A Solid Gold Christmas:
A very happy yule from Kevin and the Solid Gold Dancers…
Famous Telegrams:
Now that Western Union is shutting down its telegram operations, this very good piece in the NY Times recalls some of the medium’s greatest hits. My favortite? Robert Benchley to his editor upon Benchly’s arrival in Venice…
Streets filled with water. Please advice
I can’t believe I’ve never heard this one.
Waking the Dead:
Find A Grave.com is an online directory of millions of famous burial sites, of what famous people were laid to rest where. If you’re into that sort of thing.
R.I.P. Saul Bellow:
In case you hadn’t heard, Saul Bellow, one of the giants of American literature, has died. He was 89. He leaves behind more than a dozen novels, a Nobel Prize, three National Book Awards and several generations of students.
I read Bellow’s novella Seize the Day in high school and found it thick and dull. But as I spent time as a journalist in publishing, as I interviewed other Jewish writers like Michael Chabon, Ethan Canin and others, again and again they pointed to Bellow as their inspiration. They claimed Bellow and novels like Henderson the Rain King and The Adventures of Augie March gave Jewish authors the permission to be more than chroniclers of the shtetl and the Lower East Side. Augie March’s first line "I am an American, Chicago born" gave two generations of Jewish authors the right to identify themselves as Americans as well as Jews. And while that assimilationist tendancy has fallen out of fashion (now, thankfully, it’s hip to be Jewish and proud of it), Jewish-American authors and American Jews at large first had to feel as though they too belonged in their adopted homeland, not as guests or interlopers, but as participating artists, workers, voters and citizens. Saul Bellow and his immense literary output stood at the head of this change and pushed forward hard.
Remembering the Triangle Factory Fire:
Friday was the annivesary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. On the afternoon of March 25, 1911, fire broke out at the Asch building, a garment factory at Green St. and Washington Place in lower Manhattan owned by the Triangle Waist Company. Like many of the sweatshops of its day, the facility had poor ventilation, dangerous machinery, few if any safety standards and a single exit where management-hired guards would inspect employees on their way home ostensibly to cut down on theft. Other doors remained locked from the outside during the work day.
When fire engulfed the factory’s lower floor, it trapped employees–overwhelmingly young, female and from Italian and Jewish emigrant familes–inside. Many leaped to their death from the roof, others burned inside. Although the building was fireproof and the fire department arrives within 15 minutes to put out the blaze, 146 works, nearly 30% of the total force at Triangle had died. It is considered one of the worst disasters in American labor history.
The tragedy served as a clarion call for the American labor movement and in the insuing years, garment worker membership soared and workplace safety standards were lobbied for and achieved. Nonetheless, sweatshops persist, even the offshore-happy American market of the early 21st century. Free The Slaves, a Washington D.C.-based activist organization reports that 27 million people live in near-enslavement throughout the world today, primarly by their employers. An estimated 50,000 enslaved persons live in the United States, many as non-unionized farm workers and domestics.
While we argue endlessly over whether our economic system can or cannot avoid trafficking in human misery, I’d like to think that we, as citizens and consumers, would make intelligent choices about supporting such practices if adequate education and labelling existed. Maybe it does and I’m just not aware of it. But that sounds like exactly the problem.
A google search on "Sweatshop free clothes" lists quite a number of options at prices roughly equal to The Gap. American Apparel is one of the nation’s largest producer of T-shirts (of significantly higher quality and comfort by my experience) and runs a sweatshop-free factory in downtown Los Angeles and is expanding to retail stores throughout North America. Triangle: The Fire that Changed America is an excellent book on the subject.
Last Post of 2004:
Today is the last day of 2004 and I’ve been thinking all week about what to say, as a roundup, as an analysis, as a farewell to a Matterhorn ride of a year. Truth, I’m rather speechless. This was one of the more dramatic years of my life, where the highs rang out like yell in a canyon and lows sank me to my knees. Or rather my bed.
I worked on a book most of the year, that’s all but done and is actually up on Amazon. My book. It hasn’t felt real until now. I celebrated three years in a relationship with Suzan, love deepened by trips to two countries and a cat named Faygo. I worked on Litquake again, the biggest baddest festival of its kind to date. It’s still being talked about several months later. I started taking my career more seriously, leaving The Grotto, building an office, petitioning for membership in the National Speakers Association and entering into talks about my second book. I volunteered at the San Francisco Food Bank, Jewish Family and Children Services and The Hub. I saw friends get engaged, get married, come to San Francisco and move away. Some are starting to have kids. Some are just figuring out what they want.
