All posts tagged UCLA

Circulating Valuables

Eighteen years ago, my husband decided to read all the works of Sir Walter Scott.  We lived in Hawai’i at the time, and I methodically requested Scott novels every time I went to the library. Because the Hawaiian library system covers all the islands, some of the books had to be shipped to O’ahu over water.

One volume came to us from the big island and we handled it gingerly when it arrived. It looked old with colorful plates and gilded pages and had only been checked out a couple times according to the white label glued inside the front cover. The copyright date was 1895. It can’t have been a first edition, but it was an early one. We marveled the library allowed it to circulate, surely the book was valuable?

I returned it to Aiea Public Library’s front desk with awe. “Look at this book!”

The clerk shrugged as he reached for it. “So?”

“You’re not a librarian, are you? I need to talk to a librarian.”

He beckoned to an older woman in the back room. I showed her the copyright date.

She reverently reached for the book and ran her palm down the leather binding. “Oh, my goodness! You checked this out?”

She understood its value. I doubt the book saw the light of day again . . .

It reminded me of a time at UCLA when my roommate retrieved a book by Eleanor Roosevelt from the University Research Library (now the Charles Young Library). She opened the pages with reverence, and then gasped. “Eleanor Roosevelt autographed this book! Why did they let me take it out of the library?”

I sat beside her on the bed and touched the black signature. “Amazing.”

“I just plucked it off the shelf.” Her eyes gleamed with promise. “I could steal this book. What was the library thinking in letting it circulate?”

“What would you do with it?”

“I don’t know.”

I’m happy to report she returned the volume when she was done with her paper and went on to become a district attorney. I have no idea, however, if the book is still on the shelf.

A quick browse through the Internet just now revealed the books range in value. An 1895 version of Lady of the Lake in good condition currently goes for $39.95 on Abe’s Books, an Internet-based book store specializing in first and early editions.

On the other hand, a signed limited edition of Eleanor Roosevelt’s It’s Up to the Women is advertised at $7500.

I purchased my most expensive book, The Oxford English Dictionary, through the Book of the Month club. It retailed at $75 back in 1975, but I joined the club and got it for about $20. It comes with it’s own magnifying glass in a drawer on top of the case because the print is so small.

I see Amazon.com is selling a used version for $114. Hmm, I could make a profit after 36 years . . .

Probably the most valuable book I own, however, doesn’t circulate because it truly was a limited edition. Written by my father-in-law, Louis Ule, after 25 years of research (or, most of my husband’s childhood), it’s a biography of Christopher Marlowe–demonstrating in thick lugubrious sentences how Marlowe wrote the works attributed to William Shakespeare. 

I’ve thought to rewrite it over the years, to make it more palatable to modern readers because the story is compelling and rich. Louis did some amazing research. He even wrote computer programs analyzing Shakespeare and Marlowe’s writing to demonstrate frequency of word usage. (Those programs were written for main frame computers using punch cards; how much simpler it all would be today.)

We can’t reproduce the book; the vanity publishing company reneged on their deal and we never got the 1500 copies promised. It’s cherished because of what it represents: Louis’ lifetime passion, my husband’s childhood, and a magnificent story. He even autographed it for me.

Valuable , and cherished, indeed.

What’s your most valuable book and why?

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by michelle on November 1, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Life's challenges
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Posted by michelle on November 1, 2011

http://michelleule.com/2011/11/01/circulating-valuables/

Historical Fiction: Life Before the Internet?

As a graduate of UCLA, I appreciate the hand my alma mater played in the development of the Internet. I can even give a grudging nod to the self- proclaimed inventor,former Vice-President Al Gore, who insisted the government put everything on-line. That’s made a lot of stuff easier to do (including filing our taxes). Thanks, Mr. Vice President.

But at work the other day, we got into a discussion of historical fiction (My first published work–coming in September–is an historical fiction novella, The Dogtrot Christmas). I’m working on a novel right now that takes place in 1993 when a Desert Storm widow gets a job as a researcher for a journalist. No problem, until I researched how she does her job because– no Internet!

One of my colleagues doesn’t really remember life before the easy accessibility of the Internet. To her, a story that takes place before the Internet and  cell phones, is almost anachronistic. She laughed, “even now when I read a book about a heroine in some sort of danger, I wonder why she doesn’t just pick up her phone and call for help?”

