The handsome former Astor Library on Lafayette Street

One of my favorite buildings in all New York is the former Astor Library on Lafayette Street in Greenwich Village. Now the Public Theater, it is a superb example of the nineteenth-century German neo-romantic Rundbogenstil (“round-arch-style”) and one of the few remnants of that style in New York. The Astor Library was the legacy of John Jacob Astor, whose will provided for its establishment. Late in the nineteenth century, the Astor Library agreed to merge with the Lenox Library and the Tilden Trust to form the New York Public Library, one of the greatest libraries in the history of civilization. The building was bought by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society who tore out the book stacks and used it as a processing station for needy newcomers. In 1965, the HIAS sold it on to a developer who planned to demolish it, but, through a massive civic effort, Joseph Papp and his New York Shakespeare Festival purchased the building and turned it into the Public Theater.

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Russian traditionalist, Nobel laureate, feted in the West for criticism of Soviet Communism, then spurned for rejecting liberal materialism

Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, the most famous Russian writer and historian of our age, has died at eighty-nine years of age. Solzhenitsyn was the earliest to bring first-hand knowledge of the Gulag, the Soviet system of prison colonies and labour camps, to wider Western attention. For this noble task, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 and expelled from the Soviet Union four years later, returning in 1994. After the fall of the Soviet regime, he despised Boris Yeltsin’s incompetence, identifying 1998 as the low point of Russia’s recent history. “Yeltsin decreed I be honored the highest state order,” Solzhenitsyn explained. “I replied that I was unable to receive an award from a government that had led Russia into such dire straits.”

He gave cautious support to the presidency of Vladimir Putin, and was pleased that while, in his words, “Moscow is still communist”, there was a growing readiness under Putin to admit (and even broadcast on state television) the crimes and outrages of the Soviet regime.

“Putin inherited a ransacked and bewildered country, with a poor and demoralized people. And he started to do what was possible — a slow and gradual restoration. These efforts were not noticed, nor appreciated, immediately. In any case, one is hard pressed to find examples in history when steps by one country to restore its strength were met favorably by other governments.”

Influenced by his experience in exile in both Switzerland and New England, Solzhenitsyn insisted on the need for local self-government in Russia. “Today I continue to be extremely worried by the slow and inefficient development of local self-government. But it has finally started to take place. In Yeltsin’s time, local self-government was actually barred on the regulatory level, whereas the state’s ‘vertical of power’ (i.e. Putin’s centralized and top-down administration) is delegating more and more decisions to the local population. Unfortunately, this process is still not systematic in character.”

Solzhenitsyn expressed further disappointment with the new Western imperialism being waged against Russia, embodied in the 1999 War against Serbia which turned so many Russian minds against the Western powers they had previously been quite friendly to.

In a recent interview with Der Spiegel, Solzhenitsyn was asked whether he was afraid of death:

“No, I am not afraid of death any more. When I was young the early death of my father cast a shadow over me — he died at the age of 27 — and I was afraid to die before all my literary plans came true. But between 30 and 40 years of age my attitude to death became quite calm and balanced. I feel it is a natural, but no means the final, milestone of one’s existence.”

When the interviewer from Der Spiegel wished him many more years of “creative life”, Solzhenitsyn calmly responded “No, no. Don’t. It’s enough.”

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The German edition of Le monde diplomatique underwent a complete overhaul not too long ago. Unlike the main French edition of Le monde diplo, which exhibits the exact style of a French newspaper of mediocre design circa 1996, the German edition now exudes a certain calm and composed modernity. The redesign is the work of the German typographer and designer Erik Spiekermann, whom the Royal Society have named a Royal Designer for Industry (entitling him to an HonRDI after his name; only “hon” because he is not a British subject). Mr. Spiekermann was responsible for the much-lauded redesign of The Economist, the magazine you read when the airport lounge doesn’t have a copy of The Spectator.

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IT IS AN age-old question: what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? The force in question is the farming community of Argentina, once among the agricultural powerhouses of the world, and the object is the country’s slippery presidential couple, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her husband (and predecessor in the top job) Néstor Kirchner. From all the way back in March, the Kirchners have been locked in a bitter dispute with the farming sector of the country since the presidential couple unilaterally imposed a massive tax on soy exports.

The Kirchners deride the farmers as “oligarchs” and claim that the exorbitant tax on one of Argentina’s most successful commercial sectors will be redistributed to the poor. Of course it would be irresponsible to simply take from the haves and give to the have-nots; the money raised would only go to the deserving poor, namely those who happen to support the Kirchner regime. Along the way, every cog in the machine will take his fair share, with a respectable amount left over to fatten the calves (metaphorically speaking) of the Kirchnerite street operators who quite openly buy votes during election time and pay union members to show up at pro-government rallies in between.

