Books and St. Joseph's Table

Welcome to a Family Tradition!

Today I want to introduce some of you to a long held tradition in some Sicilian-American families: the Feast of St. Joseph. Now, I'm not a Catholic, but this has never stopped me from entertaining or being entertained on such a holiday. St. Joseph's Day falls not far from its more popular step-sibling, St. Patrick's Day, on March 19th. There is a great and rich history behind this saintly day. According to a mix of legend and Church history, at some point during the middle ages (or simply, "A long, long time ago..."), there had been a serious drought. St. Joseph (San Giuseppe) had been asked to intercede and prevent famine, which had been caused by a harsh lack of rain and low crop yields. Those who know or who've been to southern Italy and Sicily will know then that it is a ruggedly arid place, with little or no rain most of the time.

After the people had asked St. Joseph to intercede and stop the drought, the rain finally came. The crop which had help to stave off a major famine was the fava bean. So, to this very day, when you go to a St. Joseph's day festival, you will be given a little red bag (red is the color of the day, and you will see many people wearing it!) in which you will find some fava beans and a little necklace piece with the image of a saint on it--usually the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM). In the picture here, one will see two of these little red bags and some "Keep This Coupon" tickets, which were part of the annual raffle. In the past, we've won some sort of holiday gift: a candle with a saint on it, a basket of fruits, or some other treat. Or my all time favorite: a fine 17-inch, hand-crafted statue of the great San Giuseppe himself!

Now one question for some of you is: "so you're not Catholic--then why do you go to a Saint's Day celebration at a Catholic Church?" That's a good question. It actually starts in some way with the celebration itself. Half of my family comes from Sicily. They mostly came over in the 1950s, including my father and grandparents. This was one of the key holidays they celebrated in Sicily. So when they came to the United States, their community, which had been transplanted to northern New Jersey, started a club for their hometown in Sicily--the Santa Croce Camerina club. Every year, when I was growing up, we attended the celebrations of the St. Joseph's Table, which included a big ritual of visiting a church hall or maybe even some hall in the Santa Croce club, with a great stage--this was the bountiful table of St. Joseph. It looked like a magnificent altar, and was decorated with candles, statues, and a whole spread of baked goods, which commemorated the salvation from famine.

In New Jersey, the event was quite sizable, and the table's baked good ranged from zeppole (cream-puff treats) to spinach pies to the most gigantic homemade breads, knotted and braided into life-preserver rings, and implanted with hard-boiled eggs and parsley. I recall some of these breads being as large as the lid of a garbage can or even a circular table-top. And I always wondered "what kind of stove did they have to bake such a large loaf!" Toward the end of the event, there would always be some sort of auction or raffle--as there's been at the church in Little Italy in Chicago, Our Lady of Pompeii, where I've gone for the past few years. In New Jersey, though, it was an over-the-top event, which ended up becoming a "show-fest" of how much more money you could spend on a spinach pie than the next guy. In truth, it was not uncommon for someone to bid $100, $200, or even $500 for some baked good!

Coming from an immigrant family and culture myself, we might recognize the need and desire to make money and do better than the opportunities offered in the country of origin. My family worked in factories here in the US after they arrived. They saved their money and spent frugally. But when it came to holidays, feast days, and special occasions, it was all show and ostentation. All the stops were pulled. One could speculate with some degree of accuracy about why so many 1st, 2nd, and even 3rd generation Italians and other immigrant groups in New Jersey and greater New York area have such lavish parties, and especially weddings: it is a remnant of the old saints days. You work, work, work, and have little, but when it comes time to celebrate, you celebrate in style, to forget for a short moment in your days and lives that you're working so hard. Parties for 50th birthdays, 25th anniversaries, "Sweet 16", and weddings are extremely ornate, and cost big bucks.

