From the Editor’s Desk
Last week as I filled out my “Diversity” form for UNLV, it struck me once
more how inclusive of “diversity” popular culture study has always been. While
I haven’t gone back to check, I believe that every issue of Popular Culture
Review has contained articles increasing our understanding of the complex
relationships between race, gender, nationality, age, and popular culture,
whether in film, music, comic strips, literature, advertising, or any of the other
elements that make up the sea of popular culture in which we swim. This issue,
as you will see, is no exception.
Although PCR is 19 years old this year, its parent organization, Far West
Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association, is celebrating its
20th anniversary (it took us an extra year to get the journal off the ground). Had
someone told me 20 years ago that I’d still be putting on conferences in 2008,
I’d have told them they were crazy. Yet here I am, and this conference boasts a
healthy 150-person registration with topics as diverse as the participants, who
this year come from all over the United States, Canada, Mexico, and even Saudi
Arabia.
On another note entirely, frequent journal contributor and conference
participant Armand Singer died this year at the age of 92. A few weeks before
his death, although ill and in the hospital, he called me both to chat and to make
certain that his article, “‘Filthy’ Lewker Takes on Assorted Mountaineering
Miscreants,” had reached me. It had, and runs in this issue. Like Armand
himself, it’s funny, scholarly, and adventure-filled, proof that his intellectual
capacities never diminished. For those of you interested in learning more about
him, a blog called “Where’s Armand” (http://uechi.typepad.com/wheres_
armand/) celebrates his life, and what a life it was! After the conference last
year, with ribs cracked from a bathtub fall, he flew to Patagonia, because, as he
told me, “I’ve never seen those mountains and I’d better get on it.”
Armand was living proof that you don’t have to be young to understand
popular culture. Although he was a traditional scholar, he was as up on Harry
Potter and all forms of adventure as he was on pop music and jazz.
He had a knack for calling me out of the blue when I was feeling down to
regale me with a recent exploit such as a tandem parachute jump made in his
late 80s, yet another descent into the Grand Canyon, or a whirlwind drive across
the United States behind the wheel of his fast car, always preceded or ended
with a limerick made up on the spot. (Some of you may remember his
propensity for reeling off limericks. Of special note was his limerick
presentation at last year’s conference, where he had the entire audience in
stitches.) When he finished, I always felt much better, and much younger. Rock
on, Armand, wherever you are!