Discarded American Hero Lewis Hine

Posted on 26 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1874, the great documentary photographer Lewis Hine was born. He did important work for the first three decades of the 20th century. After college, he became a teacher in New York City. But in his early 30s, he started working as a photographer for the Russell Sage Foundation and the Pittsburgh Survey, which was formed to document living conditions in industrialized areas. According to the New York Public Library, “Following this he became a staff photographer for the National Child Labor Committee and traveled across much of the southern and eastern states documenting the working conditions of factories, fields, mines, mills and canneries which made use of child labor. The results of Hine’s photographic pursuits eventually led to the establishment of child labor and safety laws for all workers.”

His most famous work is doubtless the collection of photographs he did from 1930 to 1931 to document the construction of the Empire State Building. You have probably seen this incredibly famous photo, which still makes me nervous:

What I find astounding about Hine’s work is that it isn’t just documentary. It does tell compelling stories. But it is above all gorgeous. And that is extremely impressive. But in the mid-1930s, he found it almost impossible to get work as a photographer, either in the private sector or in the government. This was at a time when a younger generation of photographers were discovering and cherishing his work. But he died in poverty at the age of 66 in 1940. Yet another great man that our country simply turned its back on, even while people like John D Rockefeller got their boots licked.

I highly recommend checking out the Art Plus Photo page on Lewis Hine. It contains over 50 of his photographs: beautiful, sometimes funny, often heartbreaking, work.

Happy birthday Lewis Hine!

Cheering Myself Up With Shel Silverstein

Posted on 25 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

Shel Silverstein Let me state right out that last year, I was in no condition to celebrate the birthday of William Faulkner. And on this, his 121st birthday (It is technically possible!), I am in even worse condition. As always, the usual: great writer, blah, blah, blah. I really do love his work. All those Southern Gothic writers are great. But he so depresses me. Was it really necessary?

On this day in 1930, the great writer Shel Silverstein was born. And I’m not even going to talk about him. I’m just going to present some of his work. I don’t do this for you, although I do hope that you will enjoy it. I do it just to cheer myself up. He is always good for that!

Let’s start with a satirical song written by Silverstein, “Cover of the Rolling Stone.” Just to be clear, the band, Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, is made up of a bunch of spazzes who did a whole lot of work with Silverstein, who wrote their entire second album.

Next we will do a little poetry. Silverstein has often been thought of as a children’s writer, but he never saw it that way. I think we have a similar outlook on life that way. I think people talk down to kids far too much. Just the same, they assume adults aren’t just kids with younger kids. Here’s a poem that is very close to my heart:

Memorizin’ Mo

Mo memorized the dictionary
But just can’t seem to find a job
Or anyone who wants to marry
Someone who memorized the dictionary.

Another one that is sly and silly and yet mystically profound:

Something Missing

I remember I put on my socks,
I remember I put on my shoes.
I remember I put on my tie
That was printed
In beautiful purples and blues.
I remember I put on my coat,
To look perfectly grand at the dance,
Yet I feel there is something
I may have forgot—
What is it? What is it? …

And for our last poem, a little encouragement:

Listen to the Mustn’ts

Listen to the MUSTN’TS, child,
Listen to the DON’TS
Listen to the SHOULDN’TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me—
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.

The Giving Tree

And finally, we have an animated reading by Silverstein himself of his sentimental and beautiful book, The Giving Tree. “And the tree was happy.”

Happy birthday Shel Silverstein!

A New Film by Bert I Gordon!

Posted on 24 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

Bert I Gordon It’s quite a day for birthdays. Jim Henson would be 78 today. And F Scott Fitzgerald would be 118. It is technically possible! But I wrote about them both to a decent degree last year, Tender Is F Scott Fitzgerald. Instead of either of these two unquestionably great artist, I picked simply a unique artist.

Today is Bert I Gordon‘s 92nd birthday! He is known for his low budget films, especially those with giant and miniature characters. His best known film is The Amazing Colossal Man, which I remember thinking was pretty cool when I was a little kid. I still think it is pretty awesome. But after making Satan’s Princess in 1990, he stopped making films. Until, that is, last year when Fangoria reported, Bert I Gordon returns to directing with “PSYCHOPATH”! The film is actually called, Secrets of a Psychopath. And according to IMDb, it is finished. I’ve got to see it when it comes out.