A distant cousin, who was married not too long ago, had a wedding that cost ~$200 a plate. Most people I know can't afford this. But the murmuring family members all spoke about how much more they did than another cousin...whose wedding might have cost a mere $150 a plate! So it is with examples like this that we see the contrasts and perhaps paradoxes of envy and awe, desire and disregard. Each immigrant family is made to be in awe of such materiality, made to be surprised, but with such they are also reminded of their own short-comings and lack of wealth; or at least, comparable wealth. But this should not derail or downplay the value of the St. Joseph's Table. Even though many in my family no longer attend their annual saints day celebration, because of this ostentation (partly, because one extremely wealthy patron buys up most of the goods and ultimately turns off the rest of the community), I still find some renewed interest in its culturality.

My brother and I used to joke about an incident we witnessed at one San Giuseppe event many years ago, in New Jersey. Part of the St. Joseph's day celebration includes the parading of the statue of St. Joseph from the local Catholic church to the assembly hall where the Table is located. On one such occasion, the procession was led by a Gucci-wearing priest named Gino, whose charm and style seemed to outweigh his spiritual direction. Following him and his attendants was an octet of burly Sicilian men, clean shaven, in grey and black double-breasted suits. The eight of them were carrying this massive 6-foot statue of St. Joseph on some beams across their shoulders. They walked haltingly and with some trouble. The statue must have been extremely heavy, as the veins of these men were popping along bright red and perspiration-beading foreheads.

As they went to maneuver into the assembly area where the St. Joseph's Table was, they could not open the double door. One, two, three of them stopped and bent over to unlock the clamp at the base of the door. Only after a few minutes did someone realize that there was a lock at the top of the door that needed to be undone! At which point, my brother turned to me and joked "How many Sicilians does it take to open a door?" The answer was: "Eight...and one St. Joseph." So, that was the image I had always emblazoned in my mind for this holiday. In Chicago...it was a bit different. A few years after I'd first come to Chicago, I'd somehow come across some information about a St. Joseph's Table and celebration. It was at a church in the old Little Italy, just off Taylor Street. So, I found the church and attended the mass, before queuing up in line for the buffet-style luncheon. At the end of the service, there was a procession of congregants to the assembly hall where the table was. But unlike the bulky middle-aged Sicilians carrying a 2-ton statue of St. Joseph, it was a line of 4 or 5 young girls dressed finely in deep red sweaters, no older than 10 or 11, carrying several little statuettes of St. Joseph! What a surprise! And what a difference!

At first I thought, "I'm being cheated of the real experience of the day!" But the fact is, it was simply another version of St. Joseph's day and his bountiful table. I'd been used to a family and community tradition, where the entirety of that community back in New Jersey was actually from Sicily. People were still speaking in dialect at functions held at the club there. The culture of Sicily was still very alive. Here in Chicago, it's hard to say if anyone was Sicilian, though many were certainly Italian. Several were of southern Italian stock, but very few spoke any Italic language or dialect, at least that I discerned. Last year I met an old Italian man from Calabria. He spoke Italian, and only Italian! No English. So I practiced a little and spoke to him in Italian. In the handful of years I've now attended, it seems as if the community is largely Italian-American, but maybe 3rd or 4th generation, with a few exceptions. The church seems to also be diversifying and has a community of Filipino and Hispanic families, among others. So, this year, I made a few more friends. My family and I got to the event on time, but had to wait in line for an hour. But that was okay, because the church folks brought out slices of freshly baked pizza and plastic cups full of rosé wine. I sipped the sweet wine in the cool air, talked to people, and looked at the pigeons congregating around the front of the church. Inside, I went down the line of the buffet collecting a pile of home-cooked white fish, spaghetti, greens and potatoes, and the necessary hard roll. It was loud and chaotic, but fun and enjoyable. We ate some sweet Sicilian treats, had some coffee, and talked the afternoon away, while the auction went on. We didn't win anything this year. And that was fine too. It was simply pleasant to partake in an event like this again.

Quietly, in the back corner of the hall, where the St. Joseph's Table was set up, there was a counter and display case full of books: yes! Books and St. Joseph. Most were about saints and such. There were a whole bunch about Padre Pio on the other side, which I didn't photograph. I don't think anyone was reading this day. They...we were all too consumed with the treats, the wine, and of course, the music. And that's how the afternoon ended, with kids, adults, and the old folks dancing to the classy tunes of 1950s and 60s Italo-Americana. Who doesn't love that! Well, nothing says tradition like an old Italian crooner, belting out the best in the Italian-American vocal medley to the delight of a young child in the shadow of fava beans, sugar cookies, and St. Joseph. God bless 'em all!

