November 2008 | Vol. VII No. 3

One Civilized Reader Is Worth a Thousand Boneheads

here is an ancient Chinese par-able that is still repeated today: Once upon a time, there was a family of a grandfather, a father, and a son. The father neglected the grandfather, and when the old man died, the father was so stingy that he dragged the body

from the house on a broken bamboo mat. When the boy saw this, he told his father: “Please don’t forget to bring the mat back. It is still useful.” The father, please to hear this, asked his son what he would use it for. His son answered: “I will need it when you die.”

Children learn what they see, and parents are their first role models. This fact is as old as the parent–child relationship. If parents express in-tolerance, if they lie or are dismissive of their own parents or children, these lessons will be learned by their children. Today, however, there are other models for children, models parents resort to when they do not have sufficient time or energy to be parents: the television set and the DVD player. At a time when children have very little freedom to have adventures and explore the world for themselves, it is important that they have alternatives provided by children’s films. We should ask where these film adventures are taking them. Which images of childhood are being honored, and which are being unceremoniously pulled out on broken mats? Some of these issues will be explored during the Center for the Humanities’ fifth annual Children’s Film Festival, November 21–22, 2008.

This year, I was able to preview only one of the films to be screened at the festival, The Flyboys. The

Flyboys centers upon two twelve-year-olds: Jason, from a middle class family, whose grandfather won numerous medals for bravery during WW II; and Kyle, who just moved into town and lives with his single mother. Their relationship begins when Jason and Kyle take on the school bullies and end up hanging around an airstrip. Jason talks Kyle into sneaking onto a small airplane, which takes off

before they can make their exit. They stow away in the luggage compartment. Upon emerging, they find that the pilot and passengers have vanished. They are on their own at 15,000 feet. The film then flashes back to the story of Silvio, the black-sheep son of a crime family. Deep in debt, Silvio decides to rob his brother Angelo, the head of the Vegas mob. His plan is to be on the family plane when a big shipment of casino profits is being flown out. He plans to kill the pilot and passengers, dump their bodies, then jump out himself with a parachute and the cash. This brings us back to the two boys at-tempting to land the deserted plane with little more than the information they’ve picked up watching a friend pilot his aircraft.

T

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The Center for the Humanities Advisory Board 2008–2009Nancy Berg Associate Professor of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and LiteraturesKen Botnick Associate Professor of ArtGene Dobbs Bradford Executive Director Jazz St. LouisLingchei (Letty) Chen Associate Professor of Modern Chinese Language and LiteratureElizabeth Childs Associate Professor and Chair of Department of Art History and ArchaeologyMary-Jean Cowell Associate Professor of Performing ArtsPhyllis GrossmanRetired Financial ExecutiveMichael A. Kahn Author and Partner Bryan Cave LLP Chris King Editorial Director The St. Louis American Newspaper

Olivia Lahs-Gonzales Director Sheldon Art GalleriesPaula Lupkin Assistant Professor of Architecture Sam Fox School of Design & Visual ArtsErin McGlothlin Associate Professor of GermanSteven Meyer Associate Professor of EnglishWang Ning Professor of English, Tsinghua University Joe Pollack Film and Theater Critic for KWMU, WriterAnne PosegaHead of Special Collections, Olin LibrarySarah Rivett Assistant Professor of EnglishHenry SchveyProfessor of DramaJames Wertsch Marshall S. Snow Professor of Arts and Sciences Director of International and Area StudiesQiu XiaolongNovelist and PoetEx Officio

Ralph QuatranoInterim Dean, Faculty of Arts & SciencesZurab KarumidzeTbilisi, Republic Of Georgia

Children’s Films, Role Models, and Broken Bamboo Mats

At a time when children have very little freedom to

have adventures and explore the world for themselves, it is important that they have

alternatives provided by children’s films.

announcements

The thing that struck me while watch-ing this film was that the children’s families played only a very small role in the story. Neverthe-less, both families are shown sharing routines such as eat-ing dinner together or sharing evening talks. Because Jason’s grandfather seldom left his room, Jason took his dinner to him and tried to talk with him. Kyle and his mother had established a rou-tine of morning and evening talks. Such family routines and rituals remind us that we are not detached entities but are bound into a web of human relationships that define who we are and where we fit into the world. This is also the core of Confucius’s writings, where family is everything.

