The Oral History: An Appreciation

Sometimes you tell the story, and sometimes you let the story tell itself.

It may seem weird to call a book an “oral history,” but that’s exactly what this genre is: the story of a topic as told by the people who lived it.  Rather than an author paraphrasing the participants’ words, they are quoted verbatim and arranged in a fashion that tells the story chronologically.  The author of a given oral history book acts more like a transcriber, editor, and occasional narrator, adding only introductory segments or brief statements that link various accounts.  In a lot of ways, it’s like reading a documentary film.

It’s also a handy tool for showing conflicting accounts of events.  You can watch whole arguments play out on the page.  Oral histories are great for that… all the yelling without any of that, you know, tedious actual yelling.

Here are some oral histories worth checking out if you’re interested in checking out some examples of this unique genre:

Please Kill Me – The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain – Probably the place to start with this particular genre, whether you’re interested in punk or not.  Lots of legends surround the early days of punk rock, which is arguably the greatest “you had to be there to really appreciate it” movement in the history of rock and roll, and chances are you weren’t there.  The folks interviewed in this book were, and a surprising number of them still remember a lot of it, from the early days with the Velvet Underground, MC5 and Iggy & the Stooges to the heydays of the Ramones, Television, and the Sex Pistols, up through Black Flag and Fugazi.  Here’s the HELIN catalog listing.

Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live by Tom Shales & Andrew Miller – SNL has had about as crazy a history as any TV series you can name, and the backstage stories have as many ups and downs as the show itself.  The stories of antics of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players and likes of later stars like Eddie Murphy, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler, or Will Ferrell are fun to read, but the down times – particularly the infamous 1980 season, often known as the painfully unfunny stretch where newspaper writers first coined the headline “Saturday Night Dead” – are somehow even more interesting read about, if a lot more tragic (poor Charles Rocket…).  It, too, can be found through HELIN.

ESPN: Those Guys Have All the Fun by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales – Long before they had the broadcast rights for the NFL and Major League Baseball, and before SportsCenter became a nightly routine for even people who don’t like sports, ESPN still put sporting events on the air 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Sometimes it was local Connecticut stuff, sometimes it was professional wrestling (usually Verne Gagne’s American Wrestling Association) or roller derby, and sometimes it was chess and spelling bees.  And bowling… oh, so much bowling.  Through it all, they managed to not only stay on the air, but keep it interesting, thanks in large part to the roster of talent they’ve put on the air through the years.  Worth a look to see things from their perspective, especially since not everyone has such fond memories of their days in Bristol, CT.  And yes, HELIN has this one, too (in fact, Bryant owns a copy).

The oral history format isn’t just limited to non-fiction, either.  Here are some examples of fictional works that make use of the format:

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks – People like to talk about how scary The Walking Dead is, but most of that is people standing around wondering where that kid got off to.  This book, on the other hand, really is scary because Books (son of comedy legend Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft) gives each character a unique voice and goes into such detail you have to check to make sure none of this really happened.  He does his job a little too well.  Much better than the upcoming Brad Pitt movie is likely to, so give this a read.  And here’s the HELIN catalog listing.

Avengers Assemble: An Oral History of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes by Brian Michael Bendis – Not the story of the creation of the comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Don Heck at the rest, but story of the creation of the team as told by Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye, Wasp, and the rest.  Bendis has an amazing penchant for snappy dialogue, so book told through nothing but that dialogue is pretty much a slam dunk, even if you’re not a comic book fan and maybe only know the characters from last summer’s movie.  Not available through HELIN, sadly, but maybe you can track this down through Interlibrary Loan.

Science Books That Are Not Just “For the Birds!”

Hello again, everyone! Hope you survived the blizzard without much fuss—unfortunately, as a South County resident, I wouldn’t be able to say the same. No power, phone, or Internet—at least we have a wood stove to cook on and to keep my gecko’s cage near!

But enough talk about snow. This month, I’m going to focus on a much more pleasant topic—birds! Not only is it National Bird Feeding Month, but this weekend (the 15^th-18^th) is the Great Backyard Bird Count. Each year, the Ornithology Lab at Cornell University asks “citizen scientists” to note how many and what kinds of birds they observe for at least 15 minutes. While this can be tricky for novice birdwatchers, it’s a great way to learn about the species that are common in your area. While I usually go to the same old nature preserve, this year I’m going to try and go to a different place each day, in different parts of the state.  I’ll be sure to let you know what I find!

The book I particularly want to highlight is Birds at Your Feeder: A Guide to Feeding Habits, Behavior, Distribution, and Abundance by Erica H. Dunn and Diane L. Tessaglia-Hymes.