FDR Presidential Library

Welcome to the FDR Presidential Library!

On a cold and blustery winter day this past December I found the occasion to visit the FDR Presidential museum and library in Hyde Park, NY. I live in Hyde Park (Chicago), IL, so this was a small adventure in seeing how the universe replicates itself in linguistic ways...one book at a time. As with many of my visitation sites, this was one of the places I'd always known about, even many times driven by, but never actually visited. So, when the chance arose, I made my way to the fine locale, and checked out the visitors' center, museum, and research library. The campus of the presidential estate is quite large. In fact, there are many different things to visit. But there was only so much time this cold afternoon. And the tickets for each venue were considerably priced, so I chose the most apropos places to visit.

Of course, the place I was most interested in was the library. But it is not what most people might think of when you think of a library, especially a presidential library, which generally gives the sense of great size and importance. I don't mean to play it down, of course, but the FDR research library is confined to an upper room--almost an attic!--of the museum, which is itself housed in an old blue-stone style building. I had purchased my tickets for the museum, which I visited with my family. But while they were meandering about looking at various exhibits, I had requested a visit to the research library upstairs. In order to gain entrance, I had to have a research question--which I didn't at the time!--but decided to ask about FDR's relationship with the Lutheran Church, as I had some minor and ancillary interest in this topic. One of the members of the research center attended to me, bringing me up to the research room, in almost Fort Knox style: locked doors, controlled elevators, filling out documents. I finally received my "users card" to the FDR library and did a search on their database, only to find maybe two occurrences of "Lutherans" in the catalogue. Apparently, FDR met with Lutherans only over a couple of issues. At least, so the catalogue said!

Back down in the museum there were a fair number of objects which I found incredibly interesting. From personal artifacts, including a family Bible, FDR's own books, Eleanor's type-writer, to more out-of-the-ordinary objects, such at FDR's baby carriage and his leg braces, the museum was rather extraordinary. Interestingly, there was one exhibit (above) which shows a group of people, presumably during the Depression, at a book-mobile, with the caption "Human Services." I thought this was a rather remarkable photo. A few other items caught my eye: one of them was this Torah Scroll, which was given to FDR by the National Council of Young Israel. Outside of the museum, near the visitors' center, one will find this interesting bronze set of FDR and the first lady--with a table and books...bronze books!--scattered in front of them! A true "Books and Biblios" moment! The center also had a fine bookstore, which sold all sorts of items related to FDR and "FDRana." Admittedly, I could have gotten a mug on this day with the face of ol' FDR embossed on it. But I simply settled for the opportunity to find another book-related tour and have a fine memory of this cold winter day. I enjoyed this little tour. I ran around the exhibits, curious at discovering yet another little element of American presidential history. After leaving that afternoon, I'd go back home and find myself ill from something I probably ate, leaving me set up on a couch for the next week. But I won't blame the library or my biblio-searching for that! Maybe I should have bought an FDR mug after all--I really could have used it for all the tea I ended up drinking that week. Well, I can always go back and get one next year.

A Japanese Bookstore

...and a Whole Lot More!

A few months ago, my family and I had the opportunity to visit a very interesting place in the Chicago area: a Japanese Mall. At least, that is what it is commonly called. (Its real name is Mitsuwa Marketplace). In fact, it is an indoor shopping center, which includes a Japanese supermarket, liquor store, bakery, video store, home supply store (more like touristy cups and plates store!), and of course a bookstore. All of these are around a central "food court," though I find the expression "food court" too "mall-ish" and Americanized. But this area contains a central eating area, surrounded by maybe a dozen Japanese (and maybe one Korean) style food houses or kiosks. The air is rich with the vapors of steaming ramen noodles, bathing in pork or chicken broths in some monster-sized kettles behind the kiosk curtains and back kitchens.

