I think that if God forgives us
we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as
a higher tribunal than Him. C.S. Lewis
Passing thoughts........................
In regard to the merciless murders
in California this week, don’t hate, but do recall the words of Isaac Asimov “Violence
is the last refuge of the incompetent”. Yet I could not understand the mindlessness of the act and then I understood that while I was trying to
clear my head and what I really should have doing was clearing my heart because
I know that within my heart truth is found and the truth is that within every
awful, painful and unacceptable moment we must live through, the heart knows
what the heart doesn’t; that goodness is concealed in that pain and beneath that
goodness there is a seed of grace.
MUSIC FOR THE SOUL
One cannot better examine the depth of a man’s
musical knowledge than by attempting to learn how far he has come in his
admiration for the works of Bach Thomas
Mann, Doctor Faustus
Woodward/Newman Drama Award 2016
NOTE: The fee will be waived for
Dramatist Guild members with an enclosed photocopy of a membership card.
The BPP is accepting submissions
for the 2015-16 Woodward/Newman Drama Award. Submissions are due by March 1,
2016. The top 10 finalists will be announced at the end of May with the winner
announced in June 2016.
"Full-length" plays
will have a complete running time of between 1 hour 15 minutes (75 minutes) to
2 hours 15 minutes (135 minutes).
Plays submitted must be
unpublished at the time of submission. Plays that have received developmental
readings, workshop productions, or productions at small theatre companies are
acceptable. No scripts with previous productions at major regional theaters
will be accepted. Once entered, subsequent activity does not change the
acceptability of the script.
Each submission must include a
synopsis (1 page or less) including the cast size. A separate page should
include a brief bio of the playwright, and production/development history if
applicable.
***
Taboo is looking for submissions
again! We have wanted to do this for a while and we are very excited that now
is the time. This year, instead of Grand Guignol plays, we are looking for
original adult fairy tales, exploring diverse taboos. Our showcase will have
the theme “The Uncanny: When the Fantasy is Too Real.”
Here are the requirements:
–Submissions must be accompanied
by a 150-250 word description of which taboo your work is exploring and how.
–The plays can be either
completely original, adaptations of classical works or other material that fits
the requirements of this genre.
–The plays must be 10-25 minutes
long.
–The plays should not require
elaborate sets, pro
***
The Simons Center for Geometry
and Physics, in its ongoing mission to explore the intersection science and
art, announces a CALL FOR PLAYS for the 2015-16 SBU Science Playwriting
Competition. The event is made possible by the generous support of the Simons
Center, the C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics, and the SBU
Department of Theatre Arts.
Calling all talented playwrights
with an interest in the sciences, and talented scientists with an interest in
the theatre to compose a ten-minute play with a substantial science component.
This contest is open to the general public:
First Prize Winner: $500
Second Prize Winner: $200
3rd Prize Winner: $100
Bringing science and theatre
together can provide the inspiration for a play of exceptional artistic merit
and lead to exciting new ways of learning about science. Indeed, we believe the
best science plays can be great works of art because of the science they
contain and great educational tools because of their artistic value. We are
recruiting Stony Brook University’™s brightest minds to write great plays that
make science accessible to a wide audience.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION on these
and other opportunities see the web site athttp://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
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WHERE THE ART DOLLARS GO.......................
HERE'S SOME NICE ART FOR YOU TO LOOK AT....ENJOY!
Edouard Manet
Edouard Manet (1832-1883) was a study in contradictions. A Parisian bourgeois flaneur, he became associated with the avant-garde painters known now as the impressionists. He had a traditional art education and admired the old masters, but he developed a loose, painterly technique and preferred to paint scenes of everyday urban life.
Viewed as a trailblazer of the
impressionist movement, he was influenced by fellow artists Monet, Renoir,
Degas, and supported by art critics like Emile Zola. But he turned down
invitations to exhibit at the impressionists’ group shows, and pursued success
through the more traditional Paris Salon. It was a frustrating choice, as there
seemed to be no way to predict the Salon jury reaction’s to his submissions.
Manet’s final work, A Bar at the
Folies Bergere, was shown at the Salon of 1882; he died the next year. It was a
masterpiece that clearly trumpeted Manet as a premier painter of modern life
who chose to follow his own vision to the end.
Black and White Photo from Warhols Factory in New York
HERE'S PLEASANT POEM FOR YOU TO ENJOY................
Winter
Winds, Cold and Bleak
by
John Clare
Winter winds cold and blea
Chilly blows o'er the lea:
Wander not out to me,
Jenny so fair,
Wait in thy cottage free.
I will be there.
Wait in thy cushioned chair
Wi' thy white bosom bare.
Kisses are sweetest there:
Leave it for me.
Free from the chilly air
I will meet thee.
How sweet can courting prove,
How can I kiss my love
Muffled in hat and glove
From the chill air?
Quaking beneath the grove,
What love is there!
Lay by thy woollen vest,
Drape no cloak o'er thy breast:
Where my hand oft hath pressed,
Pin nothing there:
Where my head droops to rest,
Leave its bed bare.
John Clare (13 July 1793 – 20 May
1864) was an English poet, the son of a farm laborer, who came to be known for
his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation
of its disruption. His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th
century, and he is now often considered to be among the most important
19th-century poets.
His biographer Jonathan Bate
states that Clare was "the greatest laboring-class poet that England has
ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural
childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self".
In his time, Clare was commonly
known as "the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet". His formal education
was brief, his other employment and class-origins were lowly. Clare resisted
the use of the increasingly standardized English grammar and orthography in his
poetry and prose, alluding to political reasoning in comparing
"grammar" (in a wider sense of orthography) to tyrannical government
and slavery, personifying it in jocular fashion as a "bitch".
He wrote in his Northamptonshire
dialect, introducing local words to the literary canon such as
"pooty" (snail), "lady-cow" (ladybird), "crizzle"
(to crisp) and "throstle" (song thrush).
In his early life he struggled to
find a place for his poetry in the changing literary fashions of the day. He
also felt that he did not belong with other peasants.
Clare once wrote: "I live here among the
ignorant like a lost man in fact like one whom the rest seems careless of
having anything to do with—they hardly dare talk in my company for fear I
should mention them in my writings and I find more pleasure in wandering the
fields than in musing among my silent neighbors who are insensible to
everything but toiling and talking of it and that to no purpose."
It is common to see an absence of
punctuation in many of Clare's original writings, although many publishers felt
the need to remedy this practice in the majority of his work. Clare argued with
his editors about how it should be presented to the public.
Clare grew up during a period of
massive changes in both town and countryside as the Industrial Revolution swept
Europe. Many former agricultural workers, including children, moved away from
the countryside to over-crowded cities, following factory work. The
Agricultural Revolution saw pastures ploughed up, trees and hedges uprooted,
the fens drained and the common land enclosed. This destruction of a
centuries-old way of life distressed Clare deeply. His political and social
views were predominantly conservative ("I am as far as my politics reaches
'King and Country'—no Innovations in Religion and Government say I."). He
refused even to complain about the subordinate position to which English
society relegated him, swearing that "with the old dish that was served to
my forefathers I am content.”
