Flicklives

Last Summary Update: 01-19-2008

Bookman
Airdate: Wednesday - October 24, 1962

WOR Show
Original Airing

audio

(NOTE ABOUT TIME REFERENCES: Since there are many different copies of shows out there from different sources, all time references are from the beginning of one single recorded copy, since various copies, depending on when the recordee started recording, had news at the beginning or shortened themes. The times would vary from copy to copy.)

First Spoken Line After Theme Ends

Well, I see where it is now possible to but doom. . .

Show Description

[ Courtesy: Gary Hines - - ]   
  Bookman, Nazi only following rules, marked cards-didn't have anything to do with deaths, jiffy fish, Mr. outlaw, chimp art, helicopter, just married-car kit      
  

[ Courtesy: GROK Summary - - ]   
  This monologue (WOR, October 24, 1962), delivered during the tense Cuban Missile Crisis period, is a digressive meditation on "bookmen" - people who live strictly by rules, manuals, or doctrine without questioning the implications - and how they thrive in (and are amplified by) a technological, bureaucratic society.

Atmosphere and absurdity
Shepherd notes a hush over Times Square and a TV repairman who is simply "sick of this business" internationally. He recounts a subway motorman locked out of his own train when a door closes; the man chases it down the platform and runs seven and a half blocks along the tracks to catch up - a ten-minute delay that feels emblematic of growing surrealism. Twentieth-century civilization is framed as a Pandora's box opened around the Industrial Revolution; people worldwide are frightened by it and inclined to blame the leading technological nations.

The bookman
The central distinction is between book minds and non-book minds. A bookman follows the book (scripture, racing form, army regulations, corporate procedure) and feels righteous even when the outcome is disastrous, because he "played it by the book." He never makes rules - only follows them. Extremes include the religious fundamentalist, the broke horse player, the army type who loves clear orders, and Eichmann, who could not understand why people were angry: he had only expedited the rules. Bookmen continually grind up the others. Machines are their natural allies; a bookman is happiest beside an IBM calculator or magnetic-ink system.

Everyday examples of the book taking over
- His bank sends a booklet explaining new six-digit account numbers designed for both human and electronic eyes, with start/stop dots in magnetic ink. He already cannot reliably remember phone numbers or his Social Security number; identity is eroding.
- His pants return from the cleaner labeled "one pair lady slacks." The delivery man is suspicious; the office says "it'll be all right this time."

Satirical gift-catalog reading
Presented as a "WOR Public Service" segment by "Charlemagne Cash," he reads absurd Christmas gifts straight from a catalog: Magic Mark (secretly marked) bridge cards; the "Inspired Box" of Bible-verse scrolls; Grace Napkins; "Jiffy Fish" (hatch red-tail killifish); a six-foot electronic gunman for the rumpus room ($1,995) that talks back; paintings by Pablo the Chimpanzee; a build-your-own "Whirly Bird" helicopter kit; and a "Just Married" car-decorating kit. The deadpan delivery underscores the maniacal quality of consumer technological society.

Bookmen in media and life
Radio and television throw subjective performers together with technical book people (engineers who have followed circuit diagrams since childhood). Fully taped stations are already appearing; the "far-out" are those furthest from the book and cling to the margins. Bookmen are born followers who will back any ideology with a good book; they quote authorities (John Birch Society citing Welch, a woman who spoke only in biblical quotations, a man who finished his 117th reading of the New Testament). A milder case is multimillionaire Frank, who since age thirteen kept color-coded notebooks of every restaurant he had ever eaten in, complete with entree and star ratings.

Overall tone and point: Observational, satirical, and philosophically pointed. Shepherd portrays the bookman as the natural product and ally of technological bureaucracy - safe, righteous, and dangerous precisely because he never questions the book. The monologue treats the increasing dominance of rules, numbers, and machines as a quiet, ongoing displacement of identity and judgment. Classic Shepherd: digressive, concrete, and skeptical of systems that claim to eliminate confusion.      
  