These are annotations for the penultimate chapter of the book Impossible Histories, which you can acquire just about anywhere, including here or your local library. No pressure on that acquisition, but these notes might make more sense with the book in hand.
p. 349
•epigraph:
…the People, who tho’ generally they are uncapable of making a Syllogism or forming an Argument, yet they can pronounce a word.
§Lord Halifax, Character of a Trimmer (1688).
•Oswald Mosley: One of these things in not like the others…
p. 350
•color photography: Arguably the two most famous photos from the Vietnam war (a young napalmed Phan Thi Kim Phuc running (Nick Ut, 1972) and the street execution of Nguyen Van Lem (Eddie Adams, 1968)) are in black and white, and I can only assume that they are in part famous because the distance b&w film gives us from the events makes them comfortable enough to be famous photos.
Before you snort at the word “comfortable,” please recall that the Monkees used footage of the execution of Nguyen Van Lem as part of a joke in their movie Head. It’s a good joke, and it makes a decent satirical point, but it’s still a snuff film, and would it have been included in Head if it were in color?
•One theory on the fall of the British Empire: I got this from Brian Lapping’s End of Empire (St. Martin’s, 1990), but I’ve long since donated the book to Housing Works, and it seemed wasteful to purchase a new copy just to confirm a reference, so I left it vague.
p. 351
•Southern Ocean: A fourth edition in 2002 was supposed to reinstate the existence of a Southern Ocean, but it never go approved. Allegedly a decades-long feud between South Korea and Japan over the correct name of the Sea of Japan…excuse me, the East Sea…has derailed things indefinitely, to the extent that the IHO is considering replacing all names with code numbers so boring that no one will want to fight about them. Is this true?
•the power of words: Here’s another example. What are the racial demographics of the US? African-Americans make up about 13% of the population; but “African-American” in this context means someone who self-identifies as African-American, which generally entails having 28–100% African heritage. If you’re 72% white, you’re black. Now, the average African-American is 24% European. We’re dealing in rough averages here, but it’s still pretty clear how loose these definitions are. If we, as a country, decided that people who were three-quarters black were white—the way we now believe people who are three quarters white are black—almost half of African-Americans would disappear. They wouldn’t go anywhere but they’d disappear as African-Americans. Halle Berry would no longer be the first black woman to win a Best Actress Oscar; she’d just be, ho hum, another white actress who won the Best Actress Oscar; Barak Obama, the 44th white president. [Katarzyna Bryc et al., “The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans Across the United States”; AJHG, Vol. 96, Issue 1, Jan. 2015.]
p. 361
•epigraph:
Ngu Minh Khanh’s face hardened as he glared at Van An and said, “All right! That’s fine! Perhaps you want to savor the full range of our American techniques of punishment! Splendid! Take him away and turn the heat on!” Two side-kicks came in and dragged Van An away.
The enemy used many different forms of torture on Van An but they could get nothing out of him.
§Li Biyang, “Letters from the South” (1965).
This is a Maoist propaganda comic, which I got from the excellent collection (edited in part by Umberto Eco (?!)) The People’s Comic Book (Anchor, 1973).
p. 364
•the ’60s youth movement: I’m sorry for picking on Boomers this much. I blame Oedipus.
•Monkees had started out silly but: This is of course the movie Head mentioned above.
p. 365
•Everyone assumed that World War II was serious: Spike Jones’s 1944 “Leave the Dishes in the Sink” is a good example of an utterly frivolous and silly song that effortlessly becomes something serious when you realize that the reason for the jubilation is the return of a son from the war. If the song had been released in 1972, it would have had a tedious explanation attached, making sure everyone listening apprehended the gravity of the situation.
In 1945 Syd “Danny and the Dinosaur” Hoff released an entire collection of cartoons about returning vets, and the entire book is funny and serious and charming, without ever stopping to explain why the funny and charming parts are serious. The weisenheimer dedication of the book reads: “The author is bitterly ungrateful to World War II for the ideas in this book.”
Meanwhile (in contrast) a Vietnam-era book of army poetry contains, as part of a ponderous six-page introduction, observations such as: “War has its scatology, even its hilarity at times. This young poet enjoys his joke as much as any man. But the manifestation of the ultimate obscenity…is beyond either tears or laughter…”
[Hoff, Mom, I’m Home (Doubleday, Doran, 1945) p. v; Michael Casey, Obscenities (Yale UP, 1972) p. xi.]
p. 366
•Phil Ochs literally couldn’t have recorded a hit to save his life: Quite literally, sadly. “Fifty Phil Ochs fans can’t be wrong.”