For those of you looking for an afternoon adventure, this is surely the place. The grocery store, for example, offers a rather interesting shopping experience, as there are many, many food options that you might not otherwise find in your run-of-the-mill grocery. And it all seems fairly priced. One can buy probably a dozen varieties of tofu, seaweed, or soba noodles here, or any combination of Asian cuisine sauces. Admittedly, I ended buying more than I probably needed, since it was a novelty for me, but I did eat well for the week following! There were also a lot of frozen items, as well as a specialty bakery in the back corner of the store.

Below, is an image of the eating area of the "food court," not far from the ice cream kiosk. This is where we enjoyed some steaming hot bowls of noodles and ton-katzu (sliced Japanese pork steaks, breaded and deep friend) with fresh cabbage, miso soup, and pickled vegetables.

Above and below, images of the book store. The book store was one of the larger establishments in the mall. It had a sizable inventory, mostly Japanese language materials. It had a little area dedicated to English language and other language dictionaries. And its magazine section was fairly large.

I'd wanted to visit this place for some time--years, in fact. Finally, the opportunity arose, and we all went. It was quite a place, and surprisingly, we spent much longer than I'd imagined wandering around and looking at all of the goods and wares of the place. The Mitsuwa Marketplace is, according to its website, the largest Japanese market in the United States. It has branches in California and New Jersey. Now even though I didn't buy a book about Japan, Japanese history or language, or any other book, for that matter, I was lucky enough to have such a pleasant afternoon, enjoying a new place, some new food, and some new culture with my family. And of course, discovering yet another bookstore is always an added treat.

Closing a Convent and Its Library

End of an Era...for Some

Now the truth is, the word "convent" probably brings images of the antique cloistered communities in old Europe, nestled away in the far reaches of Bergundian, Swabian, or Florentine valleys; giant stone walls from the time of St. Francis or his pious successors guarding the solemnly garbed sisters against the outside world. But today, I speak of something quite different. Admittedly, our visit today is not really a "convent" per se, but a home for Catholic women, some of them belonging to orders. This was a serendipitous find, partly because like many of my other travels and explorations, it came up as a total surprise. Two different friends and colleagues had been in touch about this project, and I'd been working with one of them that very morning, in the cold winter weather, on another project. We'd just had a big snow, and had been shoveling. But I also had a meeting with this friend to pick up some book boxes. After the delivery, I agreed to help with this project.

When I arrived with him at this other project, I discovered, to my surprise and delight, that the other friend was waiting--she'd been in charge of this move. The unassuming, though large, structure on a quiet street in Chicago, was the community home of a catholic women's community organization. Perhaps because of finances, perhaps because of dwindling numbers, or perhaps because of many inter-working causes, the owners of the home--some portion of the Catholic Church--had decided to consolidate, and move the inhabitants into a nearby Catholic institution, and sell this building. And so, I'd ended up as part of the moving crew of the books from the home's library. It was a fine library collection, plump with theological materials and "Catholicana" of varying brands. There were books all over the place, such as on this little ledge above; but there were shelves dedicated to a real "library space" on the top floor, which is where the majority of the collection was housed.

Intriguing religious images adorned the walls of the old house, including this "rabbinic" looking Last Supper. Below, we find an image of Saint Magdalena Zofia Barat. This image has her name written in the Slavic form, likely Polish, with the title "sw." or "swety" ("saint") before her name. Saint Magdalena Zofia Barat was born in France in 1779. She was one of the primary founders of the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1800. At her death in 1865, she'd have a following of more than 3,500 practitioners in nearly 100 religious houses around the world.

Above is an image of empty book cases in one of the hallways of the house. All the books here were taken away, moved to another location.

Above and below are images of some of the subject plates, which once directed visitors and patrons of the mini-library to their topics of choice.

Some of the books remaining on the shelves can still be seen here. Below, packing up the remains for Theological Book Network; eventually, many of these books will be redistributed--most likely, overseas...to some new or growing seminary in the developing (or, "2/3s") world.

Looking out the windows...a quiet reminder of another closing chapter of life. Below, Melody Layton McMahon, Director of the Bechtold Library at the Catholic Theological Union, pausing to display a carved book-end of a pious monk-reader.