 

Based on results from Project Feederwatch, this book highlights 88 different bird species that are mostly likely to be seen feeding in one’s yard. Each species is given a black-and-white illustration and a two page description, including info on their breeding season, migration habits and other interesting facts. This is followed by “FeederWatch Findings” that list what the birds’ preferred feedstuff is, what months they are most likely to be using feeders during, and maps of the areas of the United States where they are most prevalent. About 20 pages of general information on bird feeding and bird populations is also given in the beginning of the book.

There is much more to birds than just their feeding behavior; bird songs and their nest building behaviors have also captivated people throughout history. Two books in Bryant’s collection that highlight these behaviors are Built by Animals: The Natural History of Animal Architecture by Mike Hansell and Songs, Roars, and Rituals: Communication in Birds, Mammals, and Other Animals by Lesley J. Rogers and Gisela Kaplan. Although they are not about birds exclusively, both contain a lot of avian-centric information, such as how birds learn their songs (Rogers & Kaplan) or an entire chapter dedicated to  how Australia’s bowerbirds use incredibly elaborate nests as part of their courtship rituals (Hansell).

That’s all for this week! Next time I’ll share some sources, both online and in print, you can use to find out more about the grandfather of birding, John Jacob Audubon.

Has the library helped YOU out in some way? Let us know!

We’re trying to create some library promotional slides for AXIS TV on campus and we’re looking for some help from our adoring public.  Has there been a book you’ve found at our library, for leisure or for class, that has been really (maybe even life-changingly) good, or some assistance you’ve received from either Access Services or Reference that has been really helpful (whether it’s something for a major project, something simple as someone showing you some resource or service we had that you didn’t know about before, or anything in between)?  If so, we’d like to get quotes from people as testimonials – don’t worry, no pictures will be used, we don’t even have to use your name if you don’t want to, the point of this is to promote the library, not to embarrass anyone.

Book reviews, shout-outs to your favorite database (we know you have one), kudoes to that librarian or assistant who helped you find 37 scholarly-reviewed articles and that Mandarin translation of Winnie the Pooh… if it’s a positive comment about something you discovered or were helped with at the Douglas and Judith Krupp Library, we want to hear about it.  Drop us a line at library@bryant.edu or stop by in person to share your stories or ask for more information.

The Douglas and Judith Krupp Library – we’re not too proud to beg for you to tell us how much you love us.  But we know you do, so it’s not awkward or anything.

The Leisure Reading Collection is Moving!

You may have noticed that our Leisure Reading section is no longer sitting in its usual spot at the front of the quiet study section on the second floor.  It hasn’t gone away for good, it’s just getting new digs down here on the first floor.

Leisure Reading titles will now be kept on the shelves in front of the first row of public computers on the main level, the space that formerly held our encyclopedias and the Reader’s Guide series (those haven’t gone away, either, they’ve just been moved to shelf #12 in the Reference collection).  The collection will be maintained just like it was upstairs – shelved alphabetically by authors’ last names, fiction and non-fiction intermingling – it’s just now we’ll have more space to work with, and you won’t have to truck upstairs if you’re just popping by for something to read on your lunch break or at the gym.

And as always, if you have any suggestions for Leisure Reading titles you’d like to see us get, let us know!

We have that? – Bat Chain Puller by Kurt Loder

Gather ’round, children, and I’ll tell you of days long past, when MTV aired more than just shows about pregnant teenagers and negative ethnic stereotypes drinking until they vomit.  A time when music videos were shown – in their entirety, no less – more often than scripted programming.  A time when the News division of the channel had not only quick little commercial-break-long blurbs to discuss news of note in rock & roll, but an entire half-hour show on the weekends called The Week in Rock, and it was hosted by a man named Kurt Loder.  A little older than most of the rest of the MTV staff (word had it he remembered the ’70s), and possessed of a peculiar if reassuringly lulling monotone and a habit of placing the emPHAsis on the wrong syllABle, he brought some journalistic integrity (he came up through the ranks of Rolling Stone back when that still meant something), a little wry humor,  and some much-needed gravitas and authority to the party.  And yeah, he was all kinds of awesome (as were frequent co-hosts Tabitha Soren and Allison Stewart, but we’re not talking about them right now).

Anyway, as I said, he used to be a writer and editor for Rolling Stone (among other publications), and this book is a collection of various pieces he wrote for the magazine over the years – interviews and articles concerning people from the rock music world and the greater popular culture planets beyond.  And if you’re familiar at all with the man’s MTV appearances, it’s hard not to read sections of this book and not hear his singular voice inside your head.  In fact, you may find yourself reading aloud in your best (worst) Loder impression… I dare you to resist the urge!

Basically, if you’re nostalgic for a time when every young man in American wanted to marry Martha Quinn, or just want to read about a particularly unique time in American pop culture as told in a particularly unique voice, you’d do well to check this out some time.  And stop back again some time and I can tell you of a particularly wonderful two hours of MTV programming buried late in the evening on Sundays that we used to know as 120 Minutes.  Good times.