Gordon’s work was not always that great. He was an exploitation filmmaker. And mostly what he exploited was his ability to do rear projection. The funny thing is that if you look at his rear projection, it is far better than Hitchcock’s, who overused it out of what seems to have been just plain laziness. But almost three years ago, I took Gordon to task for his film, Attack of the Puppet People. But my problem with that film was primarily the script. His films were always competently put together.

Gordon is also known for Earth vs the Spider. It is not one of his best films, but it works well enough. I bring it up only because I so love this short hosted segment from Mystery Science Theater 3000 where Crow has written a screenplay, “Earth vs Soup.” I think it is one of the funniest things ever:

Meanwhile, we will be waiting for Secrets of a Psychopath. I hope Gordon lives to be 118 years old and makes many more films.

Happy birthday Bert I Gordon!

The Tragedy of Typhoid Mary

Posted on 23 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1869, Mary Mallon was born. She is better known as Typhoid Mary, because she was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever who infected many people in New York.

She was born in Ireland and immigrated to the United States when she was 15 years old. I don’t know what she did for the first 15 years in the States other than live with her Aunt and Uncle. But at the age of 30, she began working as a cook for a number of wealthy families in New York. She must have known somewhere in her mind that there was something wrong. She would start a new job, people would get sick. She would move to a new job and the same thing would happen again. During the first years of the twentieth century, she worked for seven different families. Eventually, one of the families hired the sanitation engineer George Soper and he figured out that it had to be Mallon.

This led to Mallon’s being quarantined (jailed) for three years at North Brother Island. After that time, she was released under the condition that she not work with food. She was given a job working in a laundry, but it paid very poorly. So she changed her name and went back to cooking. She always maintained that she was not a carrier of typhoid fever. And indeed, asymptomatic carriers of the disease were unheard of. I’m sure there was a lot of cognitive dissonance. After infecting a whole lot of people over the course of five years, she was arrested and sent back to North Brother Island, where she lived for the remaining 23 years of her life.

There are a few interesting things about her case. One is that other asymptomatic carriers of the disease had been discovered, but the state did not lock them up. Specifically, there were three men who were all responsible for as many or more cases of the disease. Was it sexism or racism or just that she was the first discovered? I don’t know. Clearly, something needed to be done. But it needed to be done for all the cases, not just this one.

What’s more, this is one of those cases where I just don’t understand government policy. Here was Mallon who didn’t want to be confined to hospital/prison all her life. She had been okay working as a laundress but found she couldn’t make it on the salary. This is clearly a problem you could throw money at. And indeed, the government did. She had to be cared for on North Brother Island. Why not instead set her up in a dress shop and give her a guaranteed salary? But no. We have the same problem today. We are more than willing to spend $50,000 per year to lock up drug users, but spending $20,000 per year to send them to school is just unacceptable.

Regardless of all the damage that Mary Mallon did in her life, she is still a tragic figure. And the great crime is not hers, but the government’s. And in terms of how people are treated, things really haven’t changed in the century since she lived. We have certainly gotten much better at the science and at treating the disease. But in terms of humanity, we are still as primitive as ever.

Happy birthday Mary Mallon!

Nick Cave, There Is No More to Say

Posted on 22 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

Listen up folks: Nick Cave is 57 today. I have almost nothing to say about him. His work speaks for itself. I understand that he is a novelist and a screenwriter. And I even remember him acting (so to speak) in Tom DiCillo’s first film, Johnny Suede. But I don’t know much about this side of his life. I just know his music, especially in Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Of course, at this point it is hard to separate him from the band since Mick Harvey and Blixa Bargeld left the band — the three of them pretty much were the band. Of course, the band is as good as ever. That’s perhaps that greatest thing about Nick Cave: he hasn’t decreased the quality of his work over time.