Ends and transitions are all part of life and this world. And there are likely to be many surprises, depending on where you look. I spent a good part of the day helping to carry boxes and shovel snow. Yet, once again, like some of our other adventures in book-land, we are capturing a moment of passing history. When I was leaving, I passed by these two items hanging on the wall (below): a mystical image of Christ in the most saintly pose and a little needlepoint of a grazing gazelle with the word "Thanks" above it. In some ways, seeing these two images was like experiencing a peaceful "sending off." Something like "so long...and thanks for visiting and remembering us!" I'm sure someone will remember this place. Another transition. Onto other pastures. I'm glad that I was around this day to help carry boxes and document the end of this library's chapter. Now a few more people will know the story of a once-lovely mini religious library.

Libraries Dumping Books!

Some Real "Books and Biblios"

The final resting place for some of our theological library's collections came one fine mid-winter morning, in the shape of garbage containers and giant metal waste bins. Now I must admit from the start that this will be a difficult piece to write, because it is something that I am personally not in agreement with, philosophically. But it is part of my job, and that makes for fun biblio-dilemmas. One might accuse the author of being "too attached" to books in general, which may have some truth to it, but to amplify the destruction of books, or libricide as some scholars have called it, is a difficult thing to witness as a bibliophile. More difficult is the required participation in such an activity. But for some, it is all in a day's work. That's what we do as library professionals: we weed, we sell and distribute, and the rest, we throw out. I know this will irk some of you out there, as it does me to some extent. But we will explore this issue further in this blog. Of course, I had to begin with these four volumes of "Biblio" to accent the moniker of the blog: a shame, these "biblios" gone to the wasteland.

Well, most of this sort of book-tossing begins with the weeding process, which as some of you might know, is in full swing, and has been for a while. We are preparing for a sizable retro-con project in coming years, so we need to cut down the collection, to its elemental forms. This means that areas or disciplines, which may seemingly be out of the ken of theological education, are more likely to be targeted for the dumpsters. Such was the case with many of the areas of political science, sociology, and political philosophy. Though, some might make the argument that this should not be the case, because these three areas DO in fact have a great significance in the field of theology. It's all relative though. And when it comes down to space, resources, and finance, difficult decisions must be made regarding seemingly "good" books--but the "useful" question comes into play, and it is harder to make the case to save such "good" books.

The process usually involves a good portion of the staff--we de-select books and then consult one another. We do "second passes," to see if we are on target with our de-selections. Then the catalogers sweep through behind us, collecting the de-selected books. They go through the process of un-cataloging the books; crossing out the call numbers and marking the volumes with "WITHDRAWN" stamps, usually with the help of some industrious student workers. Depending on the books, shelf list cards are pulled--we still have a partial card catalog! Admittedly, I don't have much involvement in this part of the process, so I cannot speak to it in full accuracy or detail. But this is the general description of tasks that are undertaken. Before we get to the final "dumping" stage, as we see in the image above, there is a process where the library tries to sell or give away books to used book shops or other organizations, who re-distribute the books to groups, who might use the books--usually at seminaries or theological schools in other countries.

Hundreds, if not thousands of books are given away like this each year. But we cannot get rid of all of them, and they end up languishing on shelves, abandoned, orphaned books. There is a certain sadness about this, but not much can be done, even simply to give them away. Students, especially in Hyde Park, have too many books cluttering their overwrought shelves already. They have too much to read for classes and for papers. Even good books are hard to get rid of in this neighborhood, partly because everyone has them already. I think there is a general sense of what constitutes "the Hyde Park Bookshelf," meaning "that which every good Hyde Parker has, or ought to have!--especially if they are UC grads--and this usually covers everything from The Wealth of Nations to Plato's Dialogues or Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War.

So, if you have so many "good books" floating around, imagine how hard it is to get rid of so many average or sub-par volumes! I'm not saying that we're getting rid of sub-par volumes, per se, but there are quite a few in there. As you can see, from some of these photos, there are signs reading "DUMPSTER." It is a hard fact to swallow for bibliophiles like me. I don't like seeing anything resembling a waste bucket near books. Books don't belong in garbage cans or in dumpsters, they belong on shelves, in people's homes, on tables (well, some tables), in libraries, everywhere else in society, but in dumpsters!? One of the things I kept thinking about as we were collecting these books from the shelves, throwing them into movable garbage bins with wheels, and pushing them out to the bigger dumpsters through a modest snow falling that morning was..."why couldn't we have given these to someone?" I think I've already answered this above, but it still is something that eats away at my idea of book responsibility. If you have something, which is of some value, why waste it?