Because the Chinese communist party was once virulently anti-Confucian, I found it odd that Confucius was quoted at the start of the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing, as if he was a natural part of the five thousand years of continuous history being presented there. In fact, although I was brought up in a culture where Confucian values are so pervasive that people don’t recognize their source, my first introduction to Confucius came from the anti-Confucius campaign during the Cultural Revolu-tion. As a teenager I was taught that Confucianism was the guiding philoso-phy of a feudal society dominating China for more than two thousand years. But it seems that China is determined to drag the bamboo mat and Confucius back into the house and try to revive the old “grandfather” to educate the children. There are a number of reasons China might want to do this. One is the loss of

Chinese Marxism as a legitimizing influence in the face of a growing

market economy. Another is Confucius’s belief that human beings are perfect-ible and can be led along the right path

through education. He emphasized the power of education to improve society and to teach citizenship.

Although little is verifiable about Confucius’s life, the best source avail-able is The Analects (479–221 B.C.), the collection of his sayings written by his followers. Much of the biographical detail about his life surfaced long after his death and most of it is of question-able historical status. However, there are some basic facts that can be accepted. Confucius was born Chiu King about 550 B.C. during a period of constant warfare in China. He was a contem-porary of the Buddha and Lao-tzu and lived immediately before Socrates and Plato. Nothing is known for certain concerning his ancestors except that his father died soon after his birth, leaving his upbringing to his mother. He be-came a teacher in his early twenties, and that proved to be his calling in life. His fame spread rapidly, attracting a strong core of disciples. Confucius held minor posts until age fifty, when he became a high official, but he soon had a falling out with his superiors and subsequently

resigned his post. Confucius spent the next thirteen years wandering from state to state, advocating and attempting

to implement his political and social reforms. He devoted the last five years of his life to writ-ing and died in 479 B.C. His disciples referred to him as Kong Fu-tzu, mean-ing “Kong the Mas-ter,” a respectful title that was latinized into “Confucius.”

Confucius be-lieved that family piety was crucial to a stable society because it created children who would respect, value, and maintain virtuous

behavior in themselves and in their own off-

spring. Although some may think these lessons are only of antiquarian interest, Confucius was addressing universal issues concerning human relationships that endure through the millennia. At a time in American society when prob-lems surrounding aging boomer parents and grandparents loom over many people’s lives, the wisdom of Confucius reminds us of our responsibility as role models. The manner in which we treat our parents and our children is not only how they will treat us, it is also an example for the way their children will treat them. If we share our power and our responsibilities with films and other media, then we should require of them what we expect of ourselves. We can pass on our values through the generations, or we can be dragged out on a broken mat to the dustbin of history.

editor’s notes continued

Jian LengAssociate Director

Center for the Humanities

Image from the Cultural Revolution: a group of students listened to an Anti-Confucius talk in Confucius’s family yard. Copyright © Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images

Julie Andrews: An Intimate Biography

By Richard Stirling

St. Martin’s Press, 2008, 376 pages with index, bibliography, filmography, and photos

It’s like seeing your mother naked. It would be like pissing in the wind to try and reinvent her as the bad girl of Hollywood. —British actor Stephen Fry, on hearing Julie Andrews curse for the first time on the set of Relative Values (2000)

A Mighty Fortress Is Our Star

For those of us Americans who remember the 1960s, particularly the years from, say, 1962 to 1967, what we are mostly likely to recall is how our popular culture was dominated by Brit-ish stars. The Beatles, of course, and the Rolling Stones and others were part of the British rock invasion, but there was more. Scottish actor Sean Connery was the big box-office male star of the era, famous for playing the unstoppable and unflappable English secret agent James Bond, created by English novelist Ian Fleming. (No American celluloid or video agent, and there were many at the time, came close in popularity or endur-ance to the legendary 007, not Derek Flint, not Matt Helms, not Napoleon Solo, not Jefferson Bolt—one of the few black agents of the blaxploitation period of the early 1970s.)

There were also songwriters An-thony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, who penned such anthems of the era as “Who Can I Turn To,” “Feeling Good,” and “What Kind of Fool Am I?”—all from successful stage shows. Actors Albert Finney, Michael Caine, Peter O’Toole (Irish), Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave, Richard Burton (Welsh), and Julie Christie were all well-known to American audiences. And let’s not forget pop singers Shirley Bassey (who on the planet in the 1960s had not heard the theme song for the James Bond film Goldfinger), Petula Clark (who on the planet in the 1960s had not heard

the pop hit “Downtown”), and Dusty Springfield.

But the figure who seemed to tower over all of them was singer/actress Julie Andrews. The fact that she starred in the single most beloved musical and one of the most successful commercial films in cinema history (The Sound of Music) and that she won an Oscar for her lead role in one of the most acclaimed chil-dren’s films, also a musical, of all time (Mary Poppins) probably has a great deal to do with the compelling nature of her stature.