Argentine farmers protesting the Kirchner soy tax.

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The Chancellor of Germany is seen here worriedly admiring the pickelhaubed cavalry on her state visit to Colombia. Such elements of tradition, widespread in South America, are unofficially but totally banned in Germany.

Well, it looks like they’ve done it: the SNP have slashed a Labour majority of over 13,000 to win the parliamentary seat of Glasgow East with a new Nationalist majority of just 365 votes. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats came third and fourth, but with 1,693 and 915 votes respectively, this was very much a two-pony race between Labour’s Margaret Curran (above, left) and the SNP’s John Mason (above, right).

While Glasgow East is deep in the heart of Labour territory, pundits were saying this was going to be a close one. The defection of Catholics is likely to have played a significant role in Labour’s defeat. In the past year, Labour have legalized the creation of animal-human hybrids as well as siblings designed solely for the harvesting of their organs, and this campaign has been vociferously opposed by Catholics around the Union. Mr. Mason made sure to thank those who had prayed for him in his victory speech.

“This is an absolutely remarkable result,” said Angus Robertson, SNP leader at Westminster, “it’s Labour’s third-safest seat — rock-solid territory. Now it’s over. People have had enough and Gordon Brown had better listen because at the next Westminster election the SNP is coming.”

This is the second “safe” Labour seat lost in a by-election in just three months.

Pope Benedict XVI reviews the guard after being received by Maj. Gen. Jeffery, the Governor-General of Australia.

Russia remembers the murdered Tsar St. Nicholas II & his family

Christians in Russia yesterday solemnly remembered the brutal killing of the country’s Imperial Family by the Bolshevik revolutionaries 90 years earlier. Tsar Nicholas II, the Tsarina Alexandra, their daughters the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, and the Tsarevich Alexei have all been added to the canon of saints of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Imperial Family were first officially recognized as saints by the Russian Orthodox Church outside the Soviet Union in 1981, and the Moscow patriarchate extended the same recognition in 2000.

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Ex-hostage gives thanks at Marian shrine during its 150th year

Ingrid Betancourt has travelled to the Shrine of the Blessed Virgin at Lourdes in France to give thanks for her liberation from years of captivity as a hostage of the FARC. Alongside her mother, son, and daughter, Ms. Betancourt also offered prayers on behalf of those prisoners who are still held hostage by the FARC guerrillas.

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TIME magazine, 26 October 1942

In the ornate Paz family crypt in Buenos Aires’ comfortable La Recoleta cemetery, honors came thick last week to the late José Clemente Paz, founder of Argentina’s La Prensa. The Argentine Government issued a special commemorative postage stamp. Nationwide collections were taken to erect a monument. U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull sent a laudatory cable, as did many another foreign notable. It was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Argentina’s most famous journalist.

Although Don José has been dead for 30 years, the newspaper he founded 73 years ago has not changed much. La Prensa is THE Argentine newspaper, is one of the world’s ten greatest papers.

Polish, Curiosity, Comics.

A cross between the London Times and James Gordon Bennett’s old New York Herald, La Prensa is unlike any other newspaper anywhere. In its fine old building the rooms are lofty and spiced with the odor of wax polish, long accumulated. Liveried flunkies pass memoranda and letters from floor to floor on an old pulley and string contraption. But high-speed hydraulic tubes whip copy one mile from the editorial room to one of the world’s most modern printing plants—more than adequate to turn out La Prensa’s 280,000 daily, 430,000 Sunday copies.

Argentines are minutely curious about the world. Although newsprint (from the U.S.) is scarce, La Prensa usually carries 32 columns of foreign news—more than any other paper in the world. Four years ago most was European—today New York or Washington has as many datelines as London.

La Prensa’s front page is solid (save for a small box for important headlines) with classified ads. So, usually, are the following six pages—one reason the paper nets a million dollars or more annually. Lately La Prensa has made some concessions to modernity: it now carries two comic strips, occasional news pictures.

Deliveries, Duels, Discussions.

La Prensa will not deliver the paper to a politician’s office; he must have it sent to his home. It will not call for advertising copy. No local staffman has ever had a byline.

South American journalism is more hazardous than the North American brand. La Prensa’s publisher and principal owner, Ezequiel Pedro Paz, Don José’s son, has twice been challenged to a duel. Because he is a crack pistol shot, neither duel was fought. Now over 70, Don Ezequiel shows up at the paper punctually at 5 p.m. for the daily editorial conference with Editor-in-Chief Dr. Rodolfo N. Luque. Present also is his nephew and heir-apparent, handsome Alberto Gainza (“Tito”) Paz, 43, father of eight and ex-Argentine open golf champion. Significantly, La Prensa’s owner-publishers visit their editor-in-chief and not vice versa.

