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GELERNTER_LOST_FAIR

                                             September 19, 2026


A book I've head on my shelves for decades:

   "1939: The Lost World of the Fair" (1995)
    by  David Gelernter

The 1939 World's Fair in New York
holds some interest to me--           But clearly not a
as does the 1964 World's Fair         burning interest...


                    The location of both of the New York
                    World's Fairs (1939 and 1964)
                    was in the same "Flushing Meadows"
                    area in Queens.

                    The 1964 World's Fair happened when I
                    was still a little kid living in Brooklyn,
                    just a few miles away from it.


There's a pecularity about this book that took me some
work to sort out, but I'll spare you the blow-by-blow:

It's a work of history that uses a device of quoting a
fictional diary, discussing two fictional characters.
The signalling that he's going to be mixing historical
fiction with history is non-existent, and the place where
he does the transition is pretty murky and easy to miss.

There's nothing clever or innovative about this--
it's a gross misuse of a device.  Did he think it
would break the spell if he just said what he was
doing?


Did anyone let this guy
write anything else, I
wondered?  It turns out
he's had a number of books         This world's fair book
published... and he's got          sounds like one of his
quite the background:              saner saner efforts.


          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gelernter

        The best thing you can say about him is he's a
        unabomber victim-- a Computer Science prof at Yale.

                I don't think much of conservatives whining about
                college campuses being unfriendly to right-wing
                crazies but at least he's got some street cred on
                that one.

        Gelernter was also a Trump supporter; he's
        developed a crypto clearing house; and he was
        corresponding with Jeffrey Epstein for six
        years, which has gotten him bounced from Yale.

        There's something impressive about attracting
        criticism from wide-ranging sources like Steven
        Pinker and Russell Jacoby.



    So looking at this book isn't just *random*,
    it's more like "looking for wisdom in unlikely places".


Gelernter's got a few remarks I thought were of
at least minor interest:


    Gelertner defends 1939 against the charge that
    it was an "unsophisticated" era-- as he puts it,
    focusing on the hokey messaging in news reels       If he really wanted
    ignores the woman in the corner smiling at it.      to capture the spirit
    Popular composers of the time like Gershwin         of the era, he should've
    compare well with modern popular music.             rolled with that,
                                                        e.g. chapter titles
                                                        written like newsreel
                                                        blurb parodies.

    Gelertner argues that the 1939 view of new
    technology was more nuanced than present day,
    comparing late '30s comments on the invention
    of television to more recent gushing about the
    information super-highway.

    Gelertner makes the point that the Futurama
    exhibit was clearly in love with the dream of
    suburbia (Levittown was a half dozen years
    ahead).

    Gelertner talks about the Amusement area of the
    fair that included a lot of what amounts to
    soft-core porn performances and comments that
    then, as now, there was a wide range of opinions
    about these things.

    Discussing the 1939 take on women's equality
    Gelertner comments that they both believed
    that women were capable of professional work
    but also believed that their main
    responsibility was caring for children--            There I think
    these days we tend to expect equality to            Gerlertner was
    equal numbers of men and women in each              letting his own
    profession, but back then they didn't.              opinions leak
                                                        into the story.





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