End of ADS-L Digest - 7 Aug 1997 to 8 Aug 1997 ********************************************** Subject: ADS-L Digest - 8 Aug 1997 to 9 Aug 1997 There is one message totalling 80 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. LADYFINGERS & NUN'S TUMMIES review; "Supermodels" again ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 9 Aug 1997 22:34:58 -0400 From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: LADYFINGERS & NUN'S TUMMIES review; "Supermodels" again BOOK REVIEW: LADYFINGERS & NUN'S TUMMIES: A LIGHTHEARTED LOOK AT HOW FOODS GOT THEIR NAMES by Martha Barnette 213 pages, $20 Times Books, Random House (1997) David Shulman told me about this. "There's a new book on food words," he said. Really? WHY???????????????? Was anything really wrong with the first ten or so books about this? Sure, none of them were too scholarly (perhaps Christine Ammer's book was the best of this type), but still.... LADYFINGERS doesn't have a bibliography. If you're doing a book that's been done before, that's a pretty good idea. Let's wait before I throw this book completely across the room. Let's see page 119: As for _hot dog_, at the beginning of this century a famous cartoonist named T. A. "Tad" Dorgan supposedly drew one of these sausages to resemble a dachsund on a long bun, a sort of visual pun that played upon the fact that the funny-looking dog was a jocular symbol for things German, as well as the growing public suspicion that these sausages contained meat from sources other than farm animals. Was there no one at Times Books/Random House to stop this? Oh well. "A LIGHTHEARTED LOOK AT HOW FOODS GOT THEIR NAMES." Make that really, really light. When you're doing the 11th book on a subject, it really shouldn't be worse than the other ten.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- SUPERMODELS, N.Y.P.L. again I went to the Barnes & Noble on East 54th and Third Avenue (Citicorp Building) to buy MODEL: THE UGLY BUSINESS OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN by Michael Gross. The book came out in hardcover in 1995 and paperback in 1996. B&N, however, has a six-month attention span. The book was out of stock, but "there's a Barnes & Noble at Third and 47th Street." I walked to the Barnes & Noble at Third and East 47th Street. The book was out of stock, but "there's a Barnes & Noble at Third and 54th Street..." I JUST CAME FROM THE BARNES & NOBLE AT THIRD AND 54TH STREET!! I'M NOT GOING BACK THERE!!!! (New word: BARNES & NOBHELL, cf. A-O-HELL. "To be caught in an infinite, hellish loop of Barnes & Noble stores trying to get your damn book.") "...there's a Barnes & Noble at Fifth and 48th Street..." I went to the Barnes & Noble at Fifth and 48th Street. It was out of stock. I was told to check upstairs in the art section, and maybe there'd be a copy. There was. Only a three-store Barnes & Nobhell. Gross has this on page 16: So as (Cindy) Crawford sat around Demarchelier's studio that day, she wasn't just a model but a supermodel. The term itself wasn't new (it had first been used in the 1940s by Clyde Matthew Dessner, the owner of a small model agency), but the phenomenon was. This would put "supermodel" even closer to "Superman." However, "top model" and "high fashion model" would be used until "supermodel's" rise in the 1970s. Gross gave no footnote, but Dessner wrote a 1948 book called SO YOU WANT TO BE A MODEL! I knew what would be next at the New York Public Library. Once upon a time, you could actually go to the Annex and get your books the same day! I handed in the call slips. "You have to take this to Science and Business on 34th Street and Madison...this is at the Schomburg Library on 135th Street...this is at the Annex. Your book will come next week. Speak to a librarian." Next week--if it's on the shelf!!