La Prensa’s foreign affairs editorials often wield great influence, but have not budged the isolationism of President Ramón Castillo. The paper has supported Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, pumped for the United Nations, denounced the totalitarians. But it speaks softly. When Argentina’s President Castillo gagged the press with a decree forbidding editorial discussions of foreign events, admirers of Don José recalled how he once suspended publication in protest at another Argentine President’s like decree. If old Don José were now alive, declared they, he would again have stopped La Prensa’s presses rather than submit to Castillo’s regulations. — TIME, Oct. 26, 1942

TIME magazine, 16 July 1934

Prensa Presses

On the roof of the imposing La Prensa building in Buenos Aires’ wide Avenida de Mayo is a large siren. Its piercing screech, audible for miles, heralds the break of hot news. Long ago a city ordinance was passed forbidding use of the siren and the publishers rarely sound it nowadays. But when some world-shaking event takes place, La Prensa’s horn shrills and a Prensa office boy trots downtown to pay the fine before its echo has died away.

Last week the fingers of La Prensa’s acting publisher, Dr. Alberto Gainza Paz, itched to push the siren button. There was much to celebrate. Not only was it Nueve de Julio, Argentina’s Independence Day, but potent old La Prensa was formally inaugurating a new $3,000,000 printing plant, finest in South America. Its holiday edition ran to 725,000 copies— 150,000 more than its previous record.

The plant is housed in a new building a half mile from the main office, in the rent-cheap industrial district. It is linked to the editorial rooms by pneumatic tubes. The installation includes a 21-unit Hoe press similar to that of the New York World-Telegram. The press is driven by 56 motors, is fed by 63 rolls of newsprint and two six-ton tanks of ink. A normal edition of 250,000 copies (400,000 Sunday) is spewed out in considerably less than an hour. Since Buenos Aires is so far from the Canadian pulp market, La Prensa keeps on hand up to 7,500 tons of newsprint, enough to supply its needs for three months or, in emergency, to produce a smaller paper for a year.

Completion of the new plant marked the almost complete retirement of La Prensa’s publisher and principal owner, Don Ezequiel P. Paz. Son of the late Dr. José C. Paz, who turned out the first copy of La Prensa 65 years ago on a tiny hand press, Don Ezequiel started to work around the shop as a youngster in 1896, took full charge while still a young man. He devoted his life completely to his newspaper, spent nearly all his waking hours in his incredibly ornate office, denied himself to practically all callers except his editors. Past 60, of nervous temperament, he lives nearly half the year at his French estate near Biarritz. On his transatlantic trips he customarily takes a large party of relatives, and for the sake of his diet, a cow. The cow makes the round trip but must be sacrificed in sight of her native land because of Argentina’s rigid quarantine against all imported cattle. Don Ezequiel sailed for Biarritz last month, regarding the new plant as perhaps the last important milestone in his publishing career. Childless, he turned his responsibilities over to his nephew, youthful Dr. Alberto Gainza Paz, whom he carefully tutored as he himself had been trained by Founder José. So puny in boyhood that he was not expected to live. Dr. Gainza made of himself one of the foremost amateur athletes in Buenos Aires.

Beyond dispute La Prensa is the leading newspaper in South America, is read throughout the continent. Sternly independent, it truckles to no political party, even refuses to accept political advertising on the ground that if any politician is really as good as he claims, he is legitimate news and will be reported accordingly.

To U. S. newsreaders, a typical copy of La Prensa is a curious sight. Prime headlines are massed in a six-column box on the front page, which is otherwise filled with classified advertisements. The “classifieds” run through the next six pages and supply the wherewithal for Publisher Paz’s proud boast that La Prensa is independent of large commercial advertisers. The news pages begin with a lengthy, learned article which most readers skip, but which is supposed to wield strong influence in high places. The news columns proper are top-heavy with foreign news. Probably no other newspaper in the world spends so much money on cable tolls—a fact partly due to Argentina’s cosmopolitan population. La Prensa demands important political speeches in full. It “discovered” Albert Einstein for the world press by first requesting United Press to interview him on his theory of relativity 15 years ago. After La Prensa printed it, U. P. decided to try Einstein on its U. S. clients. La Prensa gives any amount of space to amateur sports, demands play-by-play coverage on important chess matches, but refused Argentina’s Prizefighter Luis Firpo more than the barest mention even at the height of his popularity. It prints voluminous market news, lottery drawings, crossword puzzles, no comics except on Sunday. Its newsphotos are rare and inferior. On Sunday it offers rotogravure in color.