Obviously, there are many obstacles to overcome this question: the "someone else" who might be able to use these materials might simply be too far away, in a new seminary in Ghana, for example. The costs may be prohibitive to transport. Otherwise, the materials are not relevant even to those seminaries or seminarians in another country. Some have argued "why give away our junk to someone else?"--presuming it's junk! But perhaps the more salient issue is "what is happening in other libraries?" One can be certain that books are being thrown out at sizable rates. Others might call these "alarming" rates, but the fact is that more books are being published each year, and room needs to be made for incoming volumes, new ideas, (or even, old re-hashed ideas!) Whatever the case may be, here we have just one "mass dumping" of books. Take it in as you may. As I've noted earlier, I didn't want to be part of this exercise, but was pulled into it by the eager staff, wanting to get the job done quickly. It felt rather odd, in some respects, like we were doing something unnatural, even hostile: librarians tossing out old books of theology, philosophy, sociology, and political economy?

With my own interests and research of the book as symbol in society, it was difficult for me to see such images: it only made me think that the books were being "deported." When someone considers books to be extensions of ourselves and society, the idea of ridding oneself of those extensions, book-bodies, and corporeality seems absurd. But both the absurd and real abound in our world: dumping books is still a question of one's perception of the circumstances, and sometimes needs to be done.

"The Happy Librarian Doing a Book Toss!"

"Seminary Stalinism!"

Even with books like these on out-of-date communism scholarship being thrown out, I felt like I'd committed some sort of "informational war crime," and should be hiding from the Librarians' Hague! Our director commented that one of the reasons there were so many books on communism, and more precisely, "anti-communism," was because one of the former faculty members, the Syriac scholar Arthur Voobus (pron. VOY-bus), was from the Baltics; he came to the US sometime after the Second World War, and had experienced the cruelties of the Soviet Regime over the Baltics. He was virulently anti-communist, and it is very likely that his tenure on the faculty prompted the school to purchase oodles of anti-communist literature, itself a valuable historiographic tool for the study of that literature at that time. But alas, these books are no longer. They've been sent to their own gulags, somewhere in the moist earth of an Illinois landfill.

Books which were headed to the dumpster included:

Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Machiavelli, The Prince (several copies)
Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, Government and Politics of China, 1912-1949

Irving Babbitt, Rousseau and Romanticism

History of Chinese Civil War
French Historiography from Ancien Regime

and many more...

I must admit that I saved some of these (but not all!) from the dumpster, as I could not bring myself to toss such gems of the intellectual canon into the nothingness that they were being consigned to.

This work, "The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia," from around 1904 was among the larger and older books that were trashed. I took some photos of the book plates, imprints, and primary ownership mark. I don't know who Andrew Smith of Wilmington, N.C. was. I'm not sure we ever will. All we know is that he lived more than a century ago, and had some connection to the Lutheran Seminary in Chicago. His former books, as well as his finely penciled name are no more.

Below are images from inside of these massive volumes. As I had finished my morning's work, I couldn't help but notice the magnificent images between the pages of the giant Cyclopedia. So I went and took photos of the more interesting, the more curious ones...

By shelf space, somewhere around 1,000 books went to their ends that day. I looked over the massive dumpsters adjacent to the seminary's parking lot--they were filled to the brim, each one of them, with the remnants of old information. I will not say "lost information," because presumably our controls should have made sure that our library did not carry "the very last copy on the planet." But there is a sense of loss among the images of human creation, which held fast for at least a century in and on the old shelves of the seminary. I look at these lithograph cuts of the old miner, the Linsang, or the swift, and I wonder what value these had...or could have had for re-use, maybe for some art project. I now know what a Cerberus is (see below), only because I was dumping books too. And yet, I wonder if that knowledge is worth it?