“I’m very proud of my British heritage,” she once said. “I’m first and always British and I carry my country in my heart wherever I go.” It might also be said, looking at her repertoire—which almost always included some of the British music hall songs she sang on stage as a kid, or some songs by Noël Coward or Vaughn Williams or Edward Elgar—that she carried her country on her sleeve as well. Who could ever forget that Julie Andrews was English, which I suppose was part of her attraction? And perhaps she did more to preserve a cer-tain idea of Britain in the minds of most Americans, and indeed in the minds of most people in the world, than any other British figure in popular culture.

Even when she played an Austrian nun with an inexplicable English accent, as she did in The Sound of Music (much as Arnold Schwarzenegger played a robot from the future with an inexpli-cable Austrian accent in the Terminator films), her portrayal seemed to be all about English valor during World War II rather than some particular Austrian family’s courage. The Sound of Music has always felt a bit like Mrs Miniver or The White Cliffs of Dover done over as musi-cals, or as if those films were the subtexts for it. This is all because of the presence of Julie Andrews personifying the Brit-ish fortress as a sweet, sunny woman of fortitude who cares for children.

The Julie Andrews film persona—at least, the musical films that made her

internationally famous and are still watched today—seems an extension of the Julie Andrews myth. “If she stops to have a cough drop, she has to give everyone one. Andrews goes to great lengths both to maintain adorers and distance herself,” said one professional associate. Ann-Margaret, who starred with Andrews in the 1991 television drama Our Sons, said: “We were such opposites, Julie had everything un-der control. She was always cheerful, prepared, well-organized, and perfectly-dressed, Mary Poppins-like.... Her dressing room was always tidy, whereas five minutes after I arrived, mine was a disaster.” Andrews is described as a “brick,” a “trooper,” “positive,” “upbeat,” someone who “does not pull rank,” someone who always “kept the ship afloat” by her coworkers.

It is no wonder that despite her and her second husband’s (director/writer Blake Edwards) best efforts, includ-ing baring her breasts in Edwards film S.O.B. (1981), she was never able to escape the undertow of typecasting or never quite able to escape the stereo-type of herself. I used to think, glibly enough, that Julie Andrews was the reincarnation of Irene Dunne as a Brit. Or that Julie Andrews was Deborah Kerr with Marni Nixon’s voice (the combination that was used

book of the month by Gerald Earlyst. louis literary calendar

for the 1956 film version of The King and I). But I was wrong. She was never Irene Dunne reincarnated as an English governess. And Julie Andrews may have, to some degree, been Kerr and Nixon biologically fused, but she was always and remains far more than the sum of her parts.

Career of the Iron Butterfly

It seems virtually impossible for Julie Andrews to have avoided a career in show business. Her mother, Barbara, was, according to biographer Rich-ard Stirling, “a larger-than-life show business personality, helping her sister Joan run a local dance school while pursuing a career as a popular pianist.” Her second husband, Ted, was also a performer, and he soon recognized that his string-bean, freckle-faced stepdaugh-ter, Julie, had a voice with a freakish, near four-octave range. As with many children of divorce, Julie preferred her biological father, also named Ted, over her stepfather. (This biography does not suggest in any way that Ted Wells is not Julie Andrews’s biological father. Some biographical accounts suggested that Wells married Barbara to cover for her out-of-wedlock pregnancy of another man’s child.)

But it was Ted Andrews who got the famed vocal teacher Madame Lilian

Stiles-Allen to take on young Julie as a pupil. The freckle-faced kid

also joined Ted and Barbara Andrews’s music hall act, changing her last name from Wells (her father’s name) to Andrews to avoid awkwardness. (This probably led her to resent her stepfather all the more. The fact that he was an alcoholic did not help matters. Barbara developed a drinking problem as well.) It was not long before Julie became the center of the act and eventually the star. Despite the fact that she has always been highly articulate and even became a fairly successful writer of children’s books, Julie had little formal education, as is true with many child performers, an inadequacy she has deeply regretted. But her years on the stage as an adoles-cent, the singing and dancing lessons were good training for her life as a star of stage and film. She made a screen test at the age of twelve but it was deter-mined by famed musical producer Joe Pasternak that Julie was not photogenic and would never become a screen star.

