Lawrence E. Spivak
Art Neuendorffer
<<In 1945, while editing the [The American Mercury] magazine, Lawrence
E. Spivak created a radio program called American Mercury Presents
Meet the Press.
.
Brought to television on November 6, 1947, the show shed the first
three words of its name -- and remains *the single longest-running news
program in television* , a fixture on NBC every Sunday.
------------------------------------------
[Near] Mercury TRANSIT on 5 Nov 1947 14:41
was the start of this Mercury TRANSIT series:
.
TRANSIT starts at 7 Nov 1960 14:33
TRANSIT ends at 7 Nov 1960 19:13
.
TRANSIT starts at 10 Nov 1973 7:47
TRANSIT ends at 10 Nov 1973 13:18
.
TRANSIT starts at 13 Nov 1986 1:42
TRANSIT ends at 13 Nov 1986 6:32
--------------------------------------------------
Wed 1947 Nov 5 21:45 UTC
.
. Right Distance From 47°N 7°E:
. Ascension Declination (AU) Altitude Azimuth
Sun 14h 40m 42s -15° 37.9' 0.991 -53.437 141.503 Set
Mercury 14h 40m 42s -15° 57.0' 0.674 -53.723 141.267 Set
------------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_the_Press
.
<<Meet the Press is a weekly American television news/interview
program produced by NBC. It started as a radio show in 1945 as
American Mercury Presents: Meet the Press, created and produced by
Lawrence E. Spivak, and first broadcast over the Mutual Broadcasting
System. Meet the Press made its television debut on November 6, 1947.
It is now the longest-running television show in worldwide
broadcasting history. Meet the Press is the highest rated of the
American television Sunday morning talk shows, although its ratings
are less than CBS News Sunday Morning, which airs in the same time
slot in most markets.>>
-------------------------------------------------------------
<<Lawrence Edmund Spivak (June 11, 1900 - March 9, 1994) was an
American publisher and journalist who was best known as the host of
NBC's Meet the Press from 1965 to 1975, a program he produced and co-
created with original host Martha Rountree. Prior to his assuming the
moderator's chair, he served on the panel, while Ms. Rountree, and
later Ned Brooks, moderated. When the program premiered in November
1947, Spivak was already fairly well-known as the publisher of The
American Mercury, which was then a still relatively mainstream
conservative publication best known as the literary home of H. L.
Mencken rather than the radically racialist publication it was to
become during its final, dying years. He also published Ellery Queen's
Mystery Magazine and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He
sold Meet the Press to NBC in 1955, keeping his roles as panelist and
producer at a salary of more than $75,000 per year. Spivak was
distinguished by his rather dapper appearance, his wardrobe usually
including a bowtie and heavy-rimmed glasses. He asked the first
question of the Meet the Press guest and then handed off to the other
journalists on the panel, which usually totaled four during his decade-
long tenure as host of the program. Spivak and his wife Charlotte
lived in the Sheraton-Park Hotel in Washington.>>
-------------------------------------------------------------
June 11, 1182 BCE, By classical tradition, Troy fell.
June 11, 1509, King Henry VIII married Katherine of Aragon.
June 11, 1572, Ben Jonson born into working-class London.
.
June 11, 1594, Sir Edmund Spenser married Elizabeth Boyle.
. His "Epithalamion" celebrated their nuptials.
.
June 11, 1687, Robinson Crusoe returns to England:
. "I arrived in England the 11th of June, in the year 1687,
. having been thirty-five years absent."
.
June 11, 1727, George I, the first of the Hanoverian monarchs
of Great Britain, died. His heart was never in his calling to the
British throne, which he came to at the age of 54.
.
June 11, 1900 Lawrence E. Spivak born
-------------------------------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellery_Queen
.
<<"As an anthologist, Ellery Queen is without peer, his taste
unequalled. As a bibliographer and a collector of the detective short
story, Queen is, again, an historical personage. Indeed, Ellery Queen
clearly is, after Poe, the most important American of mystery
fiction."
.
