Creighton University

This feature presents the Persian “Gulistan” (The Rose-Garden) by Saadi, a compilation of fables, tales, and apothegms.  The article presents examples from various chapters of the work.  I expected that DS, pictured in the illustration, was somehow in the “Gulistan.”  Apparently not.  A short piece after the article tells the story after “the quaint old version which we find in the edition of 1658.”  I presume now that that is the edition of Aesop in 1658.

The page-long story repeats Aesopic fable traits, particularly the delusion that more of a good thing is a better thing.  That trait is, for example, in the story of the woman who got an egg a day from her hen with standard feeding.  She vastly increased the feeding and got, not more, but nothing.  In this case, the folksy telling ends with the joke moral “Don’t be an Ass.”  The piece also has fun with the phrase “horse sense.”  I cannot begin to place where this one-page piece with nothing on the verso would have appeared.  Neither can AI!

An elaborate broad margin-design of cat and mice surrounds a title balanced by an image of the cat looking down, a half-page of text, and an image of one mouse wearing spectacles speaking to a group of mice, one of whom holds a bell. The text, including moral, seems lifted verbatim from James.  The article on the back of the page gives women advice on how to test textiles.

Apparently the stores and shops in the Faubourg St. Honore and its adjacent streets at this point in history put on grand shows of coordinated windrow dressing.  In June, 1949 that effort focused on the fables of La Fontaine.  The pre-title of this article is "La Grande Saison de Paris."  This is one of the few objects in the collection that has been harmed since it came to us.  There is water damage that hurts the images, but -- happily -- not the text.  I have sought for a replacement, but so far in vain.  Apparently the shops focused on culture at the time of La Fontaine, including furniture, books.  Each window focused on one fable of La Fontaine that had something to do with the objects offered by that vendor.  A corset-maker focused on OR!  "Bend, do not break!"  A specialist in tricots took Perrette from MM.  A frame-maker chose "The Lion and Artist" and "A Man and His Image."  Photos from the actual windows contribute well to this article.  Where is another copy?  

A curious thing about Aesop’s Games is that, in all five cases of fables used here, the magazine presumes a reader’s acquaintance with the fable.  It need not be told.  While two of these games – CP and “Fawn and Mother” -- are simple and traditional, the other three take some serious construction!

Construction of these puppets may not be easy.  The feature makes creating a lion’s head seem easy to manage.  I doubt that it is very easy at all!  However, the color work of this feature is attractive.

This feature presents several “Aesop Favorites” and urges further reading of his fables.  Contemporary comic strips are an echo of Aesop’s stories from long ago.  The illustration attached to the article – a view of Aesop new to me -- is captioned “Aesop searches for man among stupidity, arrogance, anger and meanness.”  He is among animals in the foreground holding a lantern.  Human beings look on in the background.

As Pasadena faced a choice between the existing structure using a city manager or a new one using a mayor, Cherniss asks which is the stork in the fable.

Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan were just returning from a summit in Geneva as Cherniss praises the approach of gentle but tough negotiation over bluster and accusation.

This critical column is fun.  George Bush attended an environmental conference in Rio, and here Freund gives him a “Bravo!”  Part of the column is a rewriting of GA, in which the Developing World hopper confronts the First World ant.  Nice use of the fable!

Here is just one more example – we could find hundreds – where popular culture works from speeds to examine character and style.  Here, finding it “hard to relax” is a sign of being a hare, but in the fable the hare relaxed all too much!  First seems to be First for Women, which just ceased publication a month ago.  A longer article followed the quiz.

Here is a helpful overview of an impressive exhibit.  The two illustrations are well chosen: Eichenberg’s for GA and Grandville for “The Two Nanny Goats.”  Further headings on the continuation of the article are helpful, especially “A Late Blomer” and “Warm Complicity.”  The article starts strong with childhood remembrances of how the fables showed issues and young people were reminded of wisdom by elders’ remembering the fables.  Especially good is the translation of “Il faut se mesurer”: “Size yourself up” or more loosely “Just who do you think you are?”  It may be slightly misleading to speak of La Fontaine’s fable presenting La Fontaine’s fable as featured “ornately costumed beasts.”  The costumes are Grandville’s, are they not?

Our collection has a page and a brochure announcing the exhibit and the opening session program.  My biggest surprise in this report on the exhibit is the statement that only two copies of the original edition survive.  I have the impression that there are several, including at least two in Wolfenbüttel.

In typical Onion fashion, this satirical article begins with an Alabama law mandating fruit consumption in schools, including grapes.  The Aesopians, according to the article, believe “that the fox, in his anger at the unreachable grapes, cursed the offending fruit and made all grapes sour forever.”  An academic walks through the fable to give its ordinary sense; his comments are dismissed as “heretical anti-Aesopian hate speech.”  One more facet of Aesopian belief has to do with Aesop’s heroic death: “He died for us all.”

This is a breathtaking review of a breathtaking performance of Robert Wilson’s “Fables de La Fontaine.”  In one aspect after another, the critic cuts beneath the surface to find the reality, which is often bloody enough.  This review wants me to (re)view the play!

The review works with the interaction and boundaries between animals and humans.  “Fables blur the boundaries between the animal and the human.”  “The animal becomes a revelation of the human, but more often it appears as a contrast – a shocking revelation – than a comforting reflection.”

The article reports on two biologists who report that rooks can raise the level of water in a container so that they can reach a floating worm.  The illustration adds a new twist, since the fluid this crow is after is Tequila.  The worm floating in Tequila is also a lovely resonance!