Do you see how different life was before, say, 1996?

Think how dated so many movies look now when the hero whips out the latest invention–a mobile phone the size of a brick. (Unless, of course, we’re discussing Maxwell Smart and his shoe phone). You can judge a movie’s era by how they manipulate the computer–and the size of the tower. The joke where Scotty addresses the computer in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (You can relive the moment here.), is no longer a joke.

I asked several editors recently to define historical fiction and they all agreed it was novels that took place during World War II and before. Or, as one editor put it, “I can’t say anything later than that, like the Viet Nam War, is historical fiction because too many of my reading customers would be insulted to be considered historical.”

I understand the feeling. I told my daughter once I didn’t have a computer when I was growing up.

“Why?” she asked. “Were you too poor?”

They hadn’t been invented yet.  :-(

But in the case of my current novel (tentatively titled The Corkscrew Heart), I have the advantage over some writers in that I was doing research in 1993 and I remember how much time I spent at the library reading books and magazines looking for information. I had no other concept on how to do research. The Internet hadn’t reached the general populace then.

We purchased a scanner in 1994 so I could at least scan in the information and keep it on the computer, but the notion I could just type in keywords and the information would turn up on my screen–what an impossible, glorious thought!

The world prior to 1996 or so, ran differently. People did not have such ready access to information nor the ability to deal with issues as quickly–at least not in a mechanical sense.  They could pick up a phone–and most were no longer tethered to a wall by 1996–but they’d have to call the library itself for information. You had to read the newspaper if you wanted to find out what movies were playing. You had to write a letter if you wanted to communicate with friends living far away–and it took a long time to get there, much less to get an answer.

For that reason, I think historic fiction really should be anything before the fall of the Iron Curtain. How about you?

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by michelle on May 13, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Laughter, Life's challenges
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Posted by michelle on May 13, 2011

http://michelleule.com/2011/05/13/historical-fiction-life-before-the-internet/

Making a Difference: The Power of Observation

My father was a harrum scarrum young man in the 1940′s. The eldest child in a family of four with a dad who often wandered off, he was raised in a poor family supported by my grandmother’s job in the tool room at a local defense plant. They took in borders, slept on couches and hitch hiked to get around. A skinny, scraggly kid with an attitude, Benny smoked, played craps, often was hungry and frequently sought “an angle,” any angle, to get by.

I’m sure many of the adults he encountered thought him a smart aleck–we thought so ourselves in later life–but one teacher saw something else. One day in a typesetting class in high school, the teacher pulled him aside. “What are you going to do when you graduate, Benny?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Get a job. Maybe I’ll get a job as a typesetter. I’m at good at it.’

“No.” The teacher declared. “You should not get a job as a typesetter. You’re a smart kid. You need to go to college.”

College?

Smart?

These were new concepts and the mere suggestion opened a window in my dad’s mind. No one in his family had gone to college (Technically that’s not true. One of his ancestors attended William and Mary in 1750). No one had any money for college. What a ridiculous idea.

Or was it?

He looked at his classes differently and applied himself. He started saving money and talked to a counselor about how to pay for college. My grandmother, who loved and craved education with a passion, supported the concept. He applied for a Naval ROTC scholarship and when told he’d get one, he asked to leave Burbank, California and attend the University of Michigan.

The Navy demurred, how about something closer to home and less expensive?

UC Berkeley. He was accepted. He made plans to go. I can imagine my grandmother quivering with excitement at the thought. But a month before classes started, he got the bad news. No funding. No money for him to go to school.

But the idea blazed in his ambitious mind. He knew he could be more than just a typesetter now, he had caught the vision. He switched to UCLA, just over the hills from Burbank. My grandmother scrapped together enough money to pay for car fare the first year.

A quirky guy, Benny filled his academic life with ups and downs, extravagant stories of jobs worked and lost, an old car that ran on a paperclip and a young man burning with ambition and engaged in becoming someone the like of which he’d only seen in the movies. UCLA changed his life; it gave him a life. He met my mother there and suddenly the world opened to him.

“You’re a smart kid.”

Someone recognized his potential and told him. That brief exchange changed everything for my father. And for me.

One person. One observation. One different life.

3 Comments
by michelle on April 27, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Life's challenges, Money
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Posted by michelle on April 27, 2011

http://michelleule.com/2011/04/27/making-a-difference-the-power-of-observation/

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