Ellery Queen was created in 1928 when Dannay and Lee entered a writing
contest sponsored by McClure's Magazine for the best first mystery
novel. They decided to use as their collective pseudonym the same name
that they had given their detective. Inspired by the formula and style
of the Philo Vance novels by S. S. Van Dine, their entry won the
contest but, before it could be published, the magazine was sold and
the prize given to another entrant by the new owner. Undeterred, the
cousins decided to take the novel to publishers, and The Roman Hat
Mystery was published in 1929. The Roman Hat Mystery established the
basic formula: the unusual crime; the complex series of clues; the
supporting characters of Ellery's father, Inspector Richard Queen, and
his irascible assistant, Sergeant Velie; and what would become the
most famous part of the book: Ellery's "Challenge to the Reader". This
was a single page near the end of the book declaring that the reader
now had seen all the same clues Ellery had, and that only one solution
is possible. "The rare distinction of the books is that this claim is
accurate. There are problems in deduction that do really permit of
only one answer, and there are few crime stories indeed of which this
can be said."
.
The fictional detective Ellery Queen is the author of the books in
which he appears (The Finishing Stroke, 1958) and the editor of the
magazine that bears his name (The Player On The Other Side, 1963). In
the earlier novels he is a snobbish, almost priggish Harvard-educated
intellectual of independent wealth *who wore a pince-nez* and
investigated and solved crimes solely because he found them
stimulating. He derived these characteristics from his mother, the
daughter of a rich aristocratic New York family who had married
Inspector Queen, a bluff, man-in-the-street New York Irishman, and
died before the stories began. His mannerisms in the first nine or ten
novels were apparently based on those of the then-extremely popular
Philo Vance character of the same era. As time went on, however, these
mannerisms were toned down or disappeared entirely. Beginning with
Calamity Town in 1940, Ellery became much more human and often became
emotionally affected by the people in his cases, at one point quitting
detective work altogether. This is the period during which a number of
novels are set in the imaginary town of Wrightsville, and subsidiary
characters recur from story to story; Ellery seems to be relating to
the various strata of American society as an outsider.
.
The character of "Nikki Porter", who acts as Ellery's secretary and is
something of a love interest, was encountered first in the radio
series. Nikki's curiosity and/or her attempts to encourage Ellery to
work as a detective are responsible for a number of radio/film plots.
She does not appear in written stories until the final pages of There
Was An Old Woman (1943), when a character with whom Ellery has had
some flirtatious moments announces spontaneously that she's changing
her name to Nikki Porter and going to work as Ellery's secretary.
Nikki Porter appears sporadically thereafter in novels and stories,
perhaps in an attempt to link the radio/movies' character (1940-1942)
into the written canon. The character of Paula Paris, an agoraphobic
gossip columnist, is linked romantically with Ellery in novels and
short stories during the period when Ellery is said to be working in
Hollywood but does not appear in the radio series or films, and soon
vanished from the books. Ellery is not said to have had any serious
romantic interests after Nikki Porter and Paula Paris disappear from
the canon.
.
The Queen household, an apartment in New York shared by the Queens
father and son, also contains a houseboy named Djuna, at least in the
earliest novels and short stories. This young man, who may be of gypsy
origin, appears periodically in the canon, apparently ageless and
family-free, in a supporting role as cook, receiver of parcels, valet,
and as occasional minor comedy relief.>>
-------------------------------------------------------------------
*ELLERY* means *lives by the ALDER TREE* (German)
-----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.history.kessler-web.co.uk/FeaturesBritain/BritishCanterbur...
.
<<The name of the county of Kent is a derivation of Cantiaci, a
Roman name which translates as 'people of the corner [of Britain]'.
The Romans established a military base at Canterbury soon after
Claudius's invasion. They knew the Cantiaci capital as *DUROVERNUM*
Cantiacorum ? 'the walled town of the Cantiaci by the *ALDER MARSH*
'.
(Gaullish VERN => "place of ALDERS) >>
------------------------------------------
Art
Art Neuendorffer
__*VAK* : indeed, why (Slovak old)
--------------------------------------------------
<<In 1945, while editing the [The American Mercury] magazine,
American Mercury Presents Meet the Press.
.
Brought to television on November 6, 1947, the show shed the first
three words of its name -- and remains *the single longest-running
news program in television* , a fixture on NBC every Sunday.
