Creighton University

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?  

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.

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.”