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X is for X-Men

X-Men is a very popular comic book published by Marvel Comics. Actually, the idea of X-Men now means a series of comic book titles with an interlocking directory of characters. It’s so popular that it has help create three movies* with name stars such as Patrick Stewart (Professor Xavier) and Halle Berry (Storm) [pictured above] and Ian McKellen (Magneto) [pictured below]. These are shots from the premiere of the first film.

If you look at The Marvel Encyclopedia, updated and expanded foe 2009, which I just happened to take out of the library last week, you’ll find no fewer than 110 references to X-Men in the index; that does not count the seven pages, in the 400-page book, describing the X-Men directly.

But it’s not its successful nature per se that interests me. Rather, it’s…well, let me explain.

The X-Men were introduced to the world in 1963, the same year as the supergroup known as the Avengers. The premise of the creation of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby was that the characters had certain extraordinary (X-tra ordinary) powers at birth, though they weren’t always manifested immediately. They were mutants, outcasts from society. Yet the group, founded by Charles XAVIER, a/k/a Professor X, was sworn to protect those who feared and hated them, trying to bring peaceful coexistence between “ordinary” humans and mutants.

However, the book, by the same creative team that had created the Fantastic Four, the Hulk and many, many others, was a bit of a bust. Definitely second-tier in the pantheon of comic book characters. Perhaps the theme of minorities persecuted by a majority was a little bit too “on the nose” for comic book fans of the time.

In fact, for about five years the book was essentially canceled, though reprints were released as X-Men 67-93.

Then a new group was developed in 1975 that was more international in scope, and they didn’t all have those boring yellow and blue jump suits. Others can talk about the particulars of the great success of the revised entity. I want to tell you that, as a comic book fan, I was shocked by both how well the re-envisioning worked and how well it caught on with the public.

Think of the movie Rocky. Better still, think of singer Susan Boyle, from which nothing was expected, yet the judges were gobsmacked by her voice. If that weren’t enough, her debut album sold 700,000 units in the first week in the United States alone and another 500,000 the following week. Such was the success of the X-Men.

So much so that when I worked at a comic book store called FantaCo in the 1980s, and we decided to to a magazine about a comic book group, naturally we picked X-Men. I really wanted to edited it, not just because of my affection for the then-current incarnation, but because I loved the rags-to-riches nature of the title. I write about this at length here, with a little bit of follow-up here.

But as Nik from SpatulaForum writes: “Unfortunately, the ‘X-Men brand’ has been so utterly diluted in the years since by endless spin-offs, impossibly complicated continuity and everything from movies to action figures to beach towels that it’s hard to forget how simple and revolutionary they once seemed.” It’s interesting that the teen artists of Kids of Survival chose to use the X-Men, a run of 1968 episodes of the comic book by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, totally unaltered beyond being placed as the canvas, as their choice, rather than the more up-to-date versions, in their artistic expression.

Here is a picture of my good friend Fred Hembeck’s rendition of the X-Men. You can find more of his work here.

*Yes, I know there’s also a Wolverine film. Len Wein, who helped created Wolverine in Hulk #181, talks about the character here and here.

V is for Values

When I was pondering the notion of “value”, this came unbidden into my head:
When the values go up, up, up
And the prices go down, down, down.
Robert Hall this season
Will show you the reason
High quality! Economy!
music by Leon Mitchell; words by Charles A. Gaston; original version (c) 1946

When I was growing up in Binghamton, NY in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Robert Hall was THE place to go for back-to-school clothing. The clothing was inexpensive but solidly made, the kind of place a working-class family wanted to shop for their children’s apparel.

The secret of the stores’ success was told in this 1949 TIME magazine article. But what sold me were the nifty ads, sometimes with the lyrics slightly altered, which you may be able to hear here and/or here.

But the more pervasive meaning of the word “values” involves the “set of emotional rules people follow to help make the right decisions in life.” Or the wrong ones, I suppose. In a large country such as the Unites States, not to mention a vast planet, one hopes for commonality in values, but certainly cannot expect unanimity.

Yet some groups have successfully seemed to have hijacked the term “values”. There is a group of “values voters”, for instance, who are in the right wing of American politics. Based on their recent summit, they are concerned about the “silenced” Christians, the evil of “Obamacare” (health care), “defending marriage”, and in general, the “vast left wing conspiracy.”

While I support differing points of view, I’m troubled by the notion that only those people of a particular political persuasion are the only ones with “values”. It’s similar to the notion that “Christian” only represents a certain political POV.

As a “liberal” and a Christian, my values are just as legitimate. Oh, and I vote, too.