------------------------------------------
[Near] Mercury TRANSIT on 5 Nov 1947 14:41
.
TRANSIT starts at 7 Nov 1960 14:33
TRANSIT ends at 7 Nov 1960 19:13
.
TRANSIT starts at 10 Nov 1973 7:47
TRANSIT ends at 10 Nov 1973 13:18
.
TRANSIT starts at 13 Nov 1986 1:42
TRANSIT ends at 13 Nov 1986 6:32
TRANSIT starts at 15 Nov 1999 21:11
TRANSIT ends at 15 Nov 1999 22:12
--------------------------------------------------
Wed 1947 Nov 5 21:45 UTC
.
. Right Distance From 47°N 7°E:
. Ascension Declination (AU) Altitude Azimuth
Sun 14h 40m 42s -15° 37.9' 0.991 -53.437 141.503 Set
Mercury 14h 40m 42s -15° 57.0' 0.674 -53.723 141.267 Set
------------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_the_Press
.
<<Meet the Press is a weekly American television news/interview
program produced by NBC. It started as a radio show in 1945 as
American Mercury Presents: Meet the Press, created and produced by
Lawrence E. Spivak, and first broadcast over the Mutual Broadcasting
System. Meet the Press made its television debut on November 6, 1947.
broadcasting history. Meet the Press is the highest rated of
the American television Sunday morning talk shows,
although its ratings are less than CBS News Sunday Morning,
which airs in the same time slot in most markets.>>
-------------------------------------------------------------
CBS News Sunday Morning : Freemason?
-------------------------------------------------------------
<<Lawrence Edmund Spivak (June 11, 1900 - March 9, 1994) : an
American publisher & journalist best known as the host of NBC's
Meet the Press from 1965 to 1975, a program he produced and co-
created with original host Martha Rountree. Prior to his assuming the
moderator's chair, he served on the panel, while Ms. Rountree, and
later Ned Brooks, moderated. When the program premiered
educated intellectual of independent wealth *who wore a pince-nez*
The Bran legend [Bran still means 'brain' in Welsh] describes the
figure as:
..oldest of the Celtic gods, his feet lost in the river like the roots
of the
*ALDER* [Bran's tree]. Mabinogian says he headed an expedition to
Ireland
to capture the all-healing Cauldron of Wisdom. He is as a nature-
Giant, his
head like a mountain, his eyes two lakes, there was no house large
enough
to contain him. In the battle, the Cauldron burst and Bran's head took
its
place - directing his followers to cut it off as he was dying. He told
them
it would save Britain if it were buried under the White Hill.
-----------------------------------------------------------
<<The name of the county of Kent is a derivation of CANTIACI, a
Roman name which translates as 'people of the corner [of Britain]'.
The Romans established a military base at Canterbury soon
after Claudius's invasion. They knew the CANTIACI capital
as *DUROVERNUM* CANTIACorum ?
'the walled town of the CANTIACI by the *ALDER MARSH*
'.
(Gaullish VERN => "place of ALDERS) >>
.
http://www.history.kessler-web.co.uk/FeaturesBritain/BritishCanterbur...
------------------------------------------------------------------
October 6, 1542 => Thomas Wyatt dies (father's Tower cat: Acatar)
October 6, 1573 => Henry Wriothesley born (Tower cat named Trixie)
October 6, 1576 => Roger Manners (5th Earl of Rutland) born
October 6, 1586 => Edward Manners (3rd Earl) Fotheringhay juror
October 6, 1600 => Shakspere in the CLINK?
