NP, but Kubrick

[Mark Kohut]

How to learn from Ngram and keep worrying all the time...
 
Plug "the bomb" intoNGram and see it peak right around the war year in which GR's rocket is launched,
then decline to maybe 1950 and start back up stron in the late 50s, with a higher plateau level for the sixties
peaking around 1963 [you know why] and then again around 1979.......

From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org 
Sent: Wednesday, April 4, 2012 5:17 PM
Subject: Re: NP, but Kubrick

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
>>  >
>>  >
>>
>>
>>
>
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