punish people by having them “volunteer” to do dents can’t afford to work for free; and people ward—albeit one that won’t help pay your rent. Or community service. What’s up with that?! What who don’t go to college are cut out of the loop even get you into the business. are we saying about free work? And maybe some almost entirely. The book does offer solutions. At one point work really isn’t worth paying somebody for— Perlin even addresses interns directly, almost that is what we seem to be saying, Is occupying Unfortunately, Perlin takes “nonprofit work, Wall Street a paying gig or just an internship? fashion, film, [and] the arts,” as his example to like in a manifesto: “Present, former, and future interns, listen up and take action.” He offers an Let’s not be hypocrites because lefty outrage at illustrate that “perhaps more than ever before, “exploitation” makes the sheltered feel so good. the rich are working—and dominating par- Intern Bill of Rights—which reads like laws ticular industries. This is where ‘the rock star the government should enact to protect interns: In the end, Perlin wants us to consider why jobs’ and the glamor internships are—the more “The hiring of interns should be as transparent some work is free and what we’re losing as a glamor is perceived, the more vital the connec- and nondiscriminatory as the hiring of full-time society because of it. Despite some minor flaws, tions are and the less likely it is that pay will employees”—instead of tips for helping interns it is a question worth asking, and one that I think ever enter the equation.” figure how to avoid being exploited. This is prob- we as a society have yet to answer or answer well. ably because Perlin took a sociologist’s perspec- I agree that only well-heeled kids can afford tive in his analysis, crunching numbers and Rosalind Early, a 2003 Arts and Sciences graduate of nonpaying internships in LA and New York, talking about policy, trends, and history. He sees Washington University in St. Louis, is assistant editor at which is a significant barrier to entry if these himself as a sort of academic muckraker. Stories St. Louis Magazine. live in one of America's great cities. Beyond the obvious and Friday, December 9 outside your own daily routine, wouldn't it be great to have an Events in Join Great Expectations–Rock Road’s Book Discussion insider's view into all the great neighborhoods around town? Group in discussion of Dave Morell’s The Spy Who Came December Finally, you can. With the arrival of Finally! A Locally Produced for Christmas. You can expect great company, discus- Guidebook to St. Louis, By and For St. Louisans, Neighbor- sion and refreshments! Pick up your copy of the book at the hood By Neighborhood, you can get the skinny on exploring Rock Road branch library. 10am, SLCL-Rock Road Branch, our town, from the Metro East to the urban core to daytrips 10267 St. Charles Rock Rd., 994-3300. worth the drive. 4pm, LBB-CWE, 399 N. Euclid, 367-6731. Monday, December 5 Saturday, December 10 Thursday, December 1 Join the Buder Branch Book Discussion Group in a discus- Join the Brentwood Science Fiction Book Club in dis- The Mystery Lovers’ Book Club invites you to join in a sion of Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos. Call for details. cussion of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. No registra- discussion. 10am, SLCL-Library Headquarters, 1640 S. 1pm, SLPL-Buder Branch, 4401 Hampton Ave., 352-2900. tion is required. Everyone is welcome to attend. 7-8pm, Lindbergh Blvd., 994-3300. Brentwood , 8765 Eulalie Ave., 963-8630, Monday, December 12 Join the Trailblazers Adult Book Club in a discussion of www.brentwood.lib.mo.us. Left Bank Books invites you to a book signing and discus- Jennifer Weiner’s Fly Away. The Trailblazers Adult Book You are invited to join the discussion of A Walk in the sion of the book Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins: A Mem- Club digs into popular and sometimes controversial books Woods by Bill Bryson with the Book Bunch: Adult Book oir with Recipes. In the book Ivins’ longtime friend, fellow on a wide variety of topics. Registration is required. 10am Discussion Group. 7pm, SLCL-Grand Glaize Branch, reporter, and frequent sous-chef Ellen Sweets takes us SLCL-Jamestown and a second conversation at 2pm, 1010 Meramec Station Rd., 994-3300. into the kitchen with Molly and introduces us to the private Bluffs Branch , 4153 N. Hwy 67, 994-3300. woman behind the public figure. She serves up her own and Join Book Journeys for a discussion of Crossfireby Dick Tuesday, December 6 others' favorite stories about Ivins as she recalls the fabu- Francis. Come and discuss books with fellow bibliophiles Come to the Adult Book Discussion Group to discuss lous meals they shared complete with recipes for thirty-five the first and third Thursday of every month. Registration David Baldacci’s The Christmas Train. Light refreshments of Molly's signature dishes. 7pm, LBB-CWE, 399 N. Euclid, is recommended. 2-3:30pm, SLCL-Indian Trails Branch, will be served. No registration required. 7pm, SLCL-Mera- 367-6731. 8400 Delport Dr., 994-3300. mec Valley Branch, 625 New Smizer Mill Rd., 994-3300. Tuesday, December 13 Come to the Mystery Book Club! This month, members of Wednesday, December 7 Join the Tuesday Afternoon Book Discussion Group the Book Club will choose the selection. 7-8:30pm, SLCL- Come discuss David Benioff’s City of Thieves. Benioff fol- for a lively discussion of The Collector. Books Florissant Valley Branch, 195 New Florissant Rd., 994- th lows up The 25 Hour with this hard-to-put-down novel are available for checkout one month prior to the discussion. 3300. based on his grandfather’s stories about surviving WWII in Newcomers are welcome. 2pm, SLCL-Cliff Cave Branch, Kim Edwards, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Russia. Copies of the book are available for checkout one 5430 Telegraph Rd., 994-3300. novel The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, presents the story month prior to the meeting. 10:30am, Small Meeting Room, The Grand Glaize Branch Book Discussion Group in- of a woman’s homecoming, a secret, and the old house SLCL-Thornhill Branch, 12863 Willowyck Dr., 994-3300. vites you to join them in their love of books and intelligent that holds the key to the true legacy of a family in The Lake St. Louis County Library invites you to an author event dis- discussion. This group meets twice a month on the second of Dreams. 7pm, SLCL-Library Headquarters, 1640 S. cussing regional history with Charlene Bry, author of Ladue and fourth Tuesdays, September through May. This book Lindbergh Blvd., 994-3300. Found, and Todd Abrams, publisher of The History of St. discussion group is recommended for an adult audience. Friday, December 2 Louis County. 7-9pm, SLCL-Library Headquarters, 1640 2pm, Meeting Room 1, SLCL-Grand Glaize Branch, 1010 S. Lindbergh Blvd., 994-3300. The Machacek Book Discussion Group invites you to Meramec Station Rd., 994-3300. join them in their discussion. For the current selection, call Thursday, December 8 Join the Brentwood Book Club in discussion of Into the 781-2948. 11am-12pm, SLPL-Machacek Branch, 6424 Join the HQ Afternoon Book Discussion Group to dis- Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea. No registration is Scanlan Ave. cuss Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. required. Everyone is welcome to attend. 7pm, Brent- Washington University Performing Arts Department in- 1:30pm, SLCL-Library Headquarters, 1640 S. Lindbergh wood Public Library, 8765 Eulalie Ave., 963-8630. vites you to a book signing with Jock Soto, Distinguished Blvd., 994-3300. The HQ Evening Book Discussion Group invites you to Visiting Scholar as he signs his new book, Every Step You Join the Murder of the Month Club in discussion of join them for a discussion of Crooked Letter, Crooked Let- Take. 11:30am, WU Campus Bookstore, Mallinckrodt Cen- Scary Stuff by Sharon Fiffer. 3pm, SLCL-Indian Trails ter by Tom Franklin. 7pm, SLCL-Library Headquarters, ter, Danforth Campus, 935-5858. Branch, 8400 Delport Dr., 994-3300. 1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd., 994-3300. Saturday, December 3 For the Love of Wisdom: A Philosophy Book Discus- Are you interested in some literary conversation or just like to talk about the books you enjoy? Come to one of our book Join the Saturday Afternoon Book Club in a discus- sion Group will be taking on some heavy topics and texts. discussion groups! Copies of the book for discussion will be sion of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman. 2pm, This group meets on the second Thursday of every month. available to check out prior to the meetings. Please ask for Webster Groves Public Library, 3232 S. Brentwood Tonight, the group will discuss God is Not One by Stephen a copy at the circulation desk. 7pm, SLCL-Samuel C. Sachs Blvd., 961-3784. Prothero. To reserve your copy, call Michael at 772-6586. 7pm, SLPL-Carpenter Branch, 3309 South Grand Blvd. Branch, 16400 Burkhardt Pl., 994-3300. Sunday, December 4 As the Page Turns Book Discussion Group invites you Left Bank Books is pleased to present author Amanda to join a discussion of Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sad- Doyle. Locals know it, and newcomers learn it fast: we ness of Lemon Cake. No registration required. Adults. 7pm, SLCL-Weber Road Branch, 4444 Weber Rd., 994-3300. Davis Branch, 4415 Natural Bridge Ave., 383-3021. 2012, at 1pm. Eligibility: adults over 18, living within a 50- mile radius of St. Louis; any person who won first prize in Wednesday, December 14 Monday, December 19 the contest twice within the last five years is ineligible for Join the Wednesday Afternoon Book Discussion Come to the Baden Branch to talk about the book (or further cash awards but may be cited for honors. Submit two Group for a lively discussion of Ann Patchett’s Run. Books movie) you are currently enjoying. 11am, SLPL-Baden typed copies of two poems that have never been published are available for checkout one month prior to the discussion. Branch, 8448 Church Rd., 388-2400. or never won an award. Use 8 ½ x 11 paper with no more Newcomers are welcome. 2pm, SLCL-Cliff Cave Branch, Join the Thornbird Book Discussion Group for a lively than one poem to a page. Sign with pen name only. Type 5430 Telegraph Rd., 994-3300. discussion about our favorite books. We will be playing a real name, address, e-mail address and telephone number Are you interested in some literary conversation or just like book trivia game and discussing our favorite books to round on a separate sheet of paper and enclose with poems. No to talk about the books you enjoy? Come to one of our book off another year of the Thornbird Book Group. Light refresh- Manuscripts returned. Send to Carol Layton, Original Poetry discussion groups! Copies of the book will be available to ments will be provided. 12pm, SLCL-Thornhill Branch, Contest, 112 Swan Ave., St. Louis, MO 63122. First Prize check out prior to the meetings. Please ask for one at the cir- 12863 Willowyck Dr., 994-3300. is $500; Second Prize is $300; Third Prize is $150. The re- culation desk. 2pm, SLCL-Samuel C. Sachs Branch, 16400 Come to the Manga Book Discussion to discuss Fables nowned critic and author of five books of poetry, the most re- Keep This Forever Burkhardt Pl., 994-3300. by Bill Willingham. 6-8pm, SLPL-Julia Davis Branch, 4415 cent being , Mark Halliday, is the judge. Join the Wednesday Evening Book Discussion Group Natural Bridge Ave., 383-3021. Abbreviations for a lively discussion of The Immortal Life of Henrietta STL: St. Louis; B&N: Barnes & Noble; KPL: Kirkwood Pub- Lacks. Books are available for checkout one month prior to Tuesday, December 20 lic Library; LBB: Left Bank Books; SLCL: St. Louis County the discussion. Newcomers are welcome. 7pm, SLCL-Cliff The Afternoon Book Club will read Suzanne Collin’s The Library; SLPL: St. Louis Public Library; SCCCL: St. Charles Cave Branch, 5430 Telegraph Rd., 994-3300. Hunger Games. Recommended for adults. 2pm, SLCL-Flo- rissant Valley Branch, 195 New Florissant Rd., 994-3300. City County Library; UCPL: University City Public Library; UMSL: University of Missouri-St. Louis; WU: Washington Thursday, December 15 Pageturners Major Pettigrew’s Join the in discussion of University; WGPL: Webster Groves Public Library. Book Journeys invites you to come and discuss books with Last Stand by Helen Simonson. This group is recommend- fellow bibliophiles. This discussion will be on Cutting for Stone ed for adults, and registration is required. 2pm, SLCL-Tes- All events are free unless otherwise indicated. Author events by Abraham Verghese. This group meets the first and third son Ferry Branch, 9920 Lin-Ferry Dr., 994-3300. are followed by signings. All phone numbers take 314 pre- Thursday of every month. Registration is recommended. 2pm, fix unless indicated. Check the online calendar at cenhum. Come to the Book Discussion Group for a discussion of SLCL-Indian Trails Branch, 8400 Delport Dr., 994-3300. artsci.wustl.edu for more events and additional details. To Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Lisa See’s 6:45-8pm, advertise, send event details to [email protected], fax Join the Urban Street Lit Café Book Discussion in discussion SLPL-Kingshighway Branch , 2260 South Vandeventer 935-4889, or call 935-5576. of A Man’s Worth by Nikita Lynnette Nichols. 6:30pm, SLPL- Ave., 771-5450. Julia Davis Branch, 4415 Natural Bridge Ave., 383-30