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| Matt Chorley |
Lies are durable. They are waterproof, shock resistant. They are tungsten. They persist. resisting all attempts to chip away or efface them. Particularly when they flatter or comfort people. Then they adhere to the lie, barnacle-like, and nothing, nothing, nothing can dislodge them.
How can we ever deceive ourselves otherwise?
A perfect example on Friday. A BBC5 show in Manchester, England has a segment called "The politics of..." and wanted to do hats. My book, "Hatless Jack," came out in England 20 years ago, and someone there caught whiff of it. I knew nobody related to the show had read it because they never do.
I talked with a 23-year-old producer Thursday, as a sort of pre-interview, and laboriously explained to him that Kennedy didn't kill hats, that hats had died 50 years before his inauguration when he did, contrary to popular opinion, indeed wear a hat — he was the last president who wore a silk top hat to his inauguration.
He seemed to understand. But either kept the information to himself or said it but was not perceived by whoever wrote the introduction, which was read to me as I waited to go on the air: "Neil Steinberg is a columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times and author of 'Hatless Jack,' a book about how John F. Kennedy killed off men's hats by not wearing one to his inauguration.' Or words to that effect.
No, I said, "Make it 'a book about the untrue myth that John F. Kennedy killed off men's hats.."
Of course the host, Matt Chorley, introduced me repeating the untruth about Kennedy, which I then corrected. No quicker way to turn off a host than contradict him, and he shifted to some British fashion historian for so long I thought he wasn't going to return to me. If you tapped him on the shoulder, I guarantee you the substance of what I said would vanish, and he'd just say I was a bad guest. He didn't seem interested in that his premise was utterly wrong.
If someone is bound so tightly by an untruth that has no bearing on them — I assume nobody at the BBC particularly cares whether John F. Kennedy killed off hats. Rather, it was inertia at work. They came in with this belief. They were jolly well going to go out with it.
I hold the BBC in reverence. Or did. We grew up with a Hammarlund Super Pro short wave radio in my father's den and would use it to listen to Alistair Cooke's "Letter from America," Who knows — I was a child — maybe that was a tissue of error too.
It made me very sad. That said, I can't pronounce factuality dead. Maybe, as with hats, concern for veracity died long ago, and only now we are noticing. Some of us anyway. That sounds about right.
I hold the BBC in reverence. Or did. We grew up with a Hammarlund Super Pro short wave radio in my father's den and would use it to listen to Alistair Cooke's "Letter from America," Who knows — I was a child — maybe that was a tissue of error too.
It made me very sad. That said, I can't pronounce factuality dead. Maybe, as with hats, concern for veracity died long ago, and only now we are noticing. Some of us anyway. That sounds about right.
Really sad because the truth is always more interesting than the lie.
ReplyDeleteI’m so sorry about your recent experience. You touched my heart with how hurtful it is to be misunderstood and/or not heard. Your experience also reminded me to be more aware of where in my life I live in my truth vs THE truth. And then I’m just mad that the radio host was such a boob! You remain one of the greatest truth tellers in my book! Speaking of books, now that I know of Hatless Jack, I want to read it.
ReplyDeleteIt's perhaps my favorite book of mine — I really thought it said something about society, and might be my Malcolm Gladwell moment. But people didn't get it.
DeleteAppreciate the Malcolm Gladwell moment reference . . . can't wait to read Hatless Jack! Your authenticity is so compelling.
DeleteAs someone who has conducted many radio interviews, I'm not surprised by your experience. I apologize on behalf of my industry. My policy was to never depend on a producer's pre interview or research. Do your own preparation or suffer the consequences. Not that I didn't make errors, but at least they were my own....I'm going to order Hatless Jack (from my local bookseller). Thanks Neil...
DeleteA Hammurland receiver, impressive
ReplyDeleteLong ago, I was struck with the realization that witnesses of an event could get the facts so spectacularly wrong, so different from the scene that I had viewed, and would swear to as the absolute and irrefutable truth.
ReplyDeletejohn
long ago I was struck with the realization that I could get the facts of an event I had witnessed spectacularly wrong. I was certain I was right but evidence showed I was mistaken
DeleteI enjoyed Hatless Jack. It's an engaging account of hat history and hat lore and ought to have put paid once and for all to the mistaken idea that JFK killed off male hat-wearing.
ReplyDeleteYour experience with the BBC sounds maddening.
I have read and highly recommend Hatless Jack. The image of Kennedy in the tall silk hat is forever firmly in my mind.
ReplyDeleteI think the true story of who killed off hats would have made for a more interesting show. Here, I thought the BBC promotes well-solved whodunnits. Well, it's good to know that your book sets the record straight on this topic, waiting on a shelf for someone to investigate.
ReplyDeleteMyths are easy and satisfying. As stated in one the best Westerns, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
The press in Liberty Valance
DeleteOkay, I know that Kennedy did indeed wear a hat to his inauguration; I've seen the photos. But to be fair, you were talking to staff that you knew had not read the book, your title is "Hatless Jack," with photo illustration saying much the same thing, and even your Amazon.com description says, "A quirky social history of American fashion explains how President Kennedy's refusal to wear a hat helped contribute to the obsolescence of the hat as a vital component of American men's fashion, tracing the history of different hat styles as a statement of a man's social status to the 1960s when the male hat became obsolete."
ReplyDeleteI don't doubt that you tried to clarify all this in the heat of the moments leading up to the interview, but I think the foundation of their misunderstanding had been laid long before.
Of course, that's my point. Everything supports the lie. "Helped contribute" is a long way from "cause."
DeleteI really like your photograph at the top. I remember "Letter from America." It was enthralling.
ReplyDeleteThe series lasted for 2,869 broadcasts (a record for a spoken-word program by a single individual) over nearly 58 years (1946-2004), and gathered an enormous audience, not only in Britain, but throughout the world by the BBC World Service. if I'm not mistaken, it was carried by Chicago's own WFMT.
DeleteCooke announced his retirement from Letter from America at the age of 95; and died less than a month later, in March of 2004. Transcripts of a number of the broadcasts were published as a book in the same year.
Loved AC when he hosted MP Theater.
DeleteI have a friend who is an eminent scholar in his field who has long expressed frustrations with being interviewed. And the places interviewing him were almost always top-flight outlets. Yet he discovered promptly that he was simply a cog in the machine. They had their story, were going to write it with the slant that they had decided upon, and his role was to supply quotes which they could plug in to buttress their take. If there were some, they'd be used, whether out-of-context, or not. Things that he said which contradicted their premise were simply avoided.
ReplyDeleteIt's as if somebody read your review of Mr. Epstein's autobiography and tweeted: "Noted columnist Neil Steinberg loved it, writing: 'Joseph Epstein's long, well-lived life offers up yet another very readable and thought provoking book.'"
"concern for veracity died long ago" For example, the theory behind "trickle-down economics" has been flatly disproven for 2 generations, yet it remains perhaps the most cherished shibboleth of those in the "I've got mine, but gimme more" party.