October 6, 1621 => Registration of Othello
October 6, 1892 => Alfred Lord Tennyson dies
-----------------------------------------------------------------
<<On October 6, 1949, [The Magazine of Fantasy] was introduced with a
big splash during an invitational luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria with
Basil Rathbone as the master of ceremonies. What Boucher and McComas
were striving to reach was a literary plateau far above the pulp
plotlines and action-adventures many associated with the genre. The
story prefaces Boucher wrote were carefully calculated to pull the
reader into the first paragraphs of the stories, setting the tone
while providing background information and insights. This was one of
the magazine's more distinctive features, and some readers chose to go
through and absorb all of Boucher's prefaces before deciding which
story to read first. *ISaAC ASImoV* wrote a science column for the
magazine that ran for 399 monthly issues without a break. At the time
of the magazine's debut, *SpIVAK* was well known as the moderator-
producer of radio's American Mercury Presents: Meet the Press, in
addition to publishing the unprofitable American Mercury magazine, 30
annual mystery reprints and the profitable Ellery Queen's Mystery
Magazine, which had a 200,000 circulation. >>
---------------------------------
<<The Chicago Tribune, gave [A *CANTICLE* for Leibowitz] unusual
exposure outside the genre in a front page review in the Chicago
Tribune Magazine of Books, reviewer Edmund Fuller calling the book "an
extraordinary novel"
.
A *CANTICLE* for Leibowitz opens 600 years after 20th Century
civilization is destroyed by a global nuclear war, known as the "Flame
Deluge". The text reveals that as a result of the war there was a
violent backlash against the culture of advanced knowledge and
technology that had led to the development of nuclear weapons. During
this backlash, called the "Simplification," anyone of learning, and
eventually anyone who could even read, was likely to be killed by
rampaging mobs. Illiteracy became almost universal, and books were
destroyed en masse.
.
Isaac Edward Leibowitz had been a Jewish electrical engineer working
for the United States military. Surviving the war, he converted to
Roman Catholicism and founds a monastic order, the "Albertian Order of
Leibowitz", dedicated to preserving knowledge by hiding books,
smuggling them to safety, memorizing, and copying them. The Order's
abbey is located in the American southwestern desert, near the
military base where Leibowitz had worked before the war, on an old
road that was "a portion of the shortest route from the Great Salt
Lake to Old El Paso." Leibowitz was eventually betrayed and martyred.
Later beatified by the Roman Catholic Church, he became a candidate
for sainthood.
.
Centuries after his death, the Abbey is still preserving the
"memorabilia", the collected writings that have survived the Flame
Deluge and the Simplification, in the hope that they will help future
generations reclaim forgotten science.
.
The story is structured in three parts titled: "Fiat Homo", "Fiat
Lux", and "Fiat Voluntas Tua". The parts are separated by periods of
six centuries each.
.
. "Fiat Homo" (Let There Be Man)
.
In the 26th century, Brother Francis Gerard of Utah, a novice training
to become a monk, is sent out from the Abbey of the Albertian Order of
Leibowitz on a Lenten vigil of "penance, solitude, and silence" in the
desert. During this "vocational vigil", Francis encounters a
cantankerous, Hebrew-speaking wanderer, who points out a rock that
might help him complete the construction of his shelter. In moving the
rock, Francis discovers the entrance to an ancient fallout shelter
containing "relics", such as handwritten notes on crumbling memo pads
bearing cryptic texts like "pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels-
bring home for Emma". Brother Francis soon realizes that these notes
appear to have been written by his order's founder, the Blessed
Leibowitz.
.
The discovery of the ancient documents causes an uproar at the
monastery, as the other monks see the traveler as a miraculous sign
(or possibly even Leibowitz himself). Abbot Arkos, the head of the
monastery, worries that the discovery of so many potentially holy
relics in such a short period may cause delays in Leibowitz's
canonization process. To downplay the significance of the discovery
and prevent problematic sensationalism, he banishes Francis back to
the desert to complete his vigil; subsequently Francis's novice status
is extended an additional seven years as he regularly refuses to
unequivocally assert the discovery anything but miraculous in nature.
Francis is not allowed to take his vows until New Rome approves the
validity of the relics and begins formally advancing the case for
Leibowitz's sainthood.
.
Many years later the Abbey is visited by Monsignors Aguerra (God's
Advocate) and Flaught (the Devil's Advocate), the Church's
investigators in the case for Leibowitz's sainthood. Eventually, at
least 15 years after the discovery of the shelter, Leibowitz is
canonized, based partly on the evidence Francis discovered in the
shelter. Brother Francis is sent to New Rome (formerly St. Louis) to
represent the Order at the canonization Mass. He takes with him the
documents found in the shelter and an illumination of one of the
documents he has spent years working on. The illumination is a gift to
the Pope.