Seeing John Kerry lose in November broke my heart. It hasn’t quite mended.
Most of all, I spend a lot of this year thinking about health and well being. I turned 31 which means worries and concerns you don’t have when you’re 20. I focused on eating well, exercising, meditating each morning. The first week of the year, I’m getting a physical, going to the dentist and getting my eyes checked. I intend to live a long time. Best to be diligent now, when I’m healthy and active. I’m buying comfort and piece of mind later.
Well being to me also means less ego, less relentless thirst for self-gratification, understanding my place in other’s lives and my place in the world. This is the area where I need the most help, particularly with a book coming out next June and a summer’s worth of “me me me” ahead for 2005. But I’m going to try to remember that I live my best life as one of many, with an understanding of my loyalties to others, to my family, to my home, instead of as one and only.
So I’m ready for 2005 and the huge changes it will bring. I can best appreciate them if I remember, even as they are happening, that I am still me, am good at being me, and like it.
See you tomorrow. And the whole year after…
31 Candles:
Hello from Dublin, 20 feet from the River Liffey. Today is my birthday. I’m 31. Suzan surprised me with a piece of cake in bed from our new favorite vegetarian place right off of Grafton street. It was delicious. I also had two cards from my mom and dad.
We’re going to be taking a local’s tour today with our friend (and native Dubliner) Tom Cosgrave, hitting the Dublin Co-op Market, hopefully the Dublin Writer’s Museum and having some fish and chips at Burrdock’s. We leave for the North country tomorrow.
If you absolutely must, I have an Amazon Wish List for late gift giving. But only if you must. I’ll be throwing a post-trip getogether back home in San Francisco.
See you soon.
–Kevin o’Smokler
Happy 4th of July!
My absolute favorite holiday. Take yourself flag counting today.
UPDATE: Final tally was 224 flags, aided by an zealous realtor in Daly City who staked about 50 houses with plastic American flags in their front lawns. I called my dad in Israel, just to let him know.
Where’d She Go?
I’ve been reading this book on the toilet for the last few months and one of the entries was a filmmaker named Sarah Jacobson, a mid-90s pioneer of DIY and feminist cinema. Her two films I Was a Teenage Serial Killer and Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore were self-financed and distributed and the later received a spot at Sundance in 1997 and a glowing review from Roger Ebert.
I was curious. I went over the Sarah Jacobson.com to see what she had going on lately. Turns out, she’s dead. Had a long battle with cancer and lost. She was 33.
Merry All ‘Round:
What exactly is so strange about a grown man alone on a merry-go-round? And why does it merit the attention of one cop, three photographers, and maybe two dozen squealing tourists and their kids?
Its Friday afternoon. I’m in Bryant Park, right next to the New York Public Library, sending off an article for The Believer. Bryant Park is the town square of wireless access in New York City, one big green laptop heaven.
I spellcheck one more time, hit send and it’s gone. A week’s worth of work nearly 6,000 written and rewritten words. And I’m done. I have to celebrate.
It’s a beautiful afternoon. The park is teaming with folks drinking, chatting, making merry. What can I do? I was tempted to dash across the Great Lawn in triumph but it’s closed for resotting and I try to only make a spectacle of myself in my hometown.
Then I see the merry-go-round. I flash quickly to the end of Catcher in the Rye and start walking.
“How many people do you need to get this thing moving?” I ask the friendly ticket booth lady. The merry-go-round is stopped. There is nothing sadder than a still merry-go-round.
“Just one” she says and smiles at me.
I pay my ticket and hop on board. A medium-sizes brown horse calls out. I grad his mane and climb on.
And I ride.
A merry-go-round is a joy when you’re all grown up and not terrified of falling off. You can ride side saddle, lean waaaayyyy back in the stirrups or even off the side of the horse and over the ground below. No one cares, especially when you’re the only one on the merry-go-round.
I’m getting into it, a few heavy leans, a “Yee haw!” or two. A couple stop and