SCKKK.NnSemipseudo Cinema Verite and Benighted ViewersnWilliam Rothman: Hitchcock—ThenMurderous Gaze; Harvard UniversitynPress; Cambridge, MA.nDonald Crafton: Before Mickey: ThenAnimated Film 1898-1928; The MITnPress; Cambridge, MA.nby Stephen MacaulaynIn all areas of artistic endeavor therenis typically a distinct, synthetic separationnbetween practitioners who are considerednartists and those who are considerednentertainers. In contemporary letters,nfor example, there are two novelists,nTom Robbins and Thomas Pynchon,nwho are, seemingly, of approximatelynthe same age and who have, apparentiy,nsome of the same interests. Pynchon,ntypically reticent with regard to publicnevents, wrote a laser-bright blurb fornRobbins’s Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,na novel that only an ideological soulnmate could love. Robbins, perhaps bestnknown for his trendy Another RoadsidenAttraction, is generously considered annentertainer; one of the most notablenthings about him is the feet that he is almostnas popular as Pac-Man on collegencampuses. Pynchon, of course, is an artist,na statement that can be made with littienfear of contradiction, supported as itnis by the National Book Award Seal ofnGood Practice printed on his Gravity’snRainbow (a novel only a devotee ofnmodem literature can read). Post-Picassonartists are all but invisible on thenmainstream scene, with the exceptionnof those like Judy Chicago, who polevaultnthemselves out of the pages of artnjournals and into Time and Newsweeknby using a shtick of controversy (thosenartists are but fleeting, though: who remembersnthe name of the one who letngallery visitors take shots at him with anhandgun?). To explain the diflferencenbetween the perceptions of the practitionersnby the audience there’s often thenresort to phrenology, wherein measure-nMlnChronicles of Culturenli!iPll^iifi|i^(IPPP!i!;!!tenments are made of the region above theneyes and below the locks and the resultantnarea used to account for an individual’sntastes. What such computationsndon’t sum, however, is the feet that innearlier ages the artificial distinctionnbetween artist and entertainer wasn’t asnobvious—^and perhaps not as self-fialfillingn—^as evidenced by Shakespeare, Dickens,nand others whom the rabble and cognoscentinboth enjoyed and admired. Modemnsophisticates, those who can be cer­nIn the Mailntain to secure a copy of the New YorknTimes even if they reside in Ann Arbor,nlike to think that there is an exquisitenqualitative difference between themselvesnand the provincial rustics whonread, say, the Ann Arbor News Thus thendifferentiation between Robbins andnPynchon, musicians Philip Glass andnFrank Zappa, and so on. This line ofnthought says that a palate which enjoysnpate de foie gras cannot abide the merenaroma of a McDonald’s hamburger.nThe late Alfred Hitchcock is a culturalnanomaly. His career as a filmmakernspanned from the mid-20’s, when Pabst,nLang, and Eisenstein were making films,nto the fete 70’s, which saw the emergencenof Lucas, Scorsese, and Forman. Morenimpressive—and important—thannchronological longevity is the feet thatnHitchcock made films that one’s motherncan find satisfyingly suspensefiil and tonwhich even despisers of the auteurntheory bow. Leopold Tyrmand oncentold me that he had participated in annearly screening of Psycho in Warsaw;nthe attendees were the cream of thenPolish film industry—directors, writers,nJhe Concentration Camp Con^racy: A Second PearlHarborhfylAStianBakeT;ABIlAnPublications; Lawndale, CA. The author olThe Collector’s Encyclopedia of Hatpins and HatpinnHolders attempts to make the point that some Japanese-American claims stemming fromnWorld War II forced relocation are outlandish.nThe Constitutional Polity: Essays on the Founding Principles of American Politicsnedited by Sidney A. Pearson, Jr.; University Press of America; Washington, DC. Not onlyndo the principles of the Founding Fathers get interpreted, but so too do the interpretations ofncommentators as diverse as William Howard Taft and Reinhold Niebuhr.nSpirituality and Human Emotion by Robert C. Roberts; Wm. B. Eerdmans; Grand Rapids,nMI. For some, philosophy and Christianity are poles apart. We aren’t among them. Nor is thenauthor, as evidenced by his synthesis.nRenascence (Vol. XXXV, No. 2) edited by Joseph Schwartz; Marquette University Press;nMilwaukee, WI. A stately but not plump issue devoted to Dublin’s almost-Javorite son, markingnhis centenary. A worthy portrait.nFather Divine and the Struggle for Racial Equality by Robert Weisbrot; University ofnIllinois Press; Champaign, IL. Although his surname may have been a fabrication, for many innthe ghettos it couldn’t have been closer to the truth. Dnnn