One Lick Less

We have nine sheets of the corrected galley proofs from William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying along with a letter from Edith Greenburg of Cape and Smith. The publishers were in a rush to get the book out, and Faulkner was tardy on getting his proofs back to them. So, they sent him a handful of questions about specific concerns they had and asked for an immediate reply via air mail.

They were understandably perplexed by a large gap left on page 164 in the sentence, "The shape of my body where I used to be a virgin is a        and I couldn't think..." Was it on purpose? The first edition, also in our collection, reveals that it was indeed intended.

But what caught our eye was a suggested rewrite of a sentence to shorten a page and, thus, keep a single line from appearing on the next page to end the chapter.  What was "Pa breathes quietly, with a faint, rasping sound, his jaw working the snuff slowly against his gums," became "Pa breathes with a quiet, rasping sound, mouthing the snuff against his gums." Same meaning, but a different rhythm and a different visceral sense.  One line less, one line less...

To see the proofs ask for MS 930469; for the first edition, Rare PZ3.F272 As.

They Played Here?!

In May 1964, the Ronettes came to Dartmouth on a package tour with Soul Sister, Carl Holmes, and King Curtis to play Green Key weekend. It was a particularly good couple of years for popular music on campus. Johnny Cash was here in February 1964 to shoot an episode of Hootenanny, and Peter, Paul and Mary played Dartmouth's Leverone Field House in 1965.

We just mounted an exhibit in the Baker Library Main Hall that looks back on pop music acts that played Dartmouth when they were in their prime. It features the likes of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw (with Billie Holiday), Duke Ellington, Pete Seeger, Simon & Garfunkel, Ray Charles, Sly and the Family Stone, Cat Stevens, Bruce Springsteen, the Grateful Dead, Labelle, the Clash, and the Bangles among others.

As we were putting the finishing touches on the exhibit a little miracle occurred.  We leaned that Noel Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary was going to be on campus to participate in Baccalaureate with his wife Elizabeth. They graciously took some time after the ceremony on Saturday to walk through the exhibit with us. Here is Noel in front of the "folk" case with a poster from the 1965 concert.

The exhibit will run through August 31, 2014--so come in and take a look.