Documenting President Obama [satire]

Last week, The Onion published an article that uses a fictional National Archives project to comment on both the elasticity of truth in the digital era and popular fascination with the 44th President of the United States:

In what is being hailed as a breakthrough in the field of historical record-keeping, the National Archives announced Monday that it would immediately begin outfitting Barack Obama's chest, limbs, and face with an array of motion capture sensors for use in preserving a 3-D account of his time as president.

"The presidency of Mr. Obama is truly a landmark event, and I can think of no better way to honor it than with this $2.5 billion advanced digital-imaging project," acting archivist Adrienne Thomas told reporters. "Not only will our sensors provide unprecedented moment-to-moment documentation of a sitting U.S. president, but they will also give the American people the breathtaking realism and seamless layer animation they have come to expect."

. . . . "Our 78-person team is committed to capturing each and every nuance of the Obama administration," Vicon CEO Douglas Reinke said. "Years from now, historians will be able to access high-quality images of what the former president might have looked like while he was, say, meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on April 3, 2009, or tying his shoelaces on the afternoon of June 3, 2011."

The article goes on to state that the sensors will be incorporated into an elastic bodysuit and that President Obama:

will be required to wear the motion capture device at all times during his presidency, barring a few minutes each day to shower and change into a fresh bodysuit. In addition, the president has been instructed to refrain from performing any activities that might cause the sensors to malfunction, such as running, breathing heavily, or letting his core temperature rise above 99.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Secret Service will be required to ensure that the President remains in front of a large green-screen background at all times.

Wittingly or unwittingly, The Onion highlights the profoundly unarchival nature of this project, which doesn't involve caring for records that others create during the course of doing business or keeping only the most significant records; not even the President warrants this sort of exhaustive (and invasive) archival documentation. And why worry about authenticity when the infinite flexibility of reality in the digital age is so . . . entertaining?

Many scholars have also praised a feature of the motion capture technology that would allow future generations to digitally alter the president . . . by retroactively modifying clothing, facial features, skin tone, and even accessories.

"Imagine being able to see what it might have looked like had Obama been wearing a bow tie when he delivered his first State of the Union address," American historian Joseph Ellis said. "Or if he'd been sporting a luxurious mustache while sitting down with the prime minister of Japan. The possibilities for customization are endless."

I suspect that most people who read this piece had a quick laugh and moved on. However, an archivist could certainly use it a springboard for explaining to non-archivist friends and relatives just what it is we do and why we do it. And the "photos" of President Obama in his motion-capture bodysuit have to be seen to be believed . . . .

Time capsules, preservation concerns, and honorary archivists

Creswell, Oregon, is a town of about 4,500 people located in western Oregon. In honor of the town's 100th anniversary and the state's 150th anniversary, an ad hoc committee of residents is putting together a time capsule that will be opened in 2059. The city government is allocating $1,000 to the project, but the committee is seeking additional contributions and will honor donors by inscribing their names upon a plaque:

Those who contribute $250 or more will be designated as "archivists," between $100 and $249 as "historians" and $50 to $99 as "timekeepers." Of course, smaller amounts are welcomed as well.

It's really gratifying that "archivist" is the greatest honorific that the committee will bestow: all too often, archivists are seen as the handmaidens of academic historians, not as professionals who possess unique theoretical and applied knowledge and who serve a broad array of users. Maybe our efforts to raise our profession's public profile are starting to pay off . . . .

It's also really heartening that the ad hoc committee is keenly aware of the preservation challenges inherent in this project:

Time capsule project committee members Carol Hooker, Jean McKittrick, Shelley Humble and Helen Hollyer have researched suitable containers that will survive 50 years, as well as the types of material that will withstand deterioration and still be accessible to our descendents after half a century has elapsed.

While it would be easy to place hundreds of documents and photographs on CDs or DVDs, technological change is progressing so rapidly that it is highly unlikely that a method of accessing data preserved by today's high-tech methods would exist in 2059.

Similarly, even when sealed in a container designed specifically for long-term preservation of its contents, many organic materials, including newsprint, decompose rapidly, and are not suitable for long-term preservation.