ROG

U is for United Nations

Recently, I was searching for the Harris poll for some reason, and the first hit I got was http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/. Looks like the home page, right? Nope. It was the results of a Harris poll reported December 17, 2008 about the United Nations: Majorities of Adults in Five Largest European Countries and the U.S. Believe United Nations Does More Good Than Harm. “Three–quarters of French adults (75%), two-thirds of Italians (69%), Germans (67%) and Britons (65%) and at least three in five Spaniards (63%) and Americans (60%) all say the UN does more good than harm.”

Frankly, as an American, this surprised me. I hear a lot from the naysayers, not just in the media but even in my personal life, about what the survey calls “some of the harsher rhetoric towards the United Nations sometimes heard in the United States”.

Interestingly, the only real diffence between the Europeans and the American POV is that most Europeans believe the UN headquarters should move out of the United States, while most Americans believe believe it should stay. again. Again, this is milldly surprising, because many Americans who complain the most about the UN kvetch about world leaders, such as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad coming to “our” country with their anti-American rhetoric. Of course, UN territory is NOT US territory, though one has to fly into US territory to get there.

One certainly argue the efficacy of armed troops in the conflicts the world has had over the past 60 years or so. There’s little doubt, however , as to the importance of programs such as fighting hunger and disease. Here are 60 ways the UN believes it makes a difference. 9 December has been designated as International Anti-Corruption Day to raise awareness of the issue. And, of course, there’s a meeting going on in Copenhagen dealing with climate change.

As a librarian, I’m also interested in those less glamourous issues. The United Nations is cited as a great source for international data.

Also, WIPO Expands Searchable Patent Application Database
The United Nation’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva recently announced an expansion of its online free searchable patent application database. In addition to containing an existing 1.65 million international patents filed for protection under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) from 30 countries, the database now includes digital information for 1.49 million additional records from the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Israel, South Africa, Singapore, Vietnam, the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), and Cuba.

I always wondered how the world would have turned out of the League of Nations, which US President Woodrow Wilsonb supported but which ythe United States failed to join, had been more successful, for instance, in treating the Weimer Republic more equitably. Could World War II been averted? Possibly not.

But I’m of tyhe opinion that nations need to keep talking, if only to try to stem the possibility of World War III.

*United Nations Suez Meeting (n.d., presumably 1956). Photographer: Carl Mydans
*Irish UN troops in the Katanga Province, former Belgian Congo, Africa. Date taken: 1961
*UN guard guarding the United Nations Building. Location: New York, NY, US. Date taken: July 1958. Photographer: Ralph Morse
*United Nations (translators?) Date taken: October 10, 1949. Photographer: Thomas Mcavoy
Pictures, again, from LIFE.com
ROG

T is for Three "Tender" Tunes

If you check only the Wikipedia post for the song Try a Little Tenderness, you’ll find the listing dominated by references to Otis Redding. While he did perform the benchmark version in the mid-1960s, a live version of which you can watch here, the song has a much richer history.

Here’s a version of the song, written by “Irving King” (James Campbell and Reginald Connelly) and Harry M. Woods, performed by Francis Albert Sinatra; click on the button on the upper right side of the page. Interesting that this version has an intro not generally used.

The Wikipedia notes a bunch of other folks who also recorded, including “on December 8, 1932 by the Ray Noble Orchestra (with vocals by Val Rosing) followed by both Ruth Etting and Bing Crosby in 1933.

But in my Top Pop Singles, under the Otis Redding listing for the song, it says: “#6 hit for Ted Lewis in 1933”, though the Wikipedia doesn’t note Lewis at all. Here’s the Ted Lewis version (song #8), with a lengthy instrumental before the lyrics come in.

Who IS this Ted Lewis? According to my Top Memories, 1890-1954 book, this song charted for him in February of 1933 for 10 weeks, getting up to #6. But he had 101 Top 20 hits between 1920 and 1934; Tenderness being the 92nd. Among his #1 hits:
When My Baby Smiles at Me (1920-7 weeks), All By Myself (1921-4 weeks), O! Katharina (1925-1 week), Just A Gigilo (1931-2 weeks; yes, the song later covered by David Lee Roth, formerly of Van Halen), In A Shanty in Old Shanty Town (1932-10 weeks), and Lazybones (1933-4 weeks).

Ruth Etting also charted with Tenderness on 3/18/33 for two weeks. She had 62 Top 20 Hits between 1926 and 1937, this being the 59th, with her biggest hit Life Is A Song in 1935 (2 weeks at #1).