Here is a whole set from when the original members were all still in the band. There is no more to say:

Political Writer H G Wells

Posted on 21 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1866, the great writer H G Wells was born. He is best known for novels like The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds. But I’m not very interested in them. I just don’t find science fiction all that interesting.

But apparently, he didn’t either. All those books were written in the late 1890s. After that, he spent much of his time writing about politics. He was a proponent of socialism. But during his lifetime events changed quite a lot and he eventually came to see the best kind of system as the social democracies we see today in Europe.

I find his position on Zionism very interesting because it so follows along with mine. Throughout most of his life, he was against Zionism because he considered it exclusionary. He felt that all the races should interbreed, so that we could all get on with the business of being human. I’m totally with him on that. Whenever I hear people talking about keeping races pure (which I do sometimes regarding Africans and Jews), it sounds like madness. If there is anything good to come of globalization, it must certainly be that we can get past this mythical idea of race.

The problem is that there are always people who will divide us. I still find it amazing that people hate Jews, when in terms of “race” they just seem like white people. Yet the Nazis based a whole nation-cult-genocide on it. After seeing what the Nazis had done to the Jews, Wells changed his position. I find myself again with him. But in my mind, Zionism ought to be a temporary thing as the people of the world get on with their interbreeding to make us all a bunch of beautiful brownish people. Unfortunately, I think that Zionism tends to perpetuate the “purity of the race” thinking. But that discussion is well above my pay grade.

What’s perhaps greatest about Wells is that he really was a thinker. And as a result, he managed to annoy and offend just about everyone. I’m not saying that that is a good in and of itself. But he was idiosyncratic. And he followed that. And I admire it.

Happy birthday H G Wells!

The Great Poet Stevie Smith

Posted on 20 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1902, the great poet Stevie Smith was born. I could easily have used today to talk about Jay Ward, the producer of such important works of my childhood such as Rocky & Bullwinkle. But I think I have written enough about him over the years. He even shows up in my first novel. And my second novel is still unfinished, so he may end up in that one too. But the thing is that there is a very good reason for highlighting Stevie Smith today, which I will get to soon enough.

Smith published three novels and nine books of poetry during her life. Her work epitomizes what I refer to as “idiosyncratic art.” But most such art is not very good in a purely technical sense. That was not true of Smith’s work. I’ve never read any of her novels, but I plan to rectify that situation by next year. I’m especially interested in reading her first novel, Novel on Yellow Paper. For one thing, I have a special fondness for writer’s first novels. There is something special about reading them while they are still finding a voice. But also, the novel was published in 1936, and deals with antisemitism and involves a trip the main character takes to Nazi Germany at that time. That just sounds too fascinating not to read.

But the special reason for discussing Stevie Smith today is that in 1978, there was a film about her named Stevie starring one of my many childhood crushes, Glenda Jackson. As is typical of great and unique films, it is not available on DVD. In fact, I can’t even find it of VHS. It may never have been released. I only ever remember seeing the film when it played at the great old Plaza Theater in Petaluma when I was a teen. The Plaza was one of those theaters that played a different double feature every night. There really is nothing our culture has produced since to make up for the absence of those theaters.

Anyway, someone did us the great favor of putting all of Stevie on YouTube in 11 parts. And it is well done, not just cut randomly by YouTube. I’ve put it into a playlist for ease of watching. You really should take the time to watch it because it may be taken down at any time. I’m always interested in that: copyright holders who don’t care enough to make a work available for sale, but still don’t want anyone watching it for free. I’m not saying that will happen here, but it does happen all the time so you are best to watch now just to be safe.

The film is based upon the play Stevie by Hugh Whitemore. And the film definitely has a play feel to it. But it is somehow vibrant. I know that film lovers tend to disregard these kinds of films because they aren’t “cinematic.” But I think the use of film to tell a story well is always worth the effort. I think the film works beautifully. It succeeds completely on its own terms. Just accept it and follow where it takes you. It is very much like Stevie Smith’s work: charming, funny, smart, dark, heartbreaking. It is a loving and fitting tribute to a great artist.

Happy birthday Stevie Smith!