His early work delights both in
nature and the cycle of the rural year. Poems such as "Winter
Evening", "Haymaking" and "Wood Pictures in summer"
celebrate the beauty of the world and the certainties of rural life, where
animals must be fed and crops harvested. Poems such as "Little Trotty
Wagtail" show his sharp observation of wildlife, though The Badgershows
his lack of sentiment about the place of animals in the countryside. At this
time, he often used poetic forms such as the sonnet and the rhyming couplet.
His later poetry tends to be more meditative and uses forms similar to the folk
songs and ballads of his youth. An example of this is Evening.
His knowledge of the natural
world went far beyond that of the major Romantic poets. However, poems such as
"I Am" show a metaphysical depth on a par with his contemporary poets
and many of his pre-asylum poems deal with intricate play on the nature of
linguistics. His "bird's nest poems", it can be argued, illustrate
the self-awareness, and obsession with the creative process that captivated the
romantics. Clare was the most influential poet, aside from Wordsworth, to
practice in an older style.
GOOD WORDS
TO HAVE…………
Gramarye: (GRAM-uh-ree)
Occult learning; magic. From Old French gramaire (grammar, book of magic), from
Greek gramma (letter). Ultimately from the Indo-European root gerbh- (to
scratch), which also gave us crab, crayfish, carve, crawl, grammar, program, graphite,
glamor, anagram, paraph, andgraffiti.
Paragon \PAIR-uh-gahn\ A model of excellence or
perfection. Paragon derives from the Old Italian word paragone, which literally
means "touchstone." A touchstone is a black stone that was formerly
used to judge the purity of gold or silver. The metal was rubbed on the stone
and the color of the streak it left indicated its quality. In modern English,
both touchstone and paragon have come to signify a standard against which
something should be judged. Ultimately, paragon comes from the Greek parakonan,
meaning "to sharpen," from the prefixpara- ("alongside of")
and akonē, meaning "whetstone."
Emeritus \ih-MEH-ruh-tus\ 1: title corresponding to
that held last during active service 2 : retired from an office or position —
converted to emeriti after a pluralThe adjective emeritus is unusual in two
ways: it's frequently used postpositively (that is, after the noun it
modifies), and it has a plural form—emeriti—when it modifies a plural noun in
its second sense. If you've surmised from these qualities that the word is
Latin in origin, you are correct. Emeritus, which is the Latin past participle
of the verb emereri, meaning "to serve out one's term," was
originally used to describe soldiers who had completed their duty. (Emereri is
from the prefix e-, meaning "out," and merēre, meaning "to earn,
deserve, or serve"—also the source of our English word merit.) By the
beginning of the early 18th century, English speakers were using emeritus as an
adjective to refer to professors who had retired from office. The word
eventually became applied to other professions where a retired member may
continue to hold a title in an honorary capacity.
Colligate \KAH-luh-gayt\ 1 : to bind, unite, or group
together 2 :to subsume (isolated facts) under a general concept 3 : to be or become a member of a group
or unitColligate (not to be confused with collocate or collegiate) is a
technical term that descends from Latin colligare, itself fromcom-
("with") plus ligare ("to tie"). Ligature, ligament, lien,
rely, ally, oblige, furl, and league (in the sense of "an association of
persons, groups, or teams") can all be traced back along varying paths to
ligare. That leaves only collogue (meaning "to confer")—whose origin
is unknown. (Collocate and collegiate are also unrelated via ligare.)
Minatory
\MIN-uh-tor-ee\ having a menacing quality. Knowing that minatory means
"threatening," can you take a guess at a related word? If you're
familiar with mythology, perhaps you guessed Minotaur, the name of the
bull-headed, people-eating monster of Crete. Minotaur is a good guess, but as
terrifying as the monster sounds, its name isn't related to today's word. The
relative we're searching for is actuallymenace. Minatory and menace both come
from derivatives of the Latin verb minari, which means "to threaten."
Minatorywas borrowed directly from Late Latin minatorius. Menace came to
English via Anglo-French manace, menace, which came from Latin minac-, minax,
meaning "threatening."
Bibulous: (BIB-yuh-luhs1.
Excessively fond of drinking. 2. Highly absorbent. From Latin bibere (to
drink). Ultimately from the Indo-European root poi- (to drink), which also gave
us potion, poison, potable, beverage, and Sanskrit paatram (pot). Earliest
documented use: 1676.
I LOVE BLACK AND WHITE
PHOTOS FROM FILM
Gordon Parks photographs a Harlem family (1960s)
The Observation and Appreciation of Architecture
The Château de la
Mothe-Chandeniers is a castle at the town of Les Trois-Moutiers in the
Poitou-Charentes region of France. It was abandoned after a fire in 1932. It
has been abandoned ever since. Located in the midst of a large wood stands the
Château de la Motte-Chandeniers a former stronghold of the illustrious Bauçay
family, lords of Loudun. The stronghold dates to the thirteenth century and was
originally called Motte Bauçay (or Baussay).
The Motte Baussay was taken twice
by the English in the middle ages and devastated during the French Revolution.
It was bought in 1809 by François Hennecart, a wealthy business man who
undertook to restore its former glory. But it passed in 1857, to BaronLejeune
Edgar, Esquire of Napoleon III, son of the famous general and Amable Clary,
niece of the Queen of Sweden, Désirée Clary. A group of preservationists in
France are trying to save a 13th century castle that is slowly being reclaimed
by nature.
Lost
Ancient Greek Island Has Been Found
By Toni Aravadinos
Archaeologists believe
they may have discovered the lost city of Kane, the site of the epic sea battle
of Arginusae, which saw Athens crush Sparta in 406 BC. Archaeologists weren’t
exactly sure where this island was located, until now.
An international team of
archaeologists working with the German Archeological Institute think they may
have found Kane in the Aegean Sea, just off the coast of Turkey. The ancient
sea battle between the Athenians and Spartans is estimated to have happened
towards the end of the 27-year Peloponnesian War.
It was a bittersweet win for
the Athenians. Due to a storm the commanders abandoned thousands of their
shipwrecked men after the war, something that was considered very dishonorable
in the ancient times, as punishment six of them were executed and two were sent
into exile on their return to Athens.
The Battle of Arginusae got its
name due to its close proximity to the “Arginus” islands, which are now called
the Garip islands. Ancient texts always cited the Arginus islands as having
three land masses, though they are only two located where the Garip islands are
today. What happened to the third island has been a mystery.
Researchers wondered if a
nearby peninsula was perhaps the missing island, so they drilled into it and they
made an interesting discovery, they found evidence that what is now a peninsula
was once an island.
- See more at:
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/11/25/lost-ancient-greek-island-has-been-found/#sthash.ARN4s646.dpuf
(NOTE:) The naval Battle of Arginusae
took place in 406 BC during the Peloponnesian War near the city of Canae in the
Arginusae islands, east of the island of Lesbos. In the battle, an Athenian
fleet commanded by eight strategoi defeated a Spartan fleet under
Callicratidas. The battle was precipitated by a Spartan victory which led to
the Athenian fleet under Conon being blockaded at Mytilene; to relieve Conon,
the Athenians assembled a scratch force composed largely of newly constructed
ships manned by inexperienced crews. This inexperienced fleet was thus
tactically inferior to the Spartans, but its commanders were able to circumvent
this problem by employing new and unorthodox tactics, which allowed the
Athenians to secure a dramatic and unexpected victory.