She had plenty of work at the time on the vaudeville stage (she toured England several times), on radio, and on televi-sion. In 1953, she garnered the title role in Cinderella at the London Palladium. Her big break came when she chosen for a lead role in the Broadway production of the English musical The Boyfriend in 1954. This led to being cast as the lead in the Lerner and Lowe musical My Fair Lady, based on Bernard Shaw’s Pygma-lion, which became not only one of the most commercially successful but one of the most critically revered musicals in the history of the English-speaking mu-sical theater, with such memorable songs as “On the Street Where You Live,” “Get Me to the Church on Time,” “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.” (It is not an overstatement to say that My Fair Lady is the greatest musical ever written. Many believe that.)

Andrews was born, genetically bred to play the role of Eliza Doolittle, although had not Moss Hart, the director, worked with her mightily, she would have flopped, perhaps even been dis-

missed from the show. She was a natu-ral, but at the age of twenty she was still very green as an actress. (She had no idea how to develop a character. Even her portrayals of Mary Poppins and Ma-ria in The Sound of Music seemed drawn very much on her being the “enabler,” the first-born child who was required to hold a family together, a role Andrews performed in some considerable mea-sure in real life in relation to both her younger siblings and her parents, as she was the big breadwinner for the family since her teenage years.) On the night of March 15, 1956, when My Fair Lady opened in New York, Julie Andrews became a star, an awe-inspiring figure, critics bowing at her feet, someone who ceased to be quite like other people or other performers even. Heady stuff for someone who still had not obtained her majority. A legend. She would never ever again be anything less than this.

She was cast as Guenevere in Camelot in 1960, a solid but lesser Lerner and Lowe effort. Oddly, Andrews never played in the film versions of either mu-sical. Her role in My Fair Lady went to Audrey Hepburn, which many thought was a crime. (Hepburn was a far better known actress at the time the film was cast. Her voice was dubbed by omni-present Marni Nixon.) Andrews was diplomatic about it. Vanessa Redgrave played Guenevere in the film version of Camelot, a role Andrews did not covet nearly as much. Andrews more than made up for not getting these roles by being cast in the title role in Disney’s Mary Poppins (1964), in the film ver-sion of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music (1965), and the Arthur Hiller/Paddy Chayefsky film The Americanization of Emily (1964). The commercial and critical success of these three films did far more for her than if she had gotten the roles in either Camelot or My Fair Lady and surely as much as if she had gotten the roles in both. In 1966, she did a film with Hitchcock, Torn Curtain, and two with director George Roy Hill, Hawaii

To grown men, she is a lady; to housewives, the gal next door; to little children, the most huggable aunt of all. She is Christmas carols in the snow, a companion by the fire, a laughing clown at charades, a girl to read poetry to on a

cold winter’s night.

––Time magazine on Julie Andrews, 1966: Was she a brilliant musical performer or a Hallmark card icon?

book of the month continued

announcements

Fifth Annual Children’s Film Festival An Exploration of Children’s Films

and Their AudiencesNovember 21-22, 2008

Sponsored by the Center for the Humanities at Washington University, in con-junction with the WU Film & Media Studies Program and Cinema St. Louis

Friday, November 21

Auditorium, St. Louis Art Museum Opening Remarks

7 p.m., Pixar Shorts, 60 min. running time and 30–45 min. discussion

Jeremy Lasky, a Pixar director of pho-tography, will introduce and conduct a Q&A with the audience.

Saturday, November 22

Brown 100, Danforth Campus, Washington University in St. Louis

12 p.m., Matchmaker Mary, 2008, 89 min.

Directed by Tom Whitus and fea-turing Jeff Fahey, Dee Wallace, and twelve-year-old local actress Kather-ine McNamara. Matchmaker Mary is a family-friendly tale of a girl who arranges a romance between two lonely people she encounters when all three adopt puppies from an animal shelter.

Director Tom Whitus and star Jilanne Barnes will run a Q&A session after the show.

2:30 p.m., The Flyboys, 2008, 118 min. (PG-13)

Directed by Rocco DeVilliers and featuring Stephen Baldwin and Tom Sizemore. The Flyboys won best film at the 2008 Sedona Film Festival. The film is about two boys (Jesse James and Reiley McClendon) from a small town who find their courage tested when they accidentally stow away aboard an airplane owned by the mob.

Producer Lisle Moore will speak after the film.

The Flyboys, 2008

Short is For the Birds ©Disney/Pixar

(1966), based on the James Michener novel, and Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). These, along with the 1982 film Victor/ Victoria (directed by her husband, Blake Edwards, when she plays a woman playing a man who plays a woman), are the core body of films upon which her considerable reputation rests. Four of the seven films are musicals. She also made several first-rate television specials over the years, including three with her friend Carol Burnett.

