Gentlemen of the Woods: Manhood, Myth, and the American Lumberjack by Willa Hammitt Brown
Legend has it that the giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan was born in Michigan, or Minnesota, or Wisconsin, or perhaps even our very own Bangor, Maine. Determining the birthplace of a mythical entity can be a tricky business, needless to say. Wherever he may hail from, since 1959 the axe-wielding, buffalo-check-sporting, ox-befriending folk hero has made Bangor his home, in the form of a 31-foot-tall fiberglass likeness. Although Bangor’s specimen is no longer the tallest of the Bunyan statues – that honor belongs to the 49-foot Klamath, CA Bunyan – having now examined many of these giant lumberjack effigies, I can attest that our homegrown specimen is by far the most deviously leering. If he were to approach me on the street after dark, I would cross to the other side at a speedy clip. According to Willa Hammitt Brown, early public opinion on lumberjacks was similarly trepidatious. As she writes in her new book Gentlemen of the Woods: Manhood, Myth, and the American Lumberjack, lumberjacks have not always been the idealized paragons of rugged but kindhearted, quintessentially American manhood that today roam the wildernesses of our pop-cultural imagination. That image is, for all its retro charm, a nostalgic anachronism. When lumberjacks first arrived on the scene to fell the North Woods of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, they were widely despised as dangerous transients. Brown peels back the cheerful folklore to examine the historical realities of the “jacks,” with a savvy eye trained to the economic, colonial, and class dimensions that shaped both the fact and the fiction of this American icon.
For fans of Americana, cultural studies, folklore, and myth-busting.
Hot Date! Sweet & Savory Recipes Celebrating the Date, from Party Food to Everyday Feasts by Rawaan Alkhatib
Once, in what feels like a different lifetime, long ago and far away, I was dubious of the date. I could not be convinced that it was, in fact, a fruit, and not the egg casing of some alien cockroach. It reminded me of drab items passed off as dessert by health food shops, and the California Raisins figurines with which I avoid eye contact at flea markets, and those conspicuously quasi-fancy appetizers garnering “oohs” and “ahhs” from partygoers during wedding reception scenes in romantic comedy films I would never watch by choice but have had forced upon me by relatives with tastes not at all resembling my own. None of this held much appeal. Then, in my mid-twenties, I put my doubts aside and tried a date. It was like a conversion experience. How could I have been so very, very wrong? Having swallowed my pride I am today a shameless date evangelist, forever promoting the wrinkled, unassuming drupe’s power to improve one’s diet and one’s life. It is in this spirit that I present you with Rawaan Alkhatib’s Hot Date!, a bright and beautifully illustrated love song of a cookbook dedicated to all things dates. Beyond its plethora of recipes for dawn-to-dusk date-centered daily menus, Hot Date! offers a comprehensive review of date lore and date history, date shopping tips and date science. But be warned: you may never want to eat anything else again.
For fans of dates, as well as date skeptics. One day you, too, will join us…