The news of the victory itself
was met with jubilation at Athens, and the grateful Athenian public voted to
bestow citizenship on the slaves and metics who had fought in the battle. Their
joy was tempered, however, by the aftermath of the battle, in which a storm
prevented the ships assigned to rescue the survivors of the 25 disabled or
sunken Athenian triremes from performing their duties, and a great number of
sailors drowned. A fury erupted at Athens when the public learned of this, and
after a bitter struggle in the assembly six of the eight generals who had
commanded the fleet were tried as a group and executed.
At Sparta, meanwhile,
traditionalists who had supported Callicratidas pressed for peace with Athens,
knowing that a continuation of the war would lead to the re-ascendence of their
opponent Lysander. This party initially prevailed, and a delegation was
dispatched to Athens to make an offer of peace; the Athenians, however,
rejected this offer, and Lysander departed to the Aegean to take command of the
fleet for the remainder of the war, which would be decided less than a year
later by his total victory at Aegospotami.)
THE BEAT POETS
Beat
poetry evolved during the 1940s in both New York City and on the west coast,
although San Francisco became the heart of the movement in the early 1950s. The
end of World War II left poets like Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Lawrence
Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso questioning mainstream politics and
culture. A Brief Guide to the Beat Poets | Academy of American Poets https://www.poets.org/poetsorg
On soft Spring nights I’ll stand in the yard under the stars - Something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - There’s no need to say another word. Jack Kerouac
“I’m an idealist
who has outgrown
my idealism
I have nothing to do
the rest of my life
and the rest of my life
to do it”
Jack Kerouac, Mexico City Blues
“‘We gotta go and never stop going 'till we get there.’ 'Where we going, man?’ 'I don’t know but we gotta go.’” Jack Kerouac, 'On the Road’
“I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.”Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
“Dean’s California–wild, sweaty, important, the land of lonely and exiled and eccentric lovers come to forgather like birds, and the land where everybody somehow looked like broken-down, handsome, decadent movie actors.” Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends, fads, or popular opinion.” Jack Keruoac
“There was nowhere to go but everywhere. So just keep on rolling under the stars.” Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“Love is only a recognition of our own guilt and imperfection, and a supplication for forgiveness to the perfect beloved. This is why we love those who are more beautiful than ourselves, why we fear them, and why we must be unhappy lovers. When we make ourselves high priests of art we deceive ourselves again, art is like a genie. It is more powerful than ourselves, but only by virtue of ourselves does it exist and create.” From a letter from Allen Ginsberg to Jack Kerouac, September, 1945
DON'T YOU JUST LOVE POP ART?
MISH MOSH..........................................
Mish Mash:
noun \ˈmish-ˌmash, -ˌmäsh\ A : hodgepodge, jumble
“The
painting was just a mishmash of colors and abstract shapes as far as we could
tell”. Origin Middle English & Yiddish; Middle English mysse
masche, perhaps reduplication of mash mash; Yiddish mish-mash, perhaps
reduplication of mishn to mix. First Known Use: 15th century
An 18 year old Mahatma Gandhi, 1887
WHY THE WORLD NEEDS EDITORS..........
GREAT WRITING
Then he starts hauling and mauling and talking to him in
Irish and the old towser growling, letting on to answer, like a duet in the
opera. Such growling you never heard as they let off between them. Someone that
has nothing better to do ought to write a letter _pro bono publico_ to the
papers about the muzzling order for a dog the like of that. Growling and
grousing and his eye all bloodshot from the drouth is in it and the hydrophobia
dropping out of his jaws. James Joyce, Ulysses
He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced–or seemed to face–the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
HIS JOB By GRACE SARTWELL MASON
Against
an autumn sunset the steel skeleton of a twenty-story office
building
in process of construction stood out black and bizarre. It
flung up
its beams and girders like stern and yet airy music, orderly,
miraculously
strong, and delicately powerful. From the lower stories,
where
masons made their music of trowel and hammer, to the top, where
steam-riveters
rapped out their chorus like giant locusts in a summer
field,
the great building lived and breathed as if all those human
energies
that went to its making flowed warm through its steel veins.
In the
west window of a womans' club next door one of the members stood
looking
out at this building. Behind her at a tea-table three other
women sat
talking. For some moments their conversation had had a
plaintive
if not an actually rebellious tone. They were discussing the
relative
advantages of a man's work and a woman's, and they had arrived
at the
conclusion that a man has much the best of it when it comes to a
matter of
the day's work.
"Take
a man's work," said Mrs. Van Vechten, pouring herself a second cup
of tea.
"He chooses it; then he is allowed to go at it with absolute
freedom.
He isn't hampered by the dull, petty details of life that
hamper
us. He----"
"Details!
My dear, there you are right," broke in Mrs. Bullen. Two men,
first
Mrs. Bullen's father and then her husband, had seen to it that
neither
the biting wind of adversity nor the bracing air of experience
should
ever touch her. "Details! Sometimes I feel as if I were
smothered
by them. Servants, and the house, and now these relief
societies----"
She was
in her turn interrupted by Cornelia Blair. Cornelia was a
spinster
with more freedom than most human beings ever attain, her
father
having worked himself to death to leave her well provided for.
"The
whole fault is the social system," she declared. "Because of it men
have been
able to take the really interesting work of the world for
themselves.
They've pushed the dull jobs off onto us."
"You're
right, Cornelia," cried Mrs. Bullen. She really had nothing to
say, but
she hated not saying it. "I've always thought," she went on
pensively,
"that it would be so much easier just to go to an office in
the
morning and have nothing but business to think of. Don't you feel
that way
sometimes, Mrs. Trask?"
The woman
in the west window turned. There was a quizzical gleam in her
eyes as
she looked at the other three. "The trouble with us women is
we're
blind and deaf," she said slowly. "We talk a lot about men's work
and how
they have the best of things in power and freedom, but does it
occur to
one of us that a man _pays_ for power and freedom? Sometimes I
think
that not one of the women of our comfortable class would be
willing
to pay what our men pay for the power and freedom they get."
"What
do they pay?" asked Mrs. Van Vechten, her lip curling.
Mrs.
Trask turned back to the window. "There's something rather
wonderful
going on out here," she called. "I wish you'd all come and
look."
Just
outside the club window the steel-workers pursued their dangerous
task with
leisurely and indifferent competence, while over their head a
great
derrick served their needs with uncanny intelligence. It dropped
its chain
and picked a girder from the floor. As it rose into space two
figures
sprang astride either end of it. The long arm swung up and out;
the two
"bronco-busters of the sky" were black against the flame of the
sunset.
Some one shouted; the signalman pulled at his rope; the
derrick-arm
swung in a little with the girder teetering at the end of
the
chain. The most interesting moment of the steel-man's job had come,
when a
girder was to be jockeyed into place. The iron arm swung the
girder
above two upright columns, lowered it, and the girder began to
groove
into place. It wedged a little. One of the men inched along,
leaned
against space, and wielded his bar. The women stared, for the
moment
taken out of themselves. Then, as the girder settled into place
and the
two men slid down the column to the floor, the spectators turned
back to
their tea-table.