Archivists, librarians, and curators have consistently emphasized that simply placing electronic files on CD or DVD isn't sufficient to ensure their preservation and that some paper-based materials won't likely stand the test of time, and it's great to see that this message is slowly moving beyond the cultural heritage community and into the wider world. The Creswellians of 2059 -- and their contemporaries throughout the world -- will be glad it did.

Milk

Wednesday evening, I finally got to see Milk, the new biographical motion picture about Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay Americans to hold elected office. The film has all of the usual flaws of biopics. The compression of a human life into 90-120 minutes leaves little time to explore nuances of character or depict how the film's subject negotiated the humdrum routine that makes up so much of life, and Milk is no exception. The film also removes, reorders, and blends together events and even people in service of its overarching narrative. Moreover, viewers come to biopics knowing how the story will end -- and for Harvey Milk, the story ended tragically and far too soon.

However, Milk's strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. Director Gus Van Sant and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black treat Harvey Milk not as a two-dimensional hero but as a kind, savvy, funny, exuberant, and flawed human being, and Sean Penn's probably going to get a well-deserved Academy Award nomination. The supporting cast amply complements his nuanced performance, even if their characters feel a bit flattened at times.

The film also highlights Milk's gift for the theater and give-and-take of politics. The many Americans who have no living memory of Harvey Milk -- the younger members of Generation X and all of the Millennials -- and who think of him only as a gay martyr if they think of him at all might be surprised to learn that he was such a shrewd and inventive politician.

Contemporary audiences will find the political struggles depicted in the film continue to resonate today. Harvey Milk was instrumental in defeating the Briggs Initiative, a 1978 ballot measure that would have prohibited gay men and lesbians and straight people supportive of gay rights from teaching or otherwise working in California's public schools, and viewers of this film cannot help but think of the recent passage of Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in California. One can't help but wonder what might have happened had Milk not been assassinated in 1978; one also wonders whether an early autumn release of Milk, which is doing well at the box office, might have been a rallying point for the anti-Proposition 8 forces.

Archivists should note that the film makes extensive use of archival footage, some of which is striking. The clips used at the opening of the film document raids on gay bars in the 1950s and 1960s. Well-dressed men are herded into paddywagons, trying as best they can to shield their faces from the camera, or handcuffed and escorted out of the premises. At one point, the camera lingers on one bespectacled man sitting on a barstool, hands over his face, trembling or perhaps weeping as the police and other patrons mill about the bar. Suddenly, he looks up, grabs his drink, and tosses the contents of the glass at the camera. Cut.

Other archival footage in the film depicts, among other things:

• A stricken Dianne Feinstein, then president of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, announcing to the public on the evening of 27 November 1978 that both Milk and Mayor George Moscone had been murdered within City Hall earlier that day; Feinstein discovered Milk's body in his office.
• Anita Bryant outlining her staunch opposition to gay rights.
• Street scenes of San Francisco's Castro neighborhood circa 1975.
• Aerial views of San Francisco circa 1975.

This archival film and television footage is skillfully blended with new footage shot by Van Sant and company. This blending serves to reinforce the film's claims to veracity, and archivists -- and film scholars -- may want to think more systematically and critically about the use of archival records to give fictional or fictionalized worlds the aura of authenticity.

Milk's end credits don't supply detailed information about the source of these clips (apart from acknowledging an immense debt to makers of the superb 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk), but it's apparent that the filmmakers looked high and low for footage that they could use. I was also pleased to note that the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Transgender Historical Society and the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives were thanked in the credits.

Doonesbury, archivists, and partisanship

In case you missed it, a "Library of Congress archivist" was featured in the September 21 installment of Doonesbury. Violet McPhee, a repeat guest on Mark Slackmeyer's radio show, has brought a document that she describes as "an extremely valuable acquisition": the original copy of the "the founding document of the modern hate-speech movement--Newt Gingrich's famous GOPAC memo." This "Magna Carta of attack politics" tells "Republican candidates to smear opponents with words like 'sick, disgrace, corrupt, cheat, decay, pathetic, radical, traitor, anti-family, greed,' and so on," thus codifying "the toxic rhetoric that came to define an era!" The document even has "the original mudstains--so prized by curators!"

