current events

from Henry James, The Scenic Art; Notes on Acting & the Drama (1872-1901), ed. Allan Wade (New Brunswick, 1948)

"The Théâtre Français has had the good fortune to be able to allow its traditions to accumulate. They have been preserved, transmitted, respected, cherished, until at last they form the very atmosphere, the vital air, of the establishment. A stranger feels their superior influence the first time he sees the great curtain go up; he feels that he is in a theater that is not as other theaters are. It is not only better, it is different. It has a peculiar perfection--something consecrated, historical, academic. This impression is delicious, and he watches the performance in a sort of tranquil ecstasy. [...] He has heard all his life of attention to detail, and now, for the first time, he sees something that deserves that name."

"The Théâtre Français" (1876)

"It is enough to be sorely puzzled, and have carried away a considerable store of tough problems, to be solved at leisure. One of those, for instance, will be connected, as we may surmise, with the extraordinary vogue of Mademoiselle Sarah Bernhardt, and will concern itself with enquiring into the sources of tender interest excited by this lady. I speak of her 'vogue' for want of a better word; it would require some ingenuity to give an idea of the intensity, the ecstasy, the insanity as some people would say, of curiosity and enthusiasm provoked by Mlle. Bernhardt. I spoke just now of topics, and what they were worth in the London system. This remarkable actress has filled this function with a completeness that leaves nothing to be desired [...]."

"The Comédie Française in London" (1879)

c.f. Jennifer Fleissner on the fad; here Bernhardt is the "vogue," filling her function to the end point of desire, using up the movement of curiosity and enthusiasm which is the movement of (cultural) history, the construction of "currency" (the temporality of the "current event," the movement of currency, and the tidal motion of currents all apply here).

button pressers

On the relationship between enthusiasm and the fad:

"Photography as a fad is well-nigh on its last legs, thanks principally to the bicycle craze. Those seriously interested in its advancement do not look upon this state of affairs as a misfortune, but as a disguised blessing, inasmuch as photography had been classed as a sport by nearly all of those who deserted its ranks and fled to the present idol, the bicycle. The only persons who seem to look upon this turn of affairs as entirely unwelcome are those engaged in manufacturing and selling photographic goods. It was, undoubtedly, due to the hand camera that photography became so generally popular a few years ago. Every Tom, Dick and Harry could, without trouble, learn how to get something or other on a sensitive plate, and this is what the public wanted-no work and lots of fun. Thanks to the efforts of these persons hand camera and bad work became synonymous. The climax was reached when an enterprising firm flooded the market with a very ingenious hand camera and the announcement, 'You press the button, and we do the rest.' This was the beginning of the 'photographing-by-the-yard' era, and the ranks of enthusiastic Button Pressers were enlarged to enormous dimensions. The hand camera ruled supreme."

Alfred Stieglitz, "The Hand Camera--Its Present Importance" (1897)

"The fad is that embodiment of historicity that most pressures the self-determining individual, producing instead a subject that is fully public and fully historical. What I mean is simply this: if we ascribe someone's interests or actions to a fad for that activity, we imply that those actions derive purely from inhabiting a particular moment in time. That moment was 'the time when everyone was doing x'; we might indeed say that any given moment becomes legible as a moment through the category of the fad. This is not to suggest, however, that the fad's relation to the writing of history is a straightforward one. In fact, I claim the opposite, that the fad often operates as the limit of historical knowledge."

Jennifer Fleissner, Women, Compulsion, Modernity: The Moment of American Naturalism (Chicago, 2004).

[note how the commercialization of photography archives the landscape, and particular the female artist/author, as residual forms]