Otis Redding’s version got to #25 in the pop charts and #4 on the rhythm and blues charts in December 1966. The song is listed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and is #204 in a list of Rolling Stone magazine’s greatest songs. Otis’ biggest hit, unfortunately, was posthumous: (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay in the winter of 1968, which went to #1 won a number of Grammy awards, as well as citations by Rolling Stone (#28), R&RHOF, RIAA, NPR and BMI

Before Otis, Aretha Franklin had a minor hit (#100 in 1962), and after Three Dog Night (#29 in 1969). But it has become a staple in the repertoire of many an artist.

Paul Simon’s second album after his breakup with Art Garfunkel was the eclectic There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, featuring songs such as Kodachrome and Loves Me Like A Rock. The 1973 collection also featured a lovely song called Tenderness, which Like Loves Me Like a Rock features the vocal stylings of the gospel group the Dixie Hummingbirds. (Unfortunately, all I could find is this cover version.) The album went to #2 and signaled a successful solo career to come, featuring albums such as Still Crazy After All these Years (#1 in 1975) and Graceland (#3 in 1986).

Paul Simon won the very first Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2007, succeeded by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney.

The 1956 Elvis Presley hit Love Me Tender had a peculiar songwriting history, explained here. Briefly, it was written as Aura Lee nearly a century earlier. The adaptation was credited to Presley and the songwriting adapter’s wife, neither of whom actually wrote it. It was the title song of Elvis’ film debut.

I learned http://www.metrolyrics.com/aura-lee-lyrics-traditional.htmlAura Lee in grade school so found Love Me Tender as somehow peculiar. In fact, the school kids made up a song to Aura Lee, sung with the Elvis enunciation:

When you must take medicine
Take it orally
That’s because the other way
Is more painfully.

Orally, orally
Take it orally
That’s because…the other way…
Is more painfully.

Anyway, here’s the classic Presley tune, the fourth of a dozen and a half #1 hits in the United States. (The 31-song ELV1S album contained #1s in the US and/or the UK.)

ROG

S is for Smoking

I am of an age when I could, and did, go to the corner store, O’Leary’s, when I was five years old and buy for my father a pack, or even a carton, of Winston cigarettes. Of course, I’m also old enough to have seen cigarette advertising on U.S. television, even featuring popular TV cartoon characters.

They were insidious, those cigarette ad. Nearly 40 years after they were banned from the radio and TV airways, I can still tell you that LSMFT translates to Lucky Strike means fine tobacco! I recall that “You can take Salem out of the country, but…you can’t take the country out of Salem.” Whenever I hear the theme for the movie The Magnificent Seven by Elmer Bernstein, I feel that I’m in Marlboro Country.

Country – a recurring theme. Cigarettes, in addition to being “cool” – there was, or maybe is, a brand called “Kool” – were also supposed to be refreshing, relaxing, rather like the great outdoors. But a study from last year suggests otherwise. Pew Social & Demographic Trends notes Smokers Can’t Blow Off Stress

Ask cigarette smokers why they light up and one answer you’re likely to hear is that it relieves stress.

But if that’s the goal, it’s not at all clear that cigarettes deliver the goods. Half (50%) of all smokers say they “frequently” experience stress in their daily lives, compared with just 35% of those who once smoked and have now quit and 31% of those who never smoked, according to a Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey conducted June 16-July 16, 2008 among a nationally representative sample of 2,250 adults.

The finding raises as many questions as answers. Does it mean that the kinds of people who smoke are predisposed to stress? Does it mean that the stress relief smokers get while smoking doesn’t last once they don’t have a cigarette in hand? Or might it mean that the whole idea that smoking relieves stress is illusory?

And more recent reports confirm what I’ve instinctively known since I was a child: second-hand smoke causes harm As I got older, I started to refuse to buy my father cigarettes, and he got to be all right with that. But then I would steal his cigarettes, not for my own consumption, but in the vain attempt to make cigarette smoking so expensive -they were about 35 cents (U.S.) a pack at the time – that he would cut back or even quit. No, he eventually would say,”Roger, give me back my damn cigarettes.” I was a lousy thief.

But I have a far too sensitive nose. I will wait in the rain rather than share a bus kiosk with someone who is smoking. In my building, there are about a half dozen women who all take their cigarette break together; it’s tolerable to take the elevator down with them, but after they’ve sat outside puffing away – let’s just say, I’d rather take the stairs back than share an elevator with them.

Kissing smokers is not my favorite thing.

My father stopped smoking briefly when he developed emphysema in his 40s, but when he became asymptomatic, he returned to his habit, which frankly really ticked me off.

He finally stopped a few years later by saying that he wasn’t quitting, but that he hadn’t had a cigarette today. then another day. And another until it reached the last 27 years or so of his life.

Thursday, November 19 is the date of the Great American Smokeout. But you don’t have to choose that date, or even be an American, to set to… quit smoking…for at least one day. And maybe, the day after that.

Pictures once again from Life.com

ROG