David Michael Newstead's Blog, page 7

Comic Book Elections

1984 & 2024

David Michael Newstead | The Philosophy of Shaving

There’s a passage from George Orwell’s 1984 that I’ve been thinking a lot about this election year. It distills down some fundamental truth, which meant something different in the 1940s when he first wrote it. Yet, it’s still relevant today.

When you make love you’re using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don’t give a damn for anything. They can’t bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you’re happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hates and all the rest of their bloody rot?

Fragments

David Michael Newstead | The Philosophy of Shaving

I was scouring through used books. Sometimes, mixed in with the rest, there is a definite theme to what the store is trying to unload from their inventory: books about the First World War, for example, or trains or boats or cookbooks or Germany and so on. For a short time, at least, one topic rises above the randomness. But the other day something unique happened. While the genres varied, it became clear that dozens and dozens of books on the discount rack all once belonged to the same person who had inscribed his full name, the date, and his city of residence on the interior cover of each publication. The years spanned 1956 to 1970 or thereabouts. Armed with this information, I had a surprisingly difficult time determining what happened to “Sam.” My mistake was assuming that he was dead. I came to find out though that Sam is very much alive! And through his discarded library and the dates listed in it, it was possible for me to see his university career unfold from its early days in the 1950s up to the present. I took note of three titles among many:

Russia: A History by Sidney Harcave (Sam, September, 1956)The Long Week-End: A Social History of Great Britain, 1918-1939 (Sam, September, 1966)World War I at Home: Readings on American Life, 1914-1920 by David F. Trask (Sam, April, 1970)

These books are what he was reading and teaching right at the start of his time in higher education. Decades still lay on the horizon. Then, somewhere along the way, there’s no reason to keep every single book. And there certainly isn’t the space for it! Careers and lives progress. He advanced in his profession as an academic and the 1950s are a distant memory. Now, Sam is an old man. This isn’t a biography, just a glimpse at a life. I closed one book and went about my day. Weeks went by and I returned to browse the shelves again only to discover a few more books from Sam’s past. It was a good reminder how we’re really only the caretakers of many things that will outlast us. I bought one of Sam’s old books for $4 and ever since I’ve wondered where it might be 70 years from now.

The Typewriter Inheritance

Inside Used Books: A Note from 1968

The Typewriter Inheritance

The Old Yearbook

David Michael Newstead | The Philosophy of Shaving

In August, I was browsing through a used bookstore when I found a couple of old yearbooks from decades ago. Then as I was casually flipping through one of them, I noticed a newspaper article inserted between the pages, so I took a closer look. It was an obituary from 1986 for a man named John Gist. The article was placed beside the yearbook section for John’s college wrestling team from the 1950s. In his college days, John wrestled in the 157 lbs. weight class, then went on to have a successful and wide-ranging career in education. This was all contained within Tower Echoes, the 1951 yearbook for Maryland State Teachers College (now Towson University). The yearbook itself belonged to John’s classmate, Barry Tannenbaum, a graduating senior in 1951 nicknamed “Second Einstein.” Based on some additional research, I believe Barry also passed away in the late 1980s, which underlines a mystery I’ve talked about before – where has this book been for the last 40 years? Beyond that though, it felt profound to see two lives bookmarked at their beginnings and at their ends. People are, of course, much more than that, but can seem reduced to records and a few pieces of paper after they’re gone. Perhaps, the scope of a life is something we can only experience ourselves or attempt to contemplate, but never fully articulate.

The Typewriter Inheritance

W.P.A. Monday

Bonus Kirby

Jack Kirby Month

Jack Kirby Day!

Jack Kirby: Man, Myth, Legend