Beloved Cultural Icon Adam West

Posted on 19 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

Adam West is 86 years old today. Hooray! Really: hooray! I don’t think there is a more beloved American actor. First, he brought us the only superhero to the screen that is as campy and ridiculous as superheroes ought to be. And then in recent years, he has played the charming Mayor West on Family Guy, the only man who is truly deserving of Meg. I love him to death and I hope he lives to be 124 — the theoretical limit for humans.

He was born in Walla Walla, Washington — a town so generic that even two names can’t make it memorable. He got his bachelor’s degree in literature and then he was drafted into the Army for what I assume must have been the Korean War. In the army, he became an announcer for American Forces Network television. As a result, after the war, he pretty much fell into television.

He was a bit player throughout the early 1960s until he landed the ultimate gig in the title role of Batman. Although it only ran for three years, there were 120 episodes. Plus, of course, there was the 1966 Batman film. This probably did not make him rich. As I recall, actors of that time only got residuals for the first half dozen repeats. The rest of the money went — Of course! — to the money men who made no creative contribution to the show.

This led to a difficult time for West following the show. He was typecast. But he still managed to work. He did what he could to push past that, including working in low budget films like Zombie Nightmare (which is actually a pretty damned good film). Eventually, of course, he became the cultural icon that he is today. I think for a long time, people thought the original Batman television show was an embarrassment. But it wasn’t. It was brilliant. Really: go back and watch it. You’ll see. Here are highlights from the 1966 film:

Happy birthday Adam West!

Adrien-Marie Legendre

Posted on 18 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1752, the great mathematician Adrien-Marie Legendre was born. He was born to a rich family, which is more or less the way it goes. You see, if you were born poor, you were lucky to get to learn to read. If you look at the history of great thinkers, they mostly came from the middle of the income scale. The rich were too busy counting their money. They didn’t have to do anything, so they didn’t. And the poor were too busy not starving. So that left the children of the artisans and shopkeepers. But Legendre was a bit different.

But when revolution came to France, Legendre lost his fortune. But he wasn’t part of the useless rich, and so he survived. He was named one of the six members on the mathematics panel of the Institut National des Sciences et des Arts. And shortly before his death, he was made officer of the Légion d’Honneur.

What he is most well known for is one of the most powerful tools of mathematical physics: the Legendre transformation. As I wrote last year, “It allows you to transform a function from one set of variables to another. There are two classic examples of this. One is to transform the Lagrangian formulation of classical mechanics into the Hamiltonian formalism. The other is the transformation of thermodynamic internal energy—which we can’t measure—into enthalpy and other variables that we can measure.” It is a beautiful thing.

Happy birthday Adrien-Marie Legendre!

Sometimes a Great Ken Kesey

Posted on 17 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1935, the great American novelist Ken Kesey was born. I really only know him from his two novels One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion. But he wrote more than this and I suppose I will have to go back and find what else he did. Certainly, those are two of the greatest American novels ever written. And he is probably the greatest writer of his generation, except for maybe Heller, but certainly not Salinger or Capote or Roth — as great as they may be.

There are generally two things that I think about with regard to Kesey’s work. First is his decision to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in the first person. He could have written it in the third person and it probably would have worked well enough. But there would have been various problems. One is simply the way the plot is told. There would be no reason not to know far more of what’s going on outside the ward. But because Chief is thought to be mute, he is allowed limited access to staff meetings. But the most important aspect of the first person narrative is that the book is about Chief. One of the great disappointments in the film (as great as it is), is that we don’t get to see Chief’s evolution from mental illness to mental health.

The second thing about Kesey’s work is the way he shifts point of view in Sometimes a Great Notion. Basically, he does what Virginia Woolf’s does in To the Lighthouse. But Kesey is far more clear. Reading Woolf is like floating around at see, being pushed his way and that. It isn’t about the story but rather the journey. Kesey is interested in telling a story. And he has great insight into character that isn’t really true of the early stream of consciousness writers.

In 1989, Kesey wrote a novel collectively with 13 graduate students at the University of Oregon, Caverns. Three years later, he wrote his first novel in almost three decades, Sailor Song. And then he wrote a collaboration with Ken Babbs, Last Go Round. All of them sound interesting. I will have to see if I can dig them up. Until then…

Happy birthday Ken Kesey!