Stirling’s biography is a solid work, providing us with a fairly vivid account of Andrews’s career and personal life: a failed marriage to set designer Tony Walton that produced one daughter; a longer-lasting union with Blake Edwards, who created, among other works, both the Peter Gunn television show and the Pink Panther movie series. (He probably feels he deserves a medal for valor for having endured Peter Sellers, the star of that series, for as long as he did.) She has undergone a long period of psychoanalysis and has endured having two adopted daughters become cocaine addicts and a botched throat operation in 1999 that tragically ended her singing career. She has never been bashful about suing the press when it printed things about her that were untrue. She also sued the doctors who messed up her throat. She won all these suits and was awarded substantial damages in every case. Julie Andrews is a kind, even warm performer who very much cherishes her fans. She is also a humanitarian. But she has always seemed distant, like a beam of light that has its origins in another galaxy. She never seems haughty in interviews but she projects, nonetheless, like an empress, like the Dame she became in 1999 when so dubbed by the Queen. Perhaps that is why her role in The Princess Diaries (2001) as both an embodiment and a satire of her persona seemed so fitting as a return to public acclaim. This is far from a definitive biography of the star, something that is not likely until she dies, when a greater range people will be able to discuss her in a less guarded way. But this biography is an enjoy-able read. A future issue of The Figure in the Carpet will run a review of Andrews’s Home: A Memoir of My Early Years (2008).

Jeremy Lasky

Matchmaker Mary, 2008

All events are free unless otherwise indicated. Author events generally followed by signings. All phone numbers have 314 prefix unless oth-erwise indicated.

Saturday, November 1St. Louis Writers Guild sponsors a memoir work-shop by author Thomas Larson. Admission is $15. 10am–noon, B&N Crestwood, 9618 Wat-son Rd., 971-6045.Day of the Dead Beats 2008 is an annual St. Louis celebration of Beat poetry. Admission is $3. Way Out Club, 8pm–midnight, 2525 S. Jef-ferson Ave., 664-7638.

Monday, November 3Main Street Monday Book Club meets to dis-cuss Little Heathens by Mildred Kalish. 7pm, Main Street Books, 307 S. Main, St. Charles, 636-949-0105.SLCL–Florissant Valley Branch welcomes author of 101 Things You Didn’t Know about St. Louis, Bill Nunes, for a night of trivia and book signing. 7pm, 195 New Florissant Rd., 994-3300.SLCL–Headquarters Branch welcomes author John Green and founder of EcoGeek.org, Hank Green, as they bring their Great American Tour de Nerdfighting 2008 to St. Louis. 7pm, 1640 S. Lindbergh, 994-3300.SLCL–Grand Glaize Branch hosts Book Bunch, whose selection this month is Thunderstruck by Erik Larson. 7pm, 1010 Meramec Station Rd., 636-225-6454.

Tuesday, November 4The Webster Groves Public Library Book Discussion Group meets to discuss Mr. Pip and Great Expectations. 6pm, 301 E. Lockwood, 961-3784.

Wednesday, November 5SLCL–Thornhill Branch Book Chat will discuss Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper. 10:30am, 12863 Willowyck Dr, 878-7730.Sunset Hills Borders Book Club meets to dis-cuss A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hos-seini. 7pm, 10990 Sunset Hills Plz.SLCL–Jamestown Bluffs Branch’s TrailBlazers after Dark book club meets to discuss Deadly Vintage by Elaine Flinn. 7pm, 4153 N. Highway 67, 741-6800.

Thursday, November 6SLCL–Headquarters Branch hosts the Mystery Lover’s Book Club, which will

discuss Statute of Limitations by Steven Havill. 10am, 1640 S. Lindbergh, 994-3300.SLCL–Jamestown Bluffs Branch hosts the Trail Blazers Book Club, which will meet at 10 am and again at 2pm to discuss Salem Falls by Jodi Piccoult. 4153 N. Highway 67, 741-6800.Webster University welcomes fiction writer Lee K. Abbott, who will read from his body of work. 1:30pm, Pearson House, 8260 Big Bend, 968-7170.SLCL–Indian Trails Branch hosts Book Jour-neys, which will talk about The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. 2pm, 8400 Delport Dr., 428-5424.LBB presents a reading of Site Acquisition by poet Brian Young. 7pm, 399 N. Euclid, 367-6731.Authors @ Your Library presents Ann Zanabo-ni, who wrote St. Louis Hills. 7pm, SLPL–Buder Branch, 4401 Hampton Ave., 352-2900.SLCL–Grand Glaize Branch hosts a Writers Workshop. 7pm, 1010 Meramec Station Rd., 636-225-6454.