"Very
interesting," murmured Mrs. Van Vechten; "but I hardly see how it
concerns
us."
A flame
leaped in Mary Trask's face. "It's what we've just been talking
about,
one of men's jobs. I tell you, men are working miracles all the
time that
women never see. We envy them their power and freedom, but we
seldom
open our eyes to see what they pay for them. Look here, I'd like
to tell
you about an ordinary man and one of his jobs." She stopped and
looked
from Mrs. Bullen's perplexity to Cornelia Blair's superior smile,
and her
eyes came last to Sally Van Vechten's rebellious frown. "I'm
going to
bore you, maybe," she laughed grimly. "But it will do you good
to listen
once in a while to something _real_."
She sat
down and leaned her elbows on the table. "I said that he is an
ordinary
man," she began; "what I meant is that he started in like the
average,
without any great amount of special training, without money,
and
without pull of any kind. He had good health, good stock back of
him, an
attractive personality, and two years at a technical
school--those
were his total assets. He was twenty when he came to New
York to
make a place for himself, and he had already got himself engaged
to a girl
back home.
He had enough money to keep him for about three
weeks, if
he lived very economically. But that didn't prevent his
feeling a
heady exhilaration that day when he walked up Fifth Avenue for
the first
time and looked over his battle-field. He has told me often,
with a
chuckle at the audacity of it, how he picked out his employer.
All day
he walked about with his eyes open for contractors' signs.
Whenever
he came upon a building in the process of construction he
looked it
over critically, and if he liked the look of the job he made a
note of
the contractor's name and address in a little green book. For he
was to be
a builder--of big buildings, of course! And that night, when
he turned
out of the avenue to go to the cheap boarding-house where he
had sent
his trunk, he told himself that he'd give himself five years to
set up an
office of his own within a block of Fifth Avenue.
"Next
day he walked into the offices of Weil & Street--the first that
headed
the list in the little green book--asked to see Mr. Weil, and,
strangely
enough, got him, too. Even in those raw days Robert had a
cheerful
assurance tempered with rather a nice deference that often got
him what
he wanted from older men. When he left the offices of Weil &
Street he
had been given a job in the estimating-room, at a salary that
would
just keep him from starving.
He grew lean and lost his country color that winter, but he was learning,
learning
all the time, not only in the office of Weil & Street, but at
night school,
where he
studied architecture.
When he decided he had got all he could get out of the
estimating
and drawing rooms he asked to be transferred to one of the
jobs.
They gave him the position of timekeeper on one of the contracts,
at a
slight advance in salary.
"A
man can get as much or as little out of being timekeeper as he
chooses.
Robert got a lot out of it. He formulated that summer a working
theory of
the length of time it should take to finish every detail of a
building.
He talked with bricklayers, he timed them and watched them,
until he
knew how many bricks could be laid in an hour; and it was the
same way
with carpenters, fireproofers, painters, plasterers. He soaked
in a
thousand practical details of building: he picked out the best
workman
in each gang, watched him, talked with him, learned all he could
of that
man's particular trick; and it all went down in the little green
book.
For at the back of his head was always the thought of the time
when he
should use all this knowledge in his own business. Then one day
when he
had learned all he could learn from being timekeeper, he walked
into
Weil's office again and proposed that they make him one of the
firm's
superintendents of construction.
"Old
Weil fairly stuttered with the surprise of this audacious
proposition.
He demanded to know what qualifications the young man could
show for
so important a position, and Robert told him about the year he
had had
with the country builder and the three summer vacations with the
country
surveyor--which made no impression whatever on Mr. Weil until
Robert
produced the little green book. Mr. Weil glanced at some of the
figures
in the book, snorted, looked hard at his ambitious timekeeper,
who
looked back at him with his keen young eyes and waited. When he left
the
office he had been promised a tryout on a small job near the
offices,
where, as old Weil said, they could keep an eye on him. That
night he
wrote to the girl back home that she must get ready to marry
him at a
moment's notice."
Mrs.
Trask leaned back in her chair and smiled with a touch of sadness.
"The
wonder of youth! I can see him writing that letter, exuberant,
ambitious,
his brain full of dreams and plans--and a very inadequate
supper in
his stomach. The place where he lived--he pointed it out to me
once--was
awful. No girl of Rob's class--back home his folks were
'nice'--would
have stood that lodging-house for a night, would have
eaten the
food he did, or gone without the pleasures of life as he had
gone
without them for two years. But there, right at the beginning, is
the
difference between what a boy is willing to go through to get what
he wants
and what a girl would or could put up with. And along with a
better
position came a man's responsibility, which he shouldered alone.
"'I
was horribly afraid I'd fall down on the job,' he told me long
afterward.
'And there wasn't a living soul I could turn to for help. The
thing was
up to me alone!'"
Mrs.
Trask looked from Mrs. Bullen to Mrs. Van Vechten. "Mostly they
fight
alone," she said, as if she thought aloud. "That's one thing about
men we
don't always grasp--the business of existence is up to the
average
man alone. If he fails or gets into a tight place he has no one
to fall
back on, as a woman almost always has. Our men have a prejudice
against
taking their business difficulties home with them. I've a
suspicion
it's because we're so ignorant they'd have to do too much
explaining!
So in most cases they haven't even a sympathetic
understanding
to help them over the bad places. It was so with Robert
even
after he had married the girl back home and brought her to the
city.
His idea was to keep her from all worry and anxiety, and so, when
he came
home at night and she asked him if he had had a good day, or if
the work
had gone well, he always replied cheerfully that things had
gone
about the same as usual, even though the day had been a
particularly
bad one. This was only at first, however. The girl happened
to be the
kind that likes to know things. One night, when she wakened to
find him
staring sleepless at the ceiling, the thought struck her that,
after
all, she knew nothing of his particular problems, and if they were
partners
in the business of living why shouldn't she be an intelligent
member of
the firm, even if only a silent one?
"So
she began to read everything she could lay her hands on about the
business
of building construction, and very soon when she asked a
question
it was a fairly intelligent one, because it had some knowledge
back of
it. She didn't make the mistake of pestering him with questions
before
she had any groundwork of technical knowledge to build on, and
I'm not
sure that he ever guessed what she was up to, but I do know that
gradually,
as he found that he did not, for instance, have to draw a
diagram
and explain laboriously what a caisson was because she already
knew a
good deal about caissons, he fell into the habit of talking out
to her a
great many of the situations he would have to meet next day.
Not that
she offered her advice nor that he wanted it, but what helped
was the
fact of her sympathy--I should say her intelligent sympathy, for
that is
the only kind that can really help.
"So
when his big chance came along she was ready to meet it with him. If
he
succeeded she would be all the better able to appreciate his success;
and if he
failed she would never blame him from ignorance. You must
understand
that his advance was no meteoric thing. He somehow, by dint
of
sitting up nights poring over blueprints and text-books and by day
using his
wits and his eyes and his native shrewdness, managed to pull
off with
fair success his first job as superintendent; was given other
contracts
to oversee; and gradually, through three years of hard work,
learning,
learning all the time, worked up to superintending some of the
firm's
important jobs. Then he struck out for himself."
Mrs.