.
En route, he is robbed and his illumination stolen. Francis completes
the journey to New Rome and is granted an audience with the Pope. The
Pope comforts Francis by telling him that the loss of the illumination
was to preserve the original; therefore, the years he spent working on
it were not in vain. Given money to buy back the illumination from the
bandits who robbed him, Francis is murdered during his return trip to
the Abbey by the same men. The wanderer who pointed out the rock
discovers and buries Francis's body, and arranges to have it returned
to the Abbey for interment.
.
. "Fiat Lux" (Let There Be Light)
.
In 3174, the Albertian Order of St. Leibowitz is still preserving the
half-understood knowledge from before the Flame Deluge and the
subsequent Age of Simplification. The new Dark Age is ending, however,
and a new Renaissance is beginning. Thon Taddeo Pfardentrott, a highly
regarded secular scholar, is sent by his cousin King Hannegan of
Texarkana to the Abbey. Thon Taddeo, frequently compared to Albert
Einstein, is interested in the Order's preserved collection of
Memorabilia.
.
At the Abbey, Brother Kornhoer, a talented engineer, has just finished
work on a "generator of electrical essences", a tread-mill powered
electrical generator that powers an arc lamp. He gives credit for the
generator to work done by Thon Taddeo. After arriving at the
monastery, Thon Taddeo, by studying the Memorabilia, has made several
major "discoveries", and asks the abbot to allow the Memorabilia to be
removed to Texarkana. The Abbot Dom Paulo refuses, stating he can
continue his research at the Abbey. Before departing, the Thon
comments that it could take decades to finish analyzing the
Memorabilia.
.
Meanwhile, Hannegan makes an alliance with the kingdom of Laredo and
the neighboring, relatively civilized city-states against the threat
of attack from the nomadic warriors. Hannegan, however, is
manipulating the regional politics to effectively neutralize all of
his enemies, leaving him in control of the entire region. Monsignor
Apollo, the papal nuncio to Hannegan's court, sends word to New Rome
that Hannegan intends to attack the empire of Denver next, and that he
intends to use the Abbey as a base of operations from which to conduct
the campaign. For his actions, Apollo is executed, and Hannegan
declares loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church to be punishable by
death. The Church excommunicates Hannegan.
.
. "Fiat Voluntas Tua" (Thy Will Be Done)
.
It is the year 3781, and mankind has nuclear energy and weapons again,
as well as starships and extra-solar colonies. Two world superpowers,
the Asian Coalition and the Atlantic Confederacy, have been embroiled
in a cold war for 50 years. The Leibowitzan Order's mission of
preserving the Memorabilia has expanded to the preservation of all
knowledge.
.
This final segment begins with a press conference and reporters are
questioning the defense minister of the Atlantic Confederacy about
abnormally high levels of radiation on the "Northwest coast". They
also ask about recent rumors that both sides are assembling nuclear
weapons in space. The minister denies everything. At the Abbey, Dom
Jethras Zerchi, the current abbot, is recommending to the Church
authorities in New Rome that the Church reactivate the Quo
Peregrinatur Grex ("Whither Wanders the Flock") plans involving
"certain vehicles", contingency plans the Church has had since 3756.
Soon a "nuclear incident" occurs in the Asian Coalition city of Itu
Wan: an underground nuclear explosion has destroyed the city, and the
Atlantic Confederacy counters by firing a "warning shot" over the
South Pacific.
.
New Rome tells Zerchi to proceed with Quo Peregrinatur and plan for
departure within three days. He appoints Brother Joshua as mission
leader, telling him that this is an emergency plan for perpetuating
the Church on the colony planets in the event of a nuclear war on
Earth. The Order's Memorabilia will also accompany the mission. That
night the Atlantic Confederacy launches an assault against Asian
Coalition space platforms. The Asian Coalition responds by using a
nuclear weapon against the Confederacy capital city of Texarkana. A
ten-day cease-fire is issued by the World Court. Brother Joshua and
the space-trained monks and priests depart on a secret, chartered
flight for New Rome, hoping to leave Earth on the starship before the
cease-fire ends.
