Commentaries - July 2008

Fun with Nazis


Before Hogan's Heroes started up its run of several years airing weekly on a TV network, a pre-debut radio ad for the show was heard widely - and quoted in Newsweek:

Question: "What are some of the amusing ingredients?" Answer: "German police dogs, machine guns, the Gestapo… shall we say, ‘If you liked World War II, you’ll love Hogan’s Heroes’"

Carefully written legislation

Below is an excerpt from the texts of the Communist Control Act of 1954. Note that membership in the Communist party could be discerned from the accused person's having knowledge of the purpose of the evil organization. Juries were instructed by this act (it established guidelines as to what was criminal behavior) not to limit themselves to evidence such as a current membership card. Here we go:

No ideas but in bling

Nada Gordon joined a conversation some of us were having yesterday in New York about the spare late poem of Wallace Stevens, "Not Ideas about

Lost in the woods of pages

I love this old photograph of Rae Armantrout. Presumably she is reading her own poems from a temporarily bound typescript. To me she seems lost in the pages.