You are receiving this periodical because you marked a request on a website
in the www.Author-Me.com
<http://t.signauxdeux.com/e1t/c/5/f18dQhb0SmZ58dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9nMJW7sM9dn7dK_MMdBzM2-04?t=http%3A%2F%2Ft.signauxdeux.com%2Fe1t%2Fc%2F5%2Ff18dQhb0SmZ58dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9nMJW7sM9dn7dK_MMdBzM2-04%3Ft%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fapp.getsignals.com%252Flink%253Furl%253Dhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.author-me.com%25252F%2526ukey%253DagxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgJyW5_MKDA%2526k%253D7c8b1a0a-cc7b-42e6-aca1-c704e9ccff0f%26si%3D6138819900342272%26pi%3D8303da15-cbf1-49d1-c6e5-3231cea8a062&si=6138819900342272&pi=682e0c61-6053-4af3-c66a-69410471674f>
group
(or Akinyi's websites). To view an html version, please go to:
<http://t.sidekickopen03.com/e1t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7lC8dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9nMJW7t5XYg4XXGnbN4XyVRvfmMmdW2BW4zb56dGdgf4lbCV602?t=https%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2Fmail%2Fu%2F0%2Fgoog_1525176353&si=6138819900342272&pi=c14035a2-f816-4751-c006-fe23cf66a177>
http://www.author-me.com/NewsApri;l2016.html If for any reason you'd rather
not receive this periodical, simply write an email to cookcomm@xxxxxxxxx and
write the words "no more" in the subject box. Thank you. To see other
issues of our *17 years* of this newsletter, go to
http://www.author-me.com/newslist.htm
Visit our new project on Peace! www.wwpo.org
<http://t.signauxdeux.com/e1t/c/5/f18dQhb0SmZ58dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9nMJW7sM9dn7dK_MMdBzM2-04?t=http%3A%2F%2Ft.signauxdeux.com%2Fe1t%2Fc%2F5%2Ff18dQhb0SmZ58dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9nMJW7sM9dn7dK_MMdBzM2-04%3Ft%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Ft.signauxdeux.com%252Fe1t%252Fc%252F5%252Ff18dQhb0SmZ58dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9nMJW7sM9dn7dK_MMdBzM2-04%253Ft%253Dhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.wwpo.org%25252F%2526si%253D6138819900342272%2526pi%253Dee585ada-e36c-4ca1-aa0c-8b50929f096e%26si%3D6138819900342272%26pi%3D8303da15-cbf1-49d1-c6e5-3231cea8a062&si=6138819900342272&pi=682e0c61-6053-4af3-c66a-69410471674f>Comment
Boxes on Author-me.com. *If you have published on author-me, check the
comment box under your text.*
*In this issue... **Fahrenheit 440-470*
============================================================
*Fahrenheit 440-470*
*by K.S. Mulholland (Australia)*
The burning temperature (auto-ignition) of paper is estimated, by
scientists, between the above range, depending on the type of paper,
and if in book form, the thickness and quality of book covers.
In Germany in 1933 books were burned in Berlin and elsewhere in a
deliberate campaign to unify Germany and its peoples in Aryan purity,
and to excise all and any influences of cultures considered non German
or counter to German ethos and nationalism. (Primo Levi, in his work
'The Reawakening' states that as early as 1924 right up until 1945,
book burning was taking place in Italy under Mussolini's Fascist
regime.) Books by Jewish, Russian, French and English authors were
automatically disqualified, as were all others, run past the budding
Nazi censors, that promoted liberal thinking, gay literature, soppy
bourgeois romances, other political standards such as democracy or
anything else that did not find approval. The object was to remove
from the public any views, other than those of the rising Nazi
control. Literature, other than that of the official Party guide-lines
was to be rejected. Thus, the general public were to be herded,
cattle-like, toward a foregone conclusion. To voice any alternate
opinion, was to call down the weight of the Party, and eventually The
Reich. And so came a domination of those hundreds of thousands of
ordinary peoples, eventually to their great and terrible misfortune.
In 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', in an ironic moment at the book burning,
Indiana Jones, by accident, acquires a copy of 'Mein Kampf' and it is
autographed by Adolf Hitler.
In the late forties, after the end of World War Two, came the great
purge in America, the 'Reds Under The Beds Commie Quest that sought to
weed out any and all with sympathy toward whatever Russia might be or
not be. Senator Joseph McCarthy was the chief inquisitor and high
executioner (never acknowledging the wry juxtaposition of his
Christian name and that of the leader of his arch enemy across the
Bering Straits.)
Many, in varied industries and professions were to become his pinioned
victims; disgraced, reviled, jailed, banished and unemployable. Those
few years of symbolic pogrom tore a rent in the fabric of the American
flag.
In 1953, Ray Bradbury penned 'Fahrenheit 451', hedging his bets of
fiery conflagration somewhere within the boundaries of science, and
claiming the work to have been directly influenced by the 'Red Purge.'
The central premise of the book was again, the destruction of all
literature, and the Fire Men who went about their business of starting
fires rather than putting them out. Set in some anti-utopian future
where the Controlling Powers encouraged all the multitudes to indulge
in both mind-altering chemicals and brain-washing, wall-filling
television screens, pulping out dross on a Soap-structure that made
Days Of Our Lives seem like Dostoyevsky. Our hero, one of these Fire
Men, goes AWOL when he realizes this dastardly plot. Eventually, his
city is annihilated by The Controlling Powers, and with it, his
vacuous, Reality/Soap besotted wife. He survives, to reach a hidden
group of rebels who have become 'living books', each memorizing a
written work, so as to be able to pass it on via word of mouth to
future generations.
More than sixty years later, we find ourselves in another century,
engaging, more or less, with new technologies and new thinking.
Popular music (The music of the young masses) has moved into
variations that embrace crudity, irreverence, blasphemy, swearing,
incomprehensibility and disrespect for everything.
Some literature has veered into similar straits. Not that I'm saying
that is wrong or evil; simply destructive without offering a viable
solution. How do you create something new by denying, destroying, and
forgetting what once was considered worthwhile?
And now we hear the cries from the illiterate and the self-important,
those who have risen on the tides of popular media that makes
self-promotion of an individual and their lifestyle the new platform
of idolatry. 'Rap' and 'Hip-Hop' may have a place in music, yet it
should never replace Jazz. 'Personalities' with little more in their
repertoire than face and body image, seek to overwhelm those of the
past who not only looked good but backed it up with intelligence,
style and presence. These, today performers, whose talents amount to
little; so little that most will be long forgotten in a decade, and
whatever they produced in whatever medium likewise, trouble me only in
a passing way. They will be replaced.
And maybe someday, the ensuing replacements will turn it round,
returning to times of music, acting, art and literature that have
meaning, that raise the spirits in many of us.
But to read the chilling words of one such new-come 'Prodigy':
"Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so
self-absorbed. I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's
autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books." To be fair, the quote
continued, "I like to get information from doing stuff like actually
talking to people and living real life."
However, that statement, from someone I shall not bother to name,
resonates throughout the media of the youth of many countries,
influencing them; driving their motivations in directions that are
directionless. Don't read, equates to don't seek, don't find, don't
yearn for what is and was, written. Don't discover the simple joy of
reading. It stands directly opposed to what is good, wonderful,
enervating, and enlightening.
Like Guy Montag, the Fireman from Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, who
realizes at the very last, his brain-washing, and what it was he was
condemned to do, we need to see anew the value of books, of writing
and literature, and by extension all the great arts. Fools will come
and go, and some may attempt to pull down the towering edifices of
Art. It has been attempted in the past, and it will be in the future.
May Montag's memory survive, in the bearers of the books.
========================================
Publishing Emerging Writers
April 2016 (No. 1704)
To review our archive of past issues (sixteen years, every month), go to
www.Author-Me.com/newslist.htm
<http://t.signauxdeux.com/e1t/c/5/f18dQhb0SmZ58dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9nMJW7sM9dn7dK_MMdBzM2-04?t=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.author-me.com%2Fnewslist.htm&si=6138819900342272&pi=682e0c61-6053-4af3-c66a-69410471674f>
AuthorMe.com is dedicated to the memory of Dr. David C. Cook III