Trask turned to look out of the west window. "It sounds so easy,"
she
mused. "'Struck out for himself.' But I think only a man can quite
appreciate
how much courage that takes. Probably, if the girl had not
understood
where he was trying to get to, he would have hesitated longer
to give
up his good, safe salary; but they talked it over, she
understood
the hazards of the game, and she was willing to take a
chance.
They had saved a tiny capital, and only a little over five years
from the
day he had come to New York he opened an office within a block
of Fifth
Avenue.
"I won't
bore you with the details of the next two years, when he was
getting
together his organization, teaching himself the details of
office
work, stalking architects and owners for contracts. He acquired a
slight
stoop to his shoulders in those two years and there were days
when
there was nothing left of his boyishness but the inextinguishable
twinkle
in his hazel eyes. There were times when it seemed to him as if
he had
put to sea in a rowboat; as if he could never make port; but
after a
while small contracts began to come in, and then came along the
big
opportunity. Up in a New England city a large bank building was to
be built;
one of the directors was a friend of Rob's father, and Rob was
given a
chance to put in an estimate. It meant so much to him that he
would not
let himself count on getting the contract; he did not even
tell the
partner at home that he had been asked to put in an estimate
until one
day he came tearing in to tell her that he had been given the
job. It
seemed too wonderful to be true. The future looked so dazzling
that they
were almost afraid to contemplate it. Only something wildly
extravagant
would express their emotion, so they chartered a hansom cab
and went
gayly sailing up-town on the late afternoon tide of Fifth
Avenue;
and as they passed the building on which Robert had got his job
as
timekeeper he took off his hat to it, and she blew a kiss to it, and
a dreary
old clubman in a window next door brightened visibly!"
Mrs.
Trask turned her face toward the steel skeleton springing up across
the way
like the magic beanstalk in the fairy-tale. "The things men have
taught
themselves to do!" she cried. "The endurance and skill, the
inventiveness,
the precision of science, the daring of human wits, the
poetry
and fire that go into the making of great buildings! We women
walk in
and out of them day after day, blindly--and this indifference is
symbolical,
I think, of the way we walk in and out of our men's
lives....
I wish I could make you see that job of young Robert's so that
you would
feel in it what I do--the patience of men, the strain of the
responsibility
they carry night and day, the things life puts up to
them,
which they have to meet alone, the dogged endurance of them...."
Mrs.
Trask leaned forward and traced a complicated diagram on the
table-cloth
with the point of a fork. "It was his first big job, you
understand,
and he had got it in competition with several older
builders.
From the first they were all watching him, and he knew it,
which put
a fine edge to his determination to put the job through with
credit.
To be sure, he was handicapped by lack of capital, but his past
record
had established his credit, and when the foundation work was
begun it
was a very hopeful young man that watched the first shovelful
of earth
taken out.
But when they had gone down about twelve feet, with
a trench
for a retaining-wall, they discovered that the owners' boring
plan was
not a trustworthy representation of conditions; the job was
going to
be a soft-ground proposition. Where, according to the owners'
preliminary
borings, he should have found firm sand with a normal amount
of
moisture, Rob discovered sand that was like saturated oatmeal, and
beyond
that quicksand and water. Water! Why, it was like a subterranean
lake fed
by a young river! With the pulsometer pumps working night and
day they
couldn't keep the water out of the test pier he had sunk. It
bubbled
in as cheerfully as if it had eternal springs behind it, and
drove the
men out of the pier in spite of every effort. Rob knew then
what he
was up against. But he still hoped that he could sink the
foundations
without compressed air, which would be an immense expense he
had not
figured on in his estimate, of course.
So he devised a certain kind of concrete crib, the first one was driven--and when they got it
down
beneath quicksand and water about twenty-five feet, it hung up on a
boulder!
You see, below the stratum of sand like saturated oatmeal,
below the
water and quicksand, they had come upon something like a New
England
pasture, as thick with big boulders as a bun with currants! If
he had
spent weeks hunting for trouble he couldn't have found more than
was
offered him right there. It was at this point that he went out and
wired a
big New York engineer, who happened to be a friend of his, to
come up.
In a day or two the engineer arrived, took a look at the job,
and then
advised Rob to quit.
"'It's
a nasty job,' he told him. 'It will swallow every penny of your
profits
and probably set you back a few thousands. It's one of the worst
soft-ground
propositions I ever looked over.'
"Well
that night young Robert went home with a sleep-walking expression
in his
eyes. He and the partner at home had moved up to Rockford to be
near the
job while the foundation work was going on, so the girl saw
exactly
what he was up against and what he had to decide between.
"'I
could quit,' he said that night, after the engineer had taken his
train
back to New York, 'throw up the job, and the owners couldn't hold
me
because of their defective boring plans. But if I quit there'll be
twenty
competitors to say I've bit off more than I can chew. And if I
go on I
lose money; probably go into the hole so deep I'll be a long
time
getting out.'
"You
see, where his estimates had covered only the expense of normal
foundation
work he now found himself up against the most difficult
conditions
a builder can face. When the girl asked him if the owners
would not
make up the additional cost he grinned ruefully. The owners
were
going to hold him to his original estimate; they knew that with his
name to
make he would hate to give up; and they were inclined to be
almost as
nasty as the job.
"'Then
you'll have all this work and difficulty for nothing?' the girl
asked.
'You may actually lose money on the job?'
"'Looks
that way,' he admitted.
"'Then
why do you go on?' she cried.
"His
answer taught the girl a lot about the way a man looks at his job.
'If I
take up the cards I can't be a quitter,' he said. 'It would hurt
my
record. And my record is the equivalent of credit and capital. I
can't
afford to have any weak spots in it. I'll take the gaff rather
than have
it said about me that I've lain down on a job. I'm going on
with this
thing to the end.'"
Little
shrewd, reminiscent lines gathered about Mrs. Trask's eyes.
"There's
something exhilarating about a good fight. I've always thought
that if I
couldn't be a gunner I could get a lot of thrills out of just
handing
up the ammunition.... Well, Rob went on with the contract. With
the first
crib hung up on a boulder and the water coming in so fast they
couldn't
pump it out fast enough to dynamite, he was driven to use
compressed
air, and that meant the hiring of a compressor, locks,
shafting--a
terribly costly business--as well as bringing up to the job
a gang of
the high-priced labor that works under air. But this was done,
and the
first crib for the foundation piers went down slowly, with the
sand-hogs--men
that work in the caissons--drilling and blasting their
way week
after week through that underground New England pasture. Then,
below
this boulder-strewn stratum, instead of the ledge they expected
they
struck four feet of rotten rock, so porous that when air was put on
it to
force the water back great air bubbles blew up all through the
lot,
forcing the men out of the other caissons and trenches. But this
was a
mere dull detail, to be met by care and ingenuity like the others.
And at
last, forty feet below street level, they reached bed-rock.
Forty-six
piers had to be driven to this ledge.
"Rob
knew now exactly what kind of a job was cut out for him. He knew he
had not
only the natural difficulties to overcome, but he was going to
have to
fight the owners for additional compensation. So one day he went
into
Boston and interviewed a famous old lawyer.
"'Would
you object,' he asked the lawyer, 'to taking a case against
personal
friends of yours, the owners of the Rockford bank building?'
"'Not
at all--and if you're right, I'll lick 'em! What's your case?'