JC Penney and the Death of the Middle Class

Posted on 16 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1875, the businessman James Cash Penney was born. He is known for his hugely successful chain JC Penney. He had a kind of Horatio Alger beginning in his life. He worked for a small chain of stores. The owners were so impressed with his work that when they opened a new store, they gave him one-third ownership. After a couple of years when his partners wanted to break up, Penney bought out their interests and the chain was formed. Within ten years, it went from three stores up to 34. By 1929, the chain was nationwide with 1,400 stores. Although he was hit hard by the Great Depression, he weathered it and remained with the chain up to his death at 95 in 1971.

The company has managed to do pretty well in good times and bad. But the last decade has been very tough, as it has been for most businesses that cater to the middle class. This is because the middle class is dying. There is a thought experiment that is worth doing. Consider an economy in which one person owned everything. It couldn’t work because no one would be in a position to buy anything. A successful economy depends upon transactions. The more lopsided the distribution of goods, the less transactions can occur. So in general, an economy that is fairly equal will be one that works the best.

This is a fact that seems to have been forgotten by the rich of the world. Or rather, they believe in the thoroughly repudiated Say’s Law, “Supply creates its own demand.” By this theory, as long as the rich have factories to build things, there will be people to buy them because… Actually, I have no idea why. The idea is ridiculous. As I discussed last month, Wall St Says Economic Inequality Is Bad. And it is bad for the rich as well as the poor.

What James Cash Penney built was great. But he was only able to do it because it was done during a time of a growing middle class. When the Great Depression decimated the middle class, it almost destroyed his chain. And as the middle class has been systematically attacked over the last several decades, it has gotten harder and harder for Penney and other middle class oriented retailers to survive. Because the economy is like an ecosystem. We all depend upon each other. Without customers who are able to buy stuff, the greatest entrepreneur in the world will be helpless.

It really is the case that to save the middle class is to save JC Penney and Walmart. But sadly, after decades of the Job Creator myth and “Greed Is Good” apologetics, I fear the rich have lost their way. They think they can have it all. But they will find that having it all is the same as having nothing. James Cash Penney understood this balance, because he lived through it. He couldn’t depend upon the government to bail him out regardless of how badly he behaved. But he’s dead like all the great businessmen of the past. And now what we have are a bunch of entitled rich people who are indistinguishable from 18th century English Dukes.

Happy birthday James Cash Penney!

Edward Bouchet

Posted on 15 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1852, the great physicist and educator Edward Bouchet was born. Although he lived a good and useful life, he also lived a tragic life. As most African-Americans of that time and to a lesser extent today, there were not many professional options for him. In 1874, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Yale University. He was ranked sixth out of class of 124 students. He later went on to get his PhD in physics from Yale, writing his dissertation on geometrical optics. He was the first African American to get any kind of PhD from an American university, but he was only the sixth person of any kind to get a PhD is physics.

Given his qualifications, he should have been hired as a college professor somewhere. But he was not. And notice: he was born in Connecticut. He wasn’t trying to get by in the south. Racism was and is a thing all over the nation. As a result, Bouchet spent his entire career working at high schools. Most of his career was spent at the Institute for Colored Youth (ICY) — a Quaker founded school because most schools in Philadelphia would not accept African-American students.

After 26 years at ICY, he left because the school changed (following the philosophy of Booker T Washington) toward industrial education rather than the traditional classical education. I understand the thinking behind this, but it is wrong. We are going through it now across the nation. The idea is that children should be trained for jobs, but we’ve seen where this leads: poorly paying jobs and more inequality. Regardless, this led Bouchet to a series of teaching jobs in various locations before retiring due to poor health.

Edward Bouchet was clearly a brilliant man who we should have cherished. Instead, we provided him with a kind of torture. We allowed him to show his greatness in education and then denied him the opportunity to utilize it throughout his life. Even still, he doubtless had a huge positive effect on his students. He stands as a proud example of human self-actualization. And he is yet another example of a great man that our nation spurned.

Happy birthday Edward Bouchet!

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