.
The Abbey offers shelter to people from the regions affected by
fallout from the nuclear attack. It is soon overrun by refugees, many
who are dying of radiation poisoning. Zerchi allows a Green Star
(government emergency response agency) hospital to set up at the
Abbey, provided they do not advise anyone to go to a "mercy
camp" (euthanasia center). A battle of wills between Zerchi and the
Green Star Doctor Cors over the morality of euthanasia ensues: Zerchi
attempts to persuade radiation victims to follow Church teachings
against euthanasia while Cors offer it as an alternative. Zerchi
revokes permission for the Green Star camp to operate from the
monastery as a result.
.
The ten-day cease-fire ends and full-scale nuclear war starts soon
after. Zerchi is hearing the confession of a local bi-cephalic woman,
Mrs. Grales, when a nuclear explosion occurs near the Abbey. He is
pinned under several tons of rock from the walls of the Abbey. The
explosion has opened up the monastery's ancient crypts, and bones are
scattered among the rocks. Before dying, Zerchi is able to work loose
a nearby skull with an arrow's shaft protruding from its forehead.
.
Joshua and the Quo Peregrinatur crew launch as the nuclear explosions
begin. Joshua, the last crew member to board the starship, knocks the
dirt from his sandals, murmuring "Sic transit mundus" ("Thus passes
the world"). As a coda, there is a final vignette depicting the
ecological aspects of the final human war: seabirds and fish succumb
to the poisonous fallout, and a shark evades death only through moving
to particularly deep water, where, it is noted, it was particularly
hungry that season.
.............................................
. Characters in A Canticle for Leibowitz
.
. "Fiat Homo"
.
* Brother Francis -- Young man originally from Utah who is a novice in
the Albertian Order of Leibowitz.
* Wanderer -- Traveler who encounters Brother Francis during his Lenten
vigil.
* Abbot Arkos -- Religious and administrative leader of the Leibowitz
Order's abbey in the 26th century.
* Monsignor Aguerra -- God's Advocate for the Leibowitz canonization
application.
* Monsignor Flaught -- Devil's Advocate for the Leibowitz canonization
application.
* The Pope -- Pope of the surviving Roman Catholic Church; New Rome is
located on the site of St. Louis, Missouri.
.
. "Fiat Lux"
.
* Thon Taddeo Pfardentrott -- Highly regarded scholar from the city-
state of Texarkana; relative of King Hannegan ("Thon" is an academic
honorific or title).
* King Hannegan -- Ruler of the rapidly rising city-state of Texarkana.
* Dom Paulo -- Abbot of the Leibowitz Order's abbey in the 32nd
century.
* Brother Kornhoer -- Leibowitzan monk with talents for science and
engineering.
* Monsignor Apollo -- Papal nuncio to Hannegan's court in Texarkana.
* Benjamin Eleazar -- Itinerant Jew who claims to have met Brother
Francis centuries before.
* The Poet -- A one-eyed vagrant who lives at the abby. He informs Dom
Paulo of the Thon's political agenda.
.
. "Fiat Voluntas Tua"
.
* Dom Jethras Zerchi-- Abbot of the Leibowitz Order's abbey in the 39th
century.
* Brother Joshua -- Monk of the Leibowitz Order, technician and former
astronaut.
* Benjamin -- Itinerant Jew.
* Doctor Cors -- Medico with the Atlantic Confederacy's emergency
response agency Green Star.
* Mrs. Grales/Rachel -- Bi-cephalic woman who frequents the Abbey,
selling tomatoes.
"Fiat Voluntas Tua", includes a debate between future Church and state
stances on euthanasia, a thematic issue representative of the larger
conflict between Church and state. Literary critic Edward Ducharme
claimed that "Miller's narrative continually returns to the conflicts
between the scientist's search for truth and the state's power."
Walter Miller, himself mentally ill for years, committed suicide
several decades after publication of his masterpiece. Just as the
Order of Leibowitz in the book could not prevent the death of
civilization on earth, the enormous success of the book could not
prevent Miller's own suicide.>>
---------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer