Morning Coffee – 15 April 2019
Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.
- This Vox article on product placement in books missed the two biggest examples: Transformers and GI Joe. Their comic books were really adverts.
- Beverly Cleary turned 103 on Friday.
- The lull in the debate over the true identity of Shakespeare has been filled with discussions over just who wrote Beowulf.
- An author with dementia and her ghostwriter talk about how they worked to write the book.
- The Atlantic reports that your grandfather has resubscribed to the daily paper.
Comments
Apparition April 15, 2019 um 3:04 pm
I still subscribe to my local newspaper digitally because local journalism is still important (if for nothing else than to help put a spotlight on local corruption), and television news is dreadful. I’m not particularly a fan, but until something better comes along, the local newspaper it is.
Richard Hershberger April 16, 2019 um 9:03 am
The Beowulf and the Shakespeare authorship discussions are entirely different from one another. The Beowulf discussion is an ongoing, and frankly obscure, debate within the tiny corner of the academy involved with Beowulf studies. The Shakespeare discussion is a bunch of nattering by people who don’t know enough on the subject to say anything sensible. A tiny number of people who do know enough take time away from their day to respond, while the vast majority quietly role their eyes and go about their business. The anyone-but-Will position is, to put it bluntly, a crank theory. The debate between one Beowulf author or more than one is a legitimate argument in which intelligent and informed persons can disagree.
Nate Hoffelder April 16, 2019 um 9:21 am
Ah, the nuance about the Shakespeare debate was not obvious to outsiders.
Thanks!
Mike Cane April 16, 2019 um 10:14 am
>This Vox article on product placement in books missed the two biggest examples: Transformers and GI Joe. Their comic books were really adverts.
Nah, man. Marvel did Micronauts based on the toys earlier.
And I’d dredge my brain for even earlier examples with books, but this is just trivia.
Nate Hoffelder April 16, 2019 um 10:26 am
I didn’t say first, just that these were the biggest examples.
Mike Cane April 17, 2019 um 9:54 am
Only for yoots too young to have more history in them. *creak*
Nate Hoffelder April 17, 2019 um 10:41 am
How much piss and vinegar did you have to remove to make room for that history?
Richard Hershberger April 16, 2019 um 11:39 am
The actual filler for any lull in the Shakespeare authorship discussion is Mythicism. This is a favorite of the New Atheist crowd. The claim is that Jesus never existed. This is not at all the same as any discussion about the miracles or divine nature ascribed to him. The conventional atheist position has always been that this Galilean preacher existed, and through a series of historical accidents got a whole bunch of stuff attributed to him. The Mythicist position is that this Galilean preacher never existed, but rather was a fictional character invented as a giant retcon by the early Christians. The arguments for this are…. not good–in many instances in precisely the same way that the anyone-but-Will Shakespearean authorship arguments are not good.
Peter Winkler April 16, 2019 um 4:34 pm
A comic book is not a book. It’s primarily visual, with a minimum of text.
The author of the VOX article was clearly born well after the ’70s, when ads for cigarettes were printed on coated stock and glued into the middle of paperback books.
Nate Hoffelder April 17, 2019 um 8:30 am
I had forgotten about those. I think I might have a couple books with those ads in them.