NP, but Kubrick

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Plugging the phrase "How I learned" into Google Ngram, the word frequency search engine, between 1950 and 1960,  I came up with this list:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22How%20I%20learned%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1,cd_min:1950,cd_max:1960&lr=lang_en, most notably:  How I Learned the Secrets of Success In Advertising (1952).

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
>Sent: Apr 4, 2012 3:35 PM
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: NP, but Kubrick
>
>On 4/4/2012 1:54 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>> A fascinating question, Monte, and I go with Paul's suggestion. In fact,
>> my impressionistic memory of early bookselling days
>> in the late sixties in Pittsburgh was that this Carngie book outsold the
>> Friends one.....but carries no weight, I know..
>> (decades later when I learned something about the publishing of these
>> books, I was alittle self-surprised that Friends
>> launched the series, for example, since I half-thought that it must have
>> stoarted with Worry.....)
>> Some fun searching in Google Books for that subtitle and partials---such
>> as "learning to love"---
>> NOT in the Andrew Carnegie book, it seems, or "learning to love the
>> bomb"----elicits no citations
>> before the movie subtitle---[but not conclusive, of course, since not
>> much then that might prove otherwise]
>> is in Google Books or books that later noted the earlier use.......maybe
>> need the search that includes newspapers?...........
>> Lotsa stuff about how The Bomb was in the culture at the time...
>> Going to Strangelove and Kubrick.....we can learn that Kubrick's working
>> draft titles had nothing like that......as
>> the script got worked over by first him, then Terry Southern and Nelson
>> George..........
>> Pauline Kael in a much later piece about Kubrick made this point saying
>> we had always assumed the subtitle was satiric
>> but maybe Kubrick did love the machinery of war.....etc......
>> I vote out of the air that the satiric subtitle came from Terry
>> Southern........
>> (but of course if he picked up the pharase from the culture then Monte's
>> question now just applies to him.)
>
>Also we mustn't forget that a satirical variation of the 'how to' 
>formula currently was on the boards in a hot musical--How to Succeed in 
>Business Without Really Trying.
>
>P
>>
>> *From:* Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
>> *To:* pynchon-l at waste.org
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, April 3, 2012 12:41 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: NP, but Kubrick
>>
>> On 4/3/2012 12:01 PM, Monte Davis wrote:
>>  > Speaking of K:
>>  > It's my hazy recollection that the string "How I learned to stop worrying
>>  > and love [x]" already had some currency before its appearance as
>> sub/alter
>>  > title to Dr. Strangelove. It's always had the flavor of parody, verbal
>>  > sendup, but the original is 100% subsumed by now. Was it echoing the
>> title
>>  > of a memoir, a self-help book? Or am I making this up? Au secours,
>> Boomers
>>  > and wannabes!
>>
>>
>>
>> How to Stop Worrying and Start Living--Dale Carnegie
>>
>> P
>>
>>
>>  >
>>  > MD
>>  >
>>  > -----Original Message-----
>>  > From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org <mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org <mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org>] On
>> Behalf
>>  > Of kelber at mindspring.com <mailto:kelber at mindspring.com>
>>  > Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2012 9:10 AM
>>  > To: pynchon-l at waste.org <mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>  > Subject: NP, but Kubrick
>>  >
>>  >
>> http://www.openculture.com/2012/04/stanley_kubricks_very_first_films_three_s
>>  > hort_documentaries.html
>>  >
>>  > LK
>>  >
>>  >
>>
>>
>>
>