I've been a Doonesbury fan since I was about twelve, and I'm always fascinated when our low-profile profession is depicted in popular culture. Violet McPhee, an amply proportioned and bespectacled woman of a certain age, looks like a number of archivists I've known--and, in all likelihood, she looks like the archivist that I'll be about ten years from now. Garry Trudeau has obviously had some experience with archives, as evidenced by the nicely drawn tan clamshell box that houses the GOPAC memo; the memo itself is enclosed in a sheet protector meant to be inserted into a three-ring notebook, which is a bit off, but some repositories do use archival-quality sheet protectors of this sort.

Why McPhee needs to bring the document to a radio show is beyond me, but Garry Trudeau is entitled to a little artistic license. I also doubt that GOPAC's records are or ever will be at the Library of Congress or any other repository--when I was a student assistant at the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, I learned that, with the exception of the Conservative Party, which donated a great collection to the department, all of New York State's party organizations had tossed their older records--but it's not impossible.

I fully recognize that Trudeau is merely using the character of the archivist to make a political point. However, Violet McPhee's lengthy, overtly partisan description of the GOPAC memo brings to mind the real-world nastiness in which some of my fellow archivists have been indulging as of late. Don't get me wrong: I'm a lifelong Democrat who made a conscious decision to live in a "blue" state, and I'm impatiently waiting for the Obama campaign to send me the car magnet it promised me. However, as I've noted before, some of the statements that John Dean made at SAA's 2008 annual meeting and some of the "questions" asked by audience members crossed the line into naked partisanship. Some of the comments that have been posted to various archival listservs during the past couple of weeks have been similarly one-sided and provocative.

I realize that there is a close and hotly contested Presidential race going on, that the economy may well be disintegrating before our eyes, and that the current Presidential administration has proven itself to be no friend of records, archives, or governmental accountability. I firmly believe that the profession has the right and the obligation to draw attention to this--or any other--administration's records-related deficiencies and that individual archivists should be free to make known their support for a given party, candidate, or policy.

However, we're not doing the profession any favors by being openly contemptuous of people who happen not to share our individual political views. I strongly suspect that most archivists are Democrats, but there are a substantial number of Republicans in our ranks. All of the Republican archivists I've known have been committed, thoughtful, and smart people, and they deserve to get through the workday without being demeaned by their colleagues. A little spirited debate is one thing--heck, one of my Republican colleagues sometimes goes out of his way to get the debate going! Disdain and abuse are another.

Moreover, we need to remain mindful that, as inconspicuous as we generally are, we have awesome superpowers: we are the shapers and keepers of the historical record. As the SAA Code of Ethics states, we must use these superpowers appropriately, i.e., we must "exercise professional judgment in acquiring, appraising, and processing historical materials" and avoid allowing our "personal beliefs or perspectives to affect" our professional decisions. I would add that we should also strive to avoid giving the impression that we might allow our personal beliefs to color our professional decisions in ways that might damage or distort the historical record.

Again, I think it's a matter of degree: it's alright to express dislike of or disagreement with a given leader, organization, social movement, etc., but we also have to keep emphasizing that, individually and collectively, we are committed to ensuring that the historical record is as comprehensive and accurate as possible. I know it's really hard sometimes, but let's exercise a little restraint, okay?

Kamp Krusty

Second in an occasional series on archives in popular culture, with particular focus on The Simpsons . . . .

In tandem with some great visual references to Apocalypse Now, The French Lieutenant's Woman, and National Lampoon's Vacation, records of various kinds help to shape the narrative structure of Kamp Krusty, the first episode of the transcendently great fourth season. Kamp Krusty opens with Bart's dream about the last day of school. Bart, whose father has threatened not to send him to Kamp Krusty unless he gets a "C" average, successfully persuades Mrs. Krabappel to change all of his F-'s to C's. Then Principal Skinner uses the PA system to announce that the school year has come to an end, stating "I trust you all remembered to bring in your implements of destruction." Children pull out hammers, flamethrowers, and automatic weapons, and proceed to demolish the school.

Principal Skinner gets in on the act by pulling out a couple of Paige boxes filled with neatly filed papers and announcing, "Somebody put a torch to these permanent records!" The children happily oblige.