Friday, November 7St. Louis Art Museum sponsors a lecture by au-thor and art historian Thomas Crow. 7pm, One Fine Arts Dr, 721-0072.

Saturday, November 8St. Charles Community College hosts the Mis-souri Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Annual Conference. Admission is $125. 8am to 4:30pm, 4601 Mid Rivers Mall Dr., 636-922-8686.Discuss To Die For by Linda Howard with the Romance Readers Book Club. 10am, SLPL–Buder Branch, 4401 Hampton Ave., 352-2900.Write-Along Writer’s Workshop meets at SLCL–Indian Trails Branch. 11am, 8400 Delport Dr., 428-5424.SLCL Foundation, Montgomery Bank, and LBB host an exclusive book signing with Lemony Snicket. 12pm, Daniel Boone Branch, 300 Clarkson Rd. For Snicket tickets, call 994-9411, ext. 474 or 367-6731.B&N Chesterfield Oaks hosts children’s author of Amos and the Wild Welshman Jud Miner. 1pm, 1600 Clarkson Rd., 636-536-9636.Borders Brentwood hosts a book signing by CMT’s Lance Smith. 2pm, 1519 S. Brentwood Blvd., 918-8535.B&N Mid Rivers welcomes James Strait, author of Weird Missouri. 2pm, 320 Mid Rivers Ctr. Dr., St. Peters, 636-278-1118.

Sunday, November 9Borders Brentwood sponsors a book signing by the author of Show-Me State, Karen Glines. 2pm, 1519 S. Brentwood Blvd., 918-8189.

Monday, November 10COCA features a presentation by Chip Conley, author of Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow. Admission is $75. 11am, 524 Trinity Ave., 725-6555.

Tuesday, November 11WU Assembly Series hosts health-policy his-torian Keith Wailoo, who will discuss culture, history, race, and politics as they relate to the health-care industry. 4pm, Rebstock Hall, Room 215, Danforth Campus, 935-5285.Main Street Tuesday Book Club talks about John Grogan’s Marley & Me. 7pm, Main Street Books, 307 S. Main, St. Charles, 636-949-0105.SLCL–Tesson Ferry Branch hosts Reader Rendezvous, which will discuss Lost Hori-zon by James Hilton. 7pm, 9920 Lin-Ferry Dr., 843-0560.SLCL –Headquarters Branch Evening Book Discussion Group meets to talk about Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. 7pm, 1640 S. Lind-bergh, 994-3300.SLCL–Weber Road Branch hosts As the Page Turns Book Group, which will discuss Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone. 7pm, 4444 Weber Rd., 638-2210.LBB and SLCL–Headquarters Branch welcome author H. W. Brands, who will discuss and sign his book Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 7pm, 1640 S. Lindbergh, 994-3300.The Foreign Literature Reading Group dis-cusses Master and Commander. 7:30pm, Wash-ington University’s West Campus Conference Center (lower level), 7425 Forsyth Blvd. Call Kathleen at 727-6118 for info.COCA Great Rivers Author Series and LBB pres-ent the author of Wicked, Gregory Maguire, who will speak and sign books. (Two tickets free w/purchase of Maguire’s latest book in advance at LBB). 8pm, 524 Trinity Ave., 367-6731.

Wednesday, November 12SLCL–Oak Bend Branch hosts Bookies Book Discussion Group, which meets to talk about The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton. 2pm, 842 S. Holmes, 822-0051.Boone’s Bookies meets at the SLCL–Daniel Boone Branch to discuss The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. 2pm, 300 Clarkson Rd., 636-227-9630.WU Assembly Series welcomes Daniel Men-delsohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million at the annual Holocaust Memorial Lecture. 4pm, Graham Chapel, Danforth Cam-pus, 935-5285.Authors @ Your Library & LBB presents Peter W. Galbraith, who will discuss and sign his new book, Unintended Consequences: How War in

Events in November

st. louis literary calendar

st. louis literary calendarIraq Strengthened America’s Enemies. 7pm, SLPL–Central Branch, 1301 Olive, 241-2288.

Thursday, November 13SLCL–Headquarters Branch Afternoon Book Discussion Group studies Devil in the White City by Erik Lawson. 2pm, 1640 S. Lindbergh, 994-3300.SLPL–Carpenter Branch hosts the Public Con-templation Book Discussion Group, which will be discussing Human Accomplishment by Charles Murray. 7pm, 3309 S. Grand Blvd., 772-6586.LBB presents a poetry reading from the new book Sources by Devin Johnston. 7pm, 399 N. Euclid, 367-6731.WU Department of English Writing Program Reading Series features Steve Stern, award-winning author of such works as Lazar Malkin Enters Heaven and The Wedding Jester. 8pm, Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall (Room 201), Dan-forth Campus, 935-7130.