Employing no advertising salesmen, La Prensa never solicited an advertisement. Until a few years ago it would not permit advertisers to use large display type. It rejected a substantial Wrigley campaign because it hesitated to introduce the gum-chewing habit to Argentina. It saw no sense in a Quaker Oats breakfast food advertising program because Argentinians do not eat breakfast. However, La Prensa does print many an advertisement of doctors specializing in venereal diseases. La Prensa is one of the wealthiest newspapers in the world. The Paz family took from it enough to live in ease, plowed back huge sums for improvements and. notably, social services. One of the oldest services is a general delivery postal service, begun after the great immigration of the 1860’s when the Argentine post office proved hopelessly inadequate. To this day a letter addressed care of La Prensa will reach any Argentinian of known residence. Also La Prensa maintains free medical and surgical clinics for the poor, free legal service, and a free three-year music school. Its building houses banquet rooms, lecture halls, library, gymnasium.

The Paz family likes to regard La Prensa as Argentina’s property, themselves as hired managers. — TIME, July 16, 1934

CUSACK’S NOTE: La Prensa was confiscated by Peron’s dictatorship and its assets given to the Peronist CGT trade union. The family’s assets were restituted in 1988 and the newspaper refounded, but its readers had by then moved elsewhere and the La Prensa continues to this day in a much reduced form; its old headquarters on the Avenida de Mayo is now the Casa de la Cultura. The conservative La Nacion is now the only broadsheet in Argentina.

The ceremonial Changing of the Guard takes place at Rideau Hall, Canada’s viceregal palace, and Parliament Hill during the warmer months of the year. I recall with great fondness a summer trip to Ottawa when I was but a little boy and watching the Changing of the Guard on the green in front of the splendidly gothic parliament buildings. I instantly wanted to become a Canadian soldier, and pondered how many chocolate bars I could hide in the bearskin cap of a red-tunic’d guardsman. (Needless to say, I have not become a Canadian soldier, but Sa Majesté need only call and I would be at her service).

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“Oom Paul” Kruger’s thoughts on the circumnavigation of the globe

Joshua Slocum was a native of Nova Scotia who became an adventurer, seaman, and writer of some reknown in his time, and is perhaps best known both for his mysterious death and for being the first person to single-handedly circumnavigate the planet. Capt. Slocum published his memoirs of this trip in his 1899 book, Sailing Alone Across the World and one of the delightful little tales relayed is of the Captain’s docking at Durban in Natal and his journey inland to Pretoria in the Transvaal:

At Pretoria I met Mr. Kruger, the Transvaal president. His Excellency received me cordially enough; but my friend Judge Beyers, the gentleman who presented me, by mentioning that I was on a voyage around the world, unwittingly gave great offense to the venerable statesman, which we both regretted deeply.

Mr. Kruger corrected the judge rather sharply, reminding him that the world is flat. “You don’t mean round the world,” said the president; “it is impossible! You mean in the world. Impossible!” he said, “impossible!” and not another word did he utter either to the judge or to me. The judge looked at me and I looked at the judge, who should have known his ground, so to speak, and Mr. Kruger glowered at us both.

My friend the judge seemed embarrassed, but I was delighted; the incident pleased me more than anything else that could have happened. It was a nugget of information quarried out of Oom Paul, some of whose sayings are famous. Of the English he said, “They took first my coat and then my trousers.” He also said, “Dynamite is the corner-stone of the South African Republic.” Only unthinking people call President Kruger dull.

— Chapter XVIII, Sailing Alone Around the World, by Joshua Slocum

I agree entirely with Capt. Slocum’s conclusion.

While his views on geography may not have been strictly orthodox, President Kruger is honored with an imposing monument in the Kerkplein, the central square of Pretoria, now the capital of all South Africa, not just the Transvaal. The President’s statue rests in an enviable position between two of the most handsome edifices in all of South Africa:

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The Fourth of July, we are told, is a day for celebrating the love of one’s country. Robert Harrington and I were sitting around one evening when we decided to found a guerrilla group. First, it needed a name; Front pour la libération de notre terre sacrée Amérique (or the FLNTSA) was a runner-up but we settled on the Village Green Preservation Society. Frowning upon the camouflage fatigues of most groups of this nature, we decided that our uniform would consist of tweed jackets, flat caps, and balaclavas.