Of course, the real world isn't as accommodating. The last day of school has indeed arrived, but Mrs. Krabappel refuses to change Bart's grades and the school remains standing. Bart, who desperately wants to go to Kamp Krusty, changes every D+ on his report card to an A+. The doctored record doesn't fool Homer: "'A+'? You don't think very much of me, do you, boy? . . . . You know, a D turns into a B so easily. You just got greedy." However, Homer doesn't want the kids hanging around the house all summer, so he allows Bart to accompany Lisa to Kamp Krusty anyway.

Once Lisa and Bart get to Kamp Krusty, they find that the facility doesn't live up to the promises of Bart's hero, TV's Krusty the Clown: Krusty is nowhere to be found, the facilities are rundown and dangerous, Springfield Elementary's biggest bullies are serving as counselors, the arts-and-crafts facility is a sweatshop producing counterfeit designer goods, most of the campers subsist on Krusty Brand Imitation Gruel, and campers with weight issues are continually hectored by a sadistic drill sargeant.

Campers are barred from communicating with the outside world, but Lisa, resourceful and courageous as always, manages with difficulty to smuggle out a letter documenting conditions at the camp. However, her parents, convinced that she is merely homesick, discount her tale of abuse and exploitation.

Once Bart realizes that Krusty isn't coming to save the day, he leads a campers' revolt that attracts media attention. Springfield news anchor Kent Brockman, reporting live from the scene, asserts: "Ladies and gentlemen, I've been to Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and I can say without hyperbole that this is a million times worse than all three of them put together."

Krusty, who has been taking in Wimbledon and is on the verge of being knighted by the Queen of England, reacts to the TV news coverage by rushing to Kamp Krusty. Krusty freely admits that he will endorse just about any product put before him, but feels bad that the children have had such an awful experience.

In an effort to make it up to them, he takes them to the "happiest place on earth": Tijuana, Mexico. The episode ends with a series of photographic records of the event: Krusty buying the children sombreros, Krusty taking the children to a cockfight, Krusty passed out drunk in the middle of the street, Krusty left behind in Tijuana as the trip comes to an end . . . .

If I were given to making tortured intellectual arguments, I could make the case that Kamp Krusty says something important about adult interpretation of the records created or modified by children: Marge and Homer dismiss the truth contained within Lisa's letter as readily as Homer discounts the false information on Bart's doctored report card. However, let's just say that Kamp Krusty is a first-rate episode and that the records that help to propel its narrative occupy a position that is central yet subtle--as is so often the case with the records that document and shape our own lives.

Yes, but the records only go back to 1978 . . .

I don't always watch new episodes of The Simpsons, but I do own Seasons 1-10 on DVD and know lots of other archivists who cherish the show as much as I do. This post is the first in an occasional series highlighting the depiction of archives, historical records, etc., in The Simpsons and other pop culture artifacts.

One of my favorite Simpsons references to archives appears in "Hurricane Neddy" (Season 8, Episode 8), when the town of Springfield is beset by a hurricane. Lisa Simpson, the first to realize what is happening, rushes to tell her father, and the following exchange ensues:

Homer: Oh, Lisa, there's no record of a hurricane ever hitting Springfield.
Lisa: Yes, but the records only go back to 1978, when the Hall of Records was mysteriously blown away!

Over the years, I've repeatedly quoted this exchange to colleagues who don't watch The Simpsons, and all of them have found it hilarious. However, in recent years the joy of watching this episode has been muted a bit. Season 8 wasn't out on DVD in late summer 2005, but I saw "Hurricane Neddy" in syndication a few weeks after I returned from SAA's annual meeting in New Orleans. The meeting ended less than two weeks before Hurricane Katrina dealt the city a devastating blow. None of the city's repositories were blown away, but many were destroyed or badly damaged by the toxic water that seeped into the city when the levees broke.

I still laugh when I see "Hurricane Neddy," which also features my favorite Ned Flanders quote ("Aw, hell-diddly-ding-dong crap!") and illuminates his boho parents' child-rearing philosophy ("We don’t believe in rules, like, we gave them up when we started livin’ like freaky beatniks!" "We’ve tried nothin’ and we’re all out of ideas.") At the same time, I think--sometimes a little, sometimes a lot-- about the vulnerability of records and how gaps in the historical record can distort our thinking in large ways and small . . . .