Friday, November 14Great Expectations Book Group meets at SLCL–Rock Road Branch to discuss Knitting under the Influence by Claire Lazebnik. 10am, 10267 St. Charles Rock Rd., 429-5116.UMSL sponsors a reading by award-winning novelist Steve Stern.7pm, 450 Lucas Hall, 516-5590.Borders Brentwood sponsors a reading and book signing by children’s author of If You Give a Pig a Party, Laura Numeroff. 7pm, 1519 S. Brentwood Blvd., 918-8189.

Saturday, November 15LBB and SLPL–Schlafly Branch sponsor a book signing by author of If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, children’s author Laura Numeroff. Call for time, 399 N. Euclid, 367-6731.The Mystery Lover’s Book Club meets to dis-cuss Firestorm by Nevada Barr. 10am, SLPL–Carondelet Branch, 752-9224.Missouri Chapter of Romance Writers invites co-founder of Paranormal Research & Investi-gative Studies Midwest (PRISM) to speak, with Q&A session following. $5 admission.11am, B&N Crestwood, 9618 Watson Rd. Authors @ Your Library presents Edna Cam-pos Gravenhorst, who will discuss and sign her new book, Southwest Garden, which details St. Louis’ Botanical Garden and Tower Grove Park areas. 1pm, SLPL–Kingshighway Branch, 2260 S. Vandeventer, 771-5450.SLPL–Buder Branch Book Discussion Group talks about Thunderstruck by Erik Larson. 1pm, 4401 Hampton Ave., 352-2900.Borders Brentwood sponsors a book signing by Eric Greitens, award-winning humanitarian

photographer. 2pm, 1519 S. Brentwood Blvd., 918-8189.

Sunday, November 16B&N Chesterfield Oaks hosts author Billyo O’Donnell, who will sign copies of his work, Painting Missouri. 2pm, 1600 Clarkson Rd., 636-536-9636.

Monday, November 17LBB sponsors a book signing by the author of Houses of Missouri, Carol Grove. 7pm, 399 N. Euclid, 367-6731.Poets Ross Gay and Charles Sweetman read from their collections as part of River Styx’s 34th Annual Reading Series. 7:30pm, Duff’s, 392 N. Euclid, 533-4541.

Tuesday, November 18Forest Park Book Club meets to discuss Ma-chete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak by Jean Hatzfield. 12:15pm, Highlander Lounge, Forest Park Community College, 644-9359.SLCL–Florissant Valley’s Tuesday Afternoon Book Club discusses Lone Survivor by Mar-cus Luttrell. 2pm, 195 New Florissant Rd., 921-7200.Authors @ Your Library presents the award-winning author of adolescent literature, Sha-ron Flake, who will sign copies of her books. 6pm, SLPL–Schlafly Branch, 225 N. Euclid, 367-4120.SLCL Foundation’s Pacesetter Author Series presents a book signing by Steven Watts, au-thor of Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the Ameri-can Dream.7pm, SLCL–Headquarters Branch, 1640 S. Lindbergh, 994-3300.LBB welcomes the author of the Mrs. Murphy Series, Rita Mae Brown, who will sign her new book, Santa Clawed. 7pm, 399 N. Euclid, 367-6731.SLCL–Bridgeton Trails Branch Book Group meets to discuss To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. 7pm, 3455 McKelvey Rd., 291-7570.SLPL–Kingshighway Branch Book Discus-sion Group meets to talk about The Brief Won-drous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. 6:45pm, 2260 S. Vandeventer, 771-5450.Tuesday Night Writers’ Group meets to read and critique each others’ work. 7pm, B&N Crest-wood, 9618 Watson Rd., 9p4a-p8bp@dea.spamcon.org.Brentwood Public Library Book Club meets to discuss Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. 7pm, 8765 Eulalie Ave., 963-8630.SLPL–Carpenter Branch hosts ¡Leamos! Span-ish Book Group to discuss Profundos by Jose Maria Arguedas. 7pm, 3309 S. Grand Blvd., 772-6586.

