October the First Is Too Late

Summary

M. Trente has furnished a signal service to the scholarly world with his éclairage of one of our unsung research bodies, worthy of Block or Ginsberg. Far from the common eye, for the thanks of posterity, scholars labor in citadels of knowledge—the Labyrinth Sodality & Iberian Sundial Society, the Rekord-Club Gründerzeit, the forthcoming Museum of Tri-Jurassic Technology, the Pith Rivers Museum, & especially the Anti-Gravity Research Foundation, have all at some point received their due; and now another has come due. One fears it will grace more catalogues than shelves, reviewed more than read, yet any reader of even modest cultivation will at once perceive that Trente’s inquiry eclipses those earlier curiosities in both scope and intellectual élan, and would prove an inestimable ornament to any library. For Trente’s Chestertonian thesis is a micro-historical vindication of the English verity that no things are uninteresting—only people. …M. Trente conducts us to a quaint quarter of New Orleans, down a dilapidated lane—past a sleeping rusty-black c​a​t—where, from time to time, a meek figure or a mail-carrier may approach the disquietingly overgrown official entrance. The lost may consult the stately period engraved on the plaque—the one with a bird & wildcat—to learn that it is the door into summer: The Institute of September the Thirtieth (Founded 196​9) Lux in Tenebris Diei Unius Dedicated exclusively to the exhaustive study and preservation of all phenomena, documents, and recollections pertaining to September 30, 193​9. (all translations mine) The Institute is one of the least known legacies of Vincent Rosier (192​7–198​8), for whom Trente diligently provides an enlightening parcours de vie: Birth in rural Ireland, emigration to the City of Wind, Chicago, hardscrabble childhood running with youth gangs, the precocious admission to an anthropology major followed by a contretemps while kayaking Papua New Guinea, on behalf of the OSS, which connections proved usefu...