"Rob
told him the whole story. When he finished the famous man refused
to commit
himself one way or the other; but he said that he would be in
Rockford
in a few days, and perhaps he'd look at Robert's little job. So
one day,
unannounced, the lawyer appeared. The compressor plant was hard
at work
forcing the water back in the caissons, the pulsometer pumps
were
sucking up streams of water that flowed without ceasing into the
settling
tank and off into the city sewers, the men in the caissons were
sending
up buckets full of silt-like gruel. The lawyer watched
operations
for a few minutes, then he asked for the owners' boring plan.
When he
had examined this he grunted twice, twitched his lower lip
humorously,
and said: 'I'll put you out of this. If the owners wanted a
deep-water
lighthouse they should have specified one--not a bank
building.'
"So
the battle of legal wits began. Before the building was done Joshua
Kent had
succeeded in making the owners meet part of the additional cost
of the
foundation, and Robert had developed an acumen that stood by him
the rest
of his life. But there was something for him in this job bigger
than
financial gain or loss. Week after week, as he overcame one
difficulty
after another, he was learning, learning, just as he had done
at Weil
& Street's. His hazel eyes grew keener, his face thinner. For
the job
began to develop every freak and whimsy possible to a growing
building.
The owner of the department store next door refused to permit
access
through his basement, and that added many hundred dollars to the
cost of
building the party wall; the fire and telephone companies were
continually
fussing around and demanding indemnity because their poles
and
hydrants got knocked out of plumb; the thousands of gallons of dirty
water
pumped from the job into the city sewers clogged them up, and the
city sued
for several thousand dollars' damages; one day the car-tracks
in front
of the lot settled and valuable time was lost while the men
shored
them up; now and then the pulsometer engines broke down; the
sand-hogs
all got drunk and lost much time; an untimely frost spoiled a
thousand
dollars' worth of concrete one night. But the detail that
required
the most handling was the psychological effect on Rob's
subcontractors.
These men, observing the expensive preliminary
operations,
and knowing that Rob was losing money every day the
foundation
work lasted, began to ask one another if the young boss would
be able
to put the job through. If he failed, of course they who had
signed up
with him for various stages of the work would lose heavily.
Panic
began to spread among all the little army that goes to the making
of a big
building. The terra-cotta-floor men, the steel men,
electricians
and painters began to hang about the job with gloom in
their
eyes; they wore a path to the architect's door, and he, never
having
quite approved of so young a man being given the contract, did
little to
allay their apprehensions. Rob knew that if this kept up
they'd
hurt his credit, so he promptly served notice on the architect
that if
his credit was impaired by false rumors he'd hold him
responsible;
and he gave each subcontractor five minutes in which to
make up
his mind whether he wanted to quit or look cheerful. To a man
they
chose to stick by the job; so that detail was disposed of. In the
meantime
the sinking of piers for one of the retaining-walls was giving
trouble.
One morning at daylight Rob's superintendent telephoned him to
announce
that the street was caving in and the buildings across the way
were
cracking. When Rob got there he found the men standing about scared
and
helpless, while the plate-glass windows of the store opposite were
cracking
like pistols and the building settled. It appeared that when
the
trench for the south wall had gone down a certain distance water
began to
rush in under the sheeting as if from an underground river,
and, of
course, undermined the street and the store opposite. The pumps
were
started like mad, two gangs were put at work, with the
superintendent
swearing, threatening, and pleading to make them dig
faster,
and at last concrete was poured and the water stopped. That day
Rob and
his superintendent had neither breakfast nor lunch; but they had
scarcely
finished shoring up the threatened store when the owner of the
store
notified Rob that he would sue for damages, and the secretary of
the Y. W.
C. A. next door attempted to have the superintendent arrested
for
profanity. Rob said that when this happened he and his
superintendent
solemnly debated whether they should go and get drunk or
start a
fight with the sand-hogs; it did seem as if they were entitled
to some
emotional outlet, all the circumstances considered!
"So
after months of difficulties the foundation work was at last
finished.
I've forgotten to mention that there was some little
difficulty
with the eccentricities of the sub-basement floor. The wet
clay
ruined the first concrete poured, and little springs had a way of
gushing
up in the boiler-room. Also, one night a concrete shell for the
elevator
pit completely disappeared--sank out of sight in the soft
bottom.
But by digging the trench again and jacking down the bottom and
putting
hay under the concrete, the floor was finished; and that detail
was
settled.
"The
remainder of the job was by comparison uneventful. The things that
happened
were all more or less in the day's work, such as a carload of
stone for
the fourth story arriving when what the masons desperately
needed
was the carload for the second, and the carload for the third
getting
lost and being discovered after three days' search among the
cripples
in a Buffalo freight-yard. And there was a strike of
structural-steel
work workers which snarled up everything for a while;
and
always, of course, there were the small obstacles and differences
owners
and architects are in the habit of hatching up to keep a builder
from
getting indifferent. But these things were what every builder
encounters
and expects. What Rob's wife could not reconcile herself to
was the
fact that all those days of hard work, all those days and nights
of strain
and responsibility, were all for nothing. Profits had long
since
been drowned in the foundation work; Robert would actually have to
pay
several thousand dollars for the privilege of putting up that
building!
When the girl could not keep back one wail over this detail
her
husband looked at her in genuine surprise.
"'Why,
it's been worth the money to me, what I've learned,' he said.
'I've got
an education out of that old hoodoo that some men go through
Tech and
work twenty years without getting; I've learned a new wrinkle
in every
one of the building trades; I've learned men and I've learned
law, and
I've delivered the goods. It's been hell, but I wouldn't have
missed
it!'"
Mrs.
Trask looked eagerly and a little wistfully at the three faces in
front of
her. Her own face was alight. "Don't you see--that's the way a
real man
looks at his work; but that man's wife would never have
understood
it if she hadn't been interested enough to watch his job. She
saw him
grow older and harder under that job; she saw him often haggard
from the
strain and sleepless because of a dozen intricate problems; but
she never
heard him complain and she never saw him any way but
courageous
and often boyishly gay when he'd got the best of some
difficulty.
And furthermore, she knew that if she had been the kind of a
woman who
is not interested in her husband's work he would have kept it
to
himself, as most American husbands do. If he had, she would have
missed a
chance to learn a lot of things that winter, and she probably
wouldn't
have known anything about the final chapter in the history of
the job
that the two of them had fallen into the habit of referring to
as the
White Elephant. They had moved back to New York then, and the
Rockford
bank building was within two weeks of its completion, when at
seven
o'clock one morning their telephone rang. Rob answered it and his
wife
heard him say sharply: 'Well, what are you doing about it?' And
then:
'Keep it up. I'll catch the next train.'
"'What
is it?' she asked, as he turned away from the telephone and she
saw his
face.
"'The
department store next to the Elephant is burning,' he told her.
'Fireproof?
Well, I'm supposed to have built a fireproof building--but
you never
can tell.'
"His
wife's next thought was of insurance, for she knew that Robert had
to insure
the building himself up to the time he turned it over to the
owners.
'The insurance is all right?' she asked him.