Wednesday, November 19SLCL–Cliff Cave Branch’s Wednesday Night Book Group meets to discuss Lorna Land-vik’s Oh My Stars. 7pm, 5430 Telegraph Rd., 487-6003.SLCL–Oak Bend Branch hosts the Evening Book Discussion Group, which will be exam-ining Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. 7:30pm, 842 S. Holmes, 822-0051.Wednesday Evening Book Club meets at the SLCL–Florissant Valley Branch to discuss A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. 7:30pm, 195 New Florissant Rd., 921-7200.

Thursday, November 20SLCL–Indian Trails Branch hosts Book Jour-neys, which will discuss I Feel Bad about My Neck by Nora Ephron. 2pm, 8400 Delport Dr., 428-5424.SLPL–Schlafly Branch Book Group discusses The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman. 7pm, 225 N. Euclid Ave., 367-4120.WU Department of English Writing Program Reading Series offers a lecture on the craft of fiction by Visiting Hurst Professor Steve Stern, award-winning author of The Angel of Forgetful-ness and The North of God. 8pm, Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall (Room 201), Danforth Campus, 935-7130.

Saturday, November 22SLPL–Baden Branch hosts a Writer’s Work-shop, sponsored by the St. Louis Writers and Performing Guild. 10am, 8448 Church Rd., 388-2400.SLCL–Indian Trails Branch hosts the Write-Along Writers Workshop. 11am–1pm, 8400 Delport Dr., 428-5424.

Sunday, November 23Authors @ Your Library presents the author of Princoirs: Official Memoirs of Prince Joe Henry, Ex Negro Leaguer, Sean Muhammad. 2:30pm, SLPL–Julia Davis Branch, 4415 Natural Bridge Ave., 383-3021.

Tuesday, November 25As the Page Turns Book Discussion Group meets at SLCL–Weber Road Branch to talk about Away by Amy Bloom.7pm, 4444 Weber Rd., 638-2210.

Wednesday, November 26SLPL–Central Branch Book Discussion Group talks about The Inheritance by Loui-sa May Alcott. 4pm, 1301 Olive St., Meeting Room 1, 539-0396.

Dated MaterialDeliver between

October 29 - 31, 2008

The Center for the HumanitiesCampus Box 1071Old McMillan Hall, Rm S101One Brookings DriveSt. Louis, MO 63130-4899Phone: (314) 935-5576email: cenhum@artsci.wustl.eduhttp://cenhum.artsci.wustl.edu

Non-Profit Org.U.S. Postage

PAIDSt. Louis, MO

Permit No. 2535

Financial assistance for this project has been pro-vided by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, and the Regional Arts Commission.

NoticesNovember 2008 marks the 30th Anniversary of the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival, which this year features thirty authors (James McBride, Jeffrey Deaver, and Martin Fletcher among them) and appearances by celebrities such as Jerry Springer, Tatiana De Rosnay, and Evan Handler. All events held at the Jewish Com-munity Center, in the Carol H. Wohl Bldg. on the I.E. Millstone Campus in Creve Coeur, No-vember 2–12. For more information, visit www.stljewishbookfestival.org.

AbbreviationsB&N: Barnes & Noble; LBB: Left Bank Books; SLCL: St. Louis County Library; SLPL: St. Louis Public Library; SCCCL: St. Charles City County Library; UCPL: University City Public Library, WU: Washington University, WGPL: Webster Groves Public Library.Check the online calendar at cenhum.artsci.wustl.edu for more events and additional de-tails. To advertise, send event details to litcal@artsci.wustl.edu, or call 935-5576.

announcements

5 p.m., The Making of WALL-E, 2008, 90 min.

Wall-E is both written and directed by Pixar’s own Andrew Stanton, who wrote and directed A Bug’s Life and Finding Nemo. Disney and Pixar join forces for this computer-animated tale about a wide-eyed robot that travels to the deepest reaches of outer space in search of a newfound friend, and the only friend he’s ever had. WALL-E is short for “Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class.”

Meet Jeremy Lasky after the show.

7:30 p.m., King of the Hill, 1993, 109 min. (PG-13, It includes mild profanity and one implied sexual situation.)

King of the Hill is directed and written by Steven Soderbergh. Twelve-year-old Aaron Kurlander (Jesse Bradford) struggles on his own in a run-down hotel after being separated from his parents and younger brother. The film is set in the 1930s Depression-era Midwest at the Empire Hotel in St. Louis.

Producer Ron Yerxa and local casting director Carrie Houk will be on site. This film is presented in conjunction with the Mis-souri Center for the Book.

The Making of WALL-E, 2008 King of the Hill, 1993

All events are free and open to the public. Parking passes are not required for Saturday events on Washington University in St. Louis campus. Call 314-935-5576 for any questions.