Gossip and More
Item
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Title
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Gossip and More
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Date
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December 1939
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volume
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4
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issue
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7
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pages
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1, 8
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content
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en
GOSSIP AND MORE
Count de Baillet-Latour, President of the International Olympic Committee, announced on December 2nd that, if Helsingfors were unable to hold the 1940 Olympic Games, they would be canceled. The committee rejected an American offer to take the 1940 games since it was deemed impossible for European athletes to go to the United States. There had been some talk of transferring the games to Detroit in the event that Helsingfors gave them up.
The Winter Games, scheduled for Germany, have already been canceled. In view of recent developments in Finland, it now appears inevitable that the Summer Games will also be canceled.
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Despite the fact that November 5th was a cold, rainy day, the Autumn Tea Dance given by the Columbia Rapier Club proved a great success. The Ballroom at the Men’s Faculty Club was well filled with attractive couples who, between dances and cups of tea, formed large sociable groups which intermingled and seemed well able to converse on topics other than fencing.
These parties, held at least once a year, have always attracted good attendance despite the bad weather which has inevitably accompanied them. We hope that the next party, scheduled for early February, will find good weather and for once relieve the entertainment committee of its unfounded worries of the past.
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An error appeared in this column in our last issue. At that time, we stated that “The Foils Club has obtained the services of Al Hern as instructor to take the place of Matthew Gusick who has moved to California.” We have now been advised that Mr. Hern and Mr. Gusick had been partners since the opening of the Club in August, 1938, and that Mr. Hern purchased Gusick’s partnership share when Gusick left for California. The Club’s Secretary states that all present members of the club and every representative of the club in A. F. L. A. competitions are and have been the exclusive pupils of Mr. Hern.
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A man’s whole being, his character, is fully exposed on the fencing strip. When you cross blades with an opponent, you enter a contest in character as well as in skill.
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Mr. James R. Killian, Jr. has written a new book about ultra high-speed photography, based upon the experiments of Harold E. Edgerton of M. I. T. This book, entitled Flash, is copiously illustrated with all types of action photographs taken at speeds ranging from 1/100,000th to 1/1,000,000th of a second. Of interest to us were five fencing action pictures for which Joseph Levis posed. You may have seen some of these photographs reproduced in a recent article in Life magazine.
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On December 3rd, a television program of fencing was broadcast over the National Broadcasting Company’s television station from the Fencers Club strips in New York City. We were unable to see the program but await with interest the reports of those fortunate enough to have seen it.
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The members of the Greco Fencing Academy are publishing a club paper entitled The Stop Thrust—Always in Time. It deals primarily with the activities of the club’s members and with their successes in competition. The first issue, published on November 4th, was a two-page mimeograph job, reminiscent of our own beginnings. We wish it every success.
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Sportsmanship has an indefinable code which any group of spectators appreciates, whether or not it is fencing-conscious. The newspapers may judge you by your scores, but the spectators judge you by your actions.
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The fencing bug is a potent insect that drives its victims hard and far. Its latest most-seriously-stricken victims are the several students of Middlebury College who are reported as driving 225 miles from Middlebury, Vt., to New York City each Saturday to take fencing lessons.
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The A. F. L. A. is constantly alert to professionalism and must frequently reopen this problem to discussion. A recent and lengthy discussion on this subject involved the amateurism of actors who were employed to fence as part of their duties in any particular play. What seemed like an interminable discussion was put to an amusing end when Mr. George Cochrane remarked that in his experience he had seen many fencers acting but very few actors fencing.
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Last December, an American fencing team visited Cuba during the Christmas holidays where it won the Batista Trophy in a Cuba-United States fencing match. The A. F. L. A. now plans to send a second team to Cuba to defend the Trophy. Plans are not complete for the team as yet, but it is rumored that Norman Armitage, Lt. Gustave Heiss, Jose de Capriles, Miguel A. de Capriles, and Edward Carfagno have accepted invitations for positions on the team. Many other fencers who have been contacted have been forced to refuse similar invitations through inability to leave the United States for the two-week trip.
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A sport which does not mold the character of the human receptacle, spiritually and morally, is nothing more than hard exercise. If you just want hard exercise, try riding a stationary bicycle.