But as our conversation continued we discovered, to our chagrin, that though we thought we were both from the United States of America, we were actually from entirely different countries. Robbo’s country is the nicer, rather horsey part of New Jersey near Princeton, whereas my homeland is mostly the part of New York between the Hudson and the Sound. We discovered we were fighting for the preservation of entirely different Village Greens, and that ma terre sacrée Amérique was entirely different from sa terre sacrée Amérique.

This is one of the problems of a “country” as large as the United States. I love my country, but what do I care about Montana or Texas or Alaska? I wish them well, to be sure, but they hardly seem to have much to do with my country. I once started to read a scaremongering article about the growing Mexicanization of California but I had to put it down after a few paragraphs because it didn’t seem to be anything I had to worry about. If southern California secedes and tries to join Mexico, well good for them! I’ll send them a bottle of champagne and get back in my hammock.

In The Napoleon of Notting Hill, Chesterton wrote:

In that spirit, I present to you below a map of my country, from Sleepy Hollow in the north, to Governors Island in the south. It is a mere approximation, as the borders are both indefinite and ever-shifting. Though highly populated, it is a bit on the small side, and I think I agree with Chesterton that that’s a good thing.

WHAT BETTER WAY to celebrate this, the feast of St. John the Baptist and the national day of Quebec, than to bring you news of the reëstablishment of the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean. The site in the town of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu was first put to a military use in 1666 when the French soldiers of the Carignan-Salières Regiment. The Collège militaire royal, however, was only founded in 1952 when it was inaugurated by the Rt. Hon. Vincent Massey, CC, CH, GCStJ, CD, PC as a classical college to increase the number of French-speaking officers in the Army, the Royal Canadian Navy, and the Royal Canadian Air Force.

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We are of the opinion that the more publications, the merrier, and so we certainly welcome the foundation of the Primera Revista Latinoamerican de Libros. The PRL, which is a sort of Hispanic version of the TLS, started printing last September and is based right here in New York. The bimonthly is published in Spanish but reviews both books that are printed in Spanish and books printed in English. Again, like the TLS, it is not limited to book reviews but features other literary essays as well.

The head honcho at the PRL is Fernando Gubbins, who has earned a master’s degree in Public Affairs from Columbia here in New York and a philosophy degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. Mr. Gubbins previously edited the opinion & editorial section of the Peruvian newspaper Expreso, and has worked with the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Not being a hispanophone, I am not qualified to render judgement on the quality of the publication’s content, the PRL in print is well designed and has a very traditional but modern feel to it, and it was a pleasure flicking through its pages. The Primera Revista is a welcome addition to the literary world of New York, and of Latin America.

New Spain never looked so good as in the 2004 film of Thornton Wilder’s novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey. This is no doubt partly because it wasn’t filmed in New Spain but in Old Spain (specifically in Toledo and Málaga).

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At the Queen’s Birthday Parade on Saturday, the colour was trooped by none other than a friend of mine and fellow St. Andrean who is now an officer in the Welsh Guards. He is seen here, at right, in the costume of Field Marshal the Earl Haig (sometime Lord Rector and then Chancellor of the University of St Andrews) for the annual Kate Kennedy Procession.

The Daily Telegraph shows us a number of photos taken by Alfred Buckham, an aerial photographer of the 1920s. Buckham was introduced to the art during his time with the aerial reconnaissance branch of the Royal Naval Air Service in the First World War.

The images themselves are composite photographs combining actual aerial views of cities and landmarks throughout Great Britain with views of the aircraft of the day flying through the skies.

As the Telegraph notes, Buckham “eschewed safety devices, saying: ‘I have used a safety belt only once, and then it was thrust upon me. I always stand up to make an exposure and, taking the precaution to tie my right leg to the seat, I am free to move about rapidly'”.

A new book on Buckham, A Vision of Flight: The Aerial Photography of Alfred G. Buckham, has just been written by Celia Ferguson, and is published by The History Press.

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In my carelessness last week, I mistakenly wrote that the presidential guard in Buenos Aires are the “Patricios” regiment, when (as Cruz y Fierro corrected me) it is actually the Regiment of Horse Grenadiers. The First Regiment of Infantry “Patricios” (literally “Patricians”) is the oldest regiment in the Argentine Army and predates by ten years the country’s Declaration of Independence. It was first assembled as the “Legion of Volunteer Urban Patricians” in 1806 to repel the English invasions of that year.

In these two photos you can see the “Patricios” performing the somewhat-rare ceremony of the changing of the guard at the Cabildo, across the Plaza de Mayo from the Casa Rosada.

andrewcusack.com: Argentina

Instagram: @andcusack

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