"But
she knew by the way he turned away from her that the worst of all
their bad
luck with the Elephant had happened, and she made him tell
her. The
insurance had lapsed about a week before. Rob had not renewed
the
policy because its renewal would have meant adding several hundreds
to his
already serious deficit, and, as he put it, it seemed to him that
everything
that could happen to that job had already happened. But now
the last
stupendous, malicious catastrophe threatened him. Both of them
knew when
he said good-by that morning and hurried out to catch his
train
that he was facing ruin. His wife begged him to let her go with
him; at
least she would be some one to talk to on that interminable
journey;
but he said that was absurd; and, anyway, he had a lot of
thinking
to do. So he started off alone.
"At
the station before he left he tried to get the Rockford bank
building
on the telephone. He got Rockford and tried for five minutes to
make a
connection with his superintendent's telephone in the bank
building,
until the operator's voice came to him over the wire: 'I tell
you, you
can't get that building, mister. It's burning down!'
"'How
do you know?' he besought her.
"'I
just went past there and I seen it,' her voice came back at him.
"He
got on the train. At first he felt nothing but a queer dizzy vacuum
where his
brain should have been; the landscape outside the windows
jumbled
together like a nightmare landscape thrown up on a
moving-picture
screen. For fifty miles he merely sat rigidly still, but
in
reality he was plunging down like a drowning man to the very bottom
of
despair. And then, like the drowning man, he began to come up to the
surface
again.
The instinct for self-preservation stirred in him and
broke the
grip of that hypnotizing despair. At first slowly and
painfully,
but at last with quickening facility, he began to think, to
plan.
Stations went past; a man he knew spoke to him and then walked on,
staring;
but he was deaf and blind. He was planning for the future.
Already
he had plumbed, measured, and put behind him the fact of the
fire;
what he occupied himself with now was what he could save from the
ashes to
make a new start with. And he told me afterwards that actually,
at the
end of two hours of the liveliest thinking he had ever done in
his life,
he began to enjoy himself! His fighting blood began to tingle;
his head
steadied and grew cool; his mind reached out and examined every
aspect of
his stupendous failure, not to indulge himself in the weakness
of
regret, but to find out the surest and quickest way to get on his
feet
again. Figuring on the margins of timetables, going over the
contracts
he had in hand, weighing every asset he possessed in the
world, he
worked out in minute detail a plan to save his credit and his
future.
When he got off the train at Boston he was a man that had
already
begun life over again; he was a general that was about to make
the first
move in a long campaign, every move and counter-move of which
he
carried in his brain. Even as he crossed the station he was
rehearsing
the speech he was going to make at the meeting of his
creditors
he intended to hold that afternoon. Then, as he hastened
toward a
telephone-booth, he ran into a newsboy. A headline caught his
eye. He
snatched at the paper, read the headlines, standing there in the
middle of
the room. And then he suddenly sat down on the nearest bench,
weak and
shaking.
"On
the front page of the paper was a half-page picture of the Rockford
bank
building with the flames curling up against its west wall, and
underneath
it a caption that he read over and over before he could grasp
what it
meant to him. The White Elephant had not burned; in fact, at the
last it
had turned into a good elephant, for it had not only not burned
but it
had stopped the progress of what threatened to be a very
disastrous
conflagration, according to a jubilant despatch from
Rockford.
And Robert, reading these lines over and over, felt an amazing
sort of
indignant disappointment to think that now he would not have a
chance to
put to the test those plans he had so minutely worked out. He
was in
the position of a man that has gone through the painful process
of
readjusting his whole life; who has mentally met and conquered a
catastrophe
that fails to come off. He felt quite angry and cheated for
a few
minutes, until he regained his mental balance and saw how absurd
he was,
and then, feeling rather foolish and more than a little shaky,
he caught
a train and went up to Rockford.
"There
he found out that the report had been right; beyond a few cracked
wire-glass
windows--for which, as one last painful detail, he had to
pay--and
a blackened side wall, the Elephant was unharmed. The men
putting
the finishing touches to the inside had not lost an hour's work.
All that
dreadful journey up from New York had been merely one last turn
of the
screw.
"Two
weeks later he turned the Elephant over to the owners, finished, a
good,
workmanlike job from roof to foundation-piers. He had lost money
on it;
for months he had worked overtime his courage, his ingenuity, his
nerve,
and his strength. But that did not matter. He had delivered the
goods. I
believe he treated himself to an afternoon off and went to a
ball-game;
but that was all, for by this time other jobs were under way,
a whole
batch of new problems were waiting to be solved; in a week the
Elephant
was forgotten."
Mrs.
Trask pushed back her chair and walked to the west window. A
strange
quiet had fallen upon the sky-scraper now; the workmen had gone
down the
ladders, the steam-riveters had ceased their tapping. Mrs.
Trask
opened the window and leaned out a little.
Behind
her the three women at the tea-table gathered up their furs in
silence.
Cornelia Blair looked relieved and prepared to go on to dinner
at
another club, Mrs. Bullen avoided Mrs. Van Vechten's eye. In her rosy
face
faint lines had traced themselves, as if vaguely some new
perceptiveness
troubled her. She looked at her wristwatch and rose from
the table
hastily.
"I
must run along," she said. "I like to get home before John does. You
going my
way, Sally?"
Mrs. Van
Vechten shook her head absently. There was a frown between her
dark
brows; but as she stood fastening her furs her eyes went to the
west
window, with an expression in them that was almost wistful. For an
instant
she looked as if she were going over to the window beside Mary
Trask;
then she gathered up her gloves and muff and went out without a
word.
Mary
Trask was unaware of her going. She had forgotten the room behind
her and
her friends at the tea-table, as well as the other women
drifting
in from the adjoining room. She was contemplating, with her
little,
absent-minded smile, her husband's name on the builder's sign
halfway
up the unfinished sky-scraper opposite.
"Good
work, old Rob," she murmured. Then her hand went up in a quaint
gesture
that was like a salute. "To all good jobs and the men behind
them!"
she added.
Sculpture this and Sculpture
that
Antonio Canova (Italian pronunciation: November 1 1757
– October 13 1822) was an Italian neoclassical sculptor, famous for his marble
sculptures. Often regarded as the greatest of the neoclassical artists, his
artwork was inspired by the Baroque and the classical revival, but avoided the
melodramatics of the former, and the cold artificiality of the latter.
Cupid and Psyche (1808)
“Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss“ - 1787
You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak
as your weakest link.
This is but half the truth.
You are also as strong as your strongest link.
To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power
of the ocean
by the frailty of its foam.
To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the
seasons for their inconstancy.
Kahlil Gibran
THE ART OF PULP
THE ART OF WAR............
TODAY'S ALLEGED MOB GUY
Giorgio Basile AKA Angel Face is an alleged hit man for the 'Ndrangheta.
The New England Mafia.
Good
book about the New England mafia with some nice rare pictures
Coming
from RI - The book was great
This
held my interest, read it in two sittings, quite late at night. Most of the
main characters were familiar to me, being a born and bred New Englander, got a
kick out of some of the descriptions. A good easy read with lots of history and
Mafia insight.
READERS
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A
detailed photographic account of the murders that shocked the underworld, the
St. Valentine's Day massacre. The author tells the story of what happened and
how it happened on that fateful day for the Northside gang and demonstrates
with photos. Good book.
Shooting
the Mob: Organized Crime in Photographs. Dutch Schultz. Paperback
READERS
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Dutch
Schultz continues to capture and fascinate and his story, including his last
words, are detailed here with dozens of photographs from Schultz early days in
crime until the bitter end.
Dutch
Schultz (Arthur Flegenheimer) was the problem child of organized crime in New
York City in the 1920s and 1930s who made his fortune in bootlegging alcohol
and the numbers racket. The book gives a quick but accurate account of the
Dutchman's rise and his battle in two tax evasions trials led by prosecutor
Thomas Dewey. It covers his murder, probably on the orders of fellow mobster
Lucky Luciano. In an effort to avert his conviction, Schultz asked the
Commission for permission to kill Dewey, which they declined. After Schultz
disobeyed the Commission and attempted to carry out the hit, they ordered his
assassination in 1935. The book has a very fine series of photographs. Good
reading at a fair price.
Shooting
the mob. Organized crime in photos. Dead Mobsters, Gangsters and Hoods.
READERS
REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
This
book covers the full gamut of gangsters with many excellent photos. The story
accompanying each slain hoodlum varies from a few pages to one or two lines.
The book suffers from atrocious editing of the text. Words are frequently
mispelled or missing, sentences often end half way through only to resume as a
new sentence and paragraphs sometimes end midsentence. There are also no
sources for anything. If not for this, the book would have received five stars.
MOB RECIPES TO DIE FOR
Mob Recipes to Die For. Meals and Mobsters in Photos Paperback – December 20, 2011
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
This is a funny book, okay a little bloody in places but believe it or not, the recipes are actually pretty good and there are several good stories about mobsters and meals. The mob stories are mixted with authentic Italian recipes and other Outfit anecdotes and all of it makes for fun reading and actually some pretty good cooking.(Including the meat sauce recipe from the prison scene in "Gooodfellas") Most of the recipes are very simple fare, quick to make and include classic dishes like Shrimp Scampi, a simple Tomato Sauce, Veal Piccata, Asparagus with Prosciutto, Baked Stuffed Clams, Veal Chops Milanese, Caponata and Lobster. The book has about 50 something photos of dead mobsters followed by a recipe.The bloody scenes aside, this book would make compliment most cooking libraries and will works especially well for the novice cook.
There
is no shortage of corpses in this book. Its page after page of dead hoodlums
from the underworld with a passage on how they got that way and by whom. Gory
but I must say, fascinating as the violence of the underworld so often is. The
book is a guilty pleasure.
The
Salerno Report. The Mafia and the Murder of President John F. Kennedy: The
report by Mafia expert Ralph Salerno Consultant
to the Select Committee on Assassinations
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A
must read for anyone studying the Kennedy assassination. Among the many
conspiracy theories is the possible involvement of Mafia. As we all know there
are no definite conclusions, and history may never resolve the issue, but this
report is engaging and captive reading..
The
Salerno Report is far more accurate than the Warren Report
Evidence
mounted in a certain direction. The truth is still discoverable, and this
ghastly event in our history deserves still more examination. This book
contributes to the eventual revelation of what really happened.
Rosenthal murder case
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"The old Metropole. The old Metropole," brooded Mr. Wolfshiem gloomily. "Filled with faces dead and gone. Filled with friends gone now forever. I can't forget so long as I live the night they shot Rosy Rosenthal there. It was six of us at the table, and Rosy had eat and drunk a lot all evening. When it was almost morning the waiter came up to him with a funny look and says somebody wants to speak to him
outside. 'all right,' says Rosy, and begins to get up, and I pulled him down in his chair. "'Let the bastards in here if they want you, Rosy, but don't you, so help me, move outside this room.' "It was four o'clock in the morning then, and if we'd of raised the blinds we'd of seen daylight."
"Did he go?" I asked innocently.
'Sure he went." Mr. Wolfshiem's nose flashed at me indignantly. "He turned around in the door and says: 'Don't let that waiter take away my coffee!' Then he went out on the sidewalk, and they shot him three times in his full belly and drove away."
"Four of them were electrocuted,"
I said, remembering. "Five, with Becker"
The Great Gatsby
The Becker-Rosenthal trial was a 1912 trial for the murder of Herman Rosenthal by Charles Becker and members of the Lenox Avenue Gang. The trial ran from October 7, 1912 to October 30, 1912 and restarted on May 2, 1914 to May 22, 1914. Other procedural events took place in 1915.
In July 1912, Lieutenant Charles Becker was named in the New York World as one of three senior police officials involved in the case of Herman Rosenthal, a small time bookmaker who had complained to the press that his illegal casinos had been badly damaged by the greed of Becker and his associates. On July 16, two days after the story appeared, Rosenthal walked out of the Hotel Metropole at 147 West 43rd Street, just off Times Square. He was gunned down by a crew of Jewish gangsters from the Lower East Side, Manhattan. In the aftermath, Manhattan District Attorney Charles S. Whitman, who had made an appointment with Rosenthal before his death, made no secret of his belief that the gangsters had committed the murder at Charles Becker's behest.
At first, John J. Reisler, also known as "John the barber," told the police that he'd seen "Bridgey" Webber running away from the crime scene directly following the killing. He recanted under duress from gangsters the next week, and was charged with perjury.
The investigation was covered on the front page of the New York Times for months. It was so complex that the NYPD recalled thirty retired detectives to help investigate; they were said "to know most of the gangsters."
One of these old-timers, Detective Upton, formerly of the NYPD "Italian Squad," was instrumental in the July 25, 1912, arrest of "Dago" Frank Cirofici, one of the suspected killers. He and his companion, Regina Gorden (formerly known as "Rose Harris"), were "so stupefied by opium that they offered no objection to their arrests," according to the New York Times.
Joe Petrosino
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Any book about Joe Petrosino can't be all bad. Far too little attention is paid to Petrosino these days. The foolish Public remembers names of scumbags like Capone, Gotti, Valachi, Tony Soprano, etc. Far too few people remember New York Cop Joe Petrosino. In a time when Italians were segregated, harassed by Cops and treated as second class citizens, Petrosino arose as the first Italian anti-gangster Cop. Then, as now, gangsters claimed they were the victims of prejudice, discrimination and profiling. Petrosino rose above his times to become a Pioneer in anti-Mafia police work. Tough as nails, un-corruptible, and utterly fearless, Petrosino was assassinated by the Mafia in their usual cowardly style.
This book is a welcome bit of scholarship on the great Petrosino. Tuohy's book does contain an, apparent, misprint. There is a lone word, without authority, regarding Petrosino being "corrupt," perhaps a reference to his tough police tactics. Corruption, however, implies a personal power or profit motive. Tuohy provides no evidence or argument of any such motive or activity on Petrosino's part. On the contrary, the only evidence is that Petrosino was a good, honest Cop. Petrosino is a role model for young and old alike, oppressed immigrants, and even whining minority gangsters and their sympathizers, such as Sharpton, Obama, Jackson, and Holder.
I have several books from The Mob Files Series and I have really enjoyed reading them. The Joe Petrosino story is definitely one worth reading. He had an interesting life working against the mafia. I enjoyed seeing the pictures in the book and they helped bring the story to life.
AND HERE'S SOME ANIMALS FOR YOU...................
