So while I do continue to read Dr. Seuss, I also reject Geisel as a cultural ambassador for children’s literature.
It has long been debated why the eyes were lost. Some biologists used to argue that they just withered away over generations because cave-dwelling animals with faulty eyes experienced no disadvantage. But another explanation is now considered more likely, says evolutionary physiologist Nicolas Rohner of the University of Münster in Germany: “Eyes are very expensive in terms of resources and energy. Most people now agree that there must be some advantage to losing them, if you don’t need them.”
The complicated, festive, painstakingly orchestrated meals they served feature heavily in a charming new exhibition now on view in a dining room–sized gallery at the New York Historical (recently renamed from New-York Historical Society). Curated by Nina Nazionale, “Dining in Transit” gathers a range of memorabilia—menus, cookbooks, brochures—documenting the food that travelers enjoyed on the ships, planes, and trains of the early-to-mid-twentieth century and the labor of the workers who provided it. The show pays frank attention to the financial incentives that motivated the operators of ocean liners, railroads, and airlines to treat their customers so hospitably, cannily predicting that they could use oysters, beef Wellington, kale salad, and martinis to edge out the competition. It revels in the nostalgic glamour of these luxury meals even as it alludes to the patterns of exclusion and exploitation that made them possible. The prevailing racial, economic, and gender hierarchies of the first half of the twentieth century were, the show makes clear, on full display in transit dining rooms and kitchens—an argument that gets all the stronger as the focus turns from international ocean liners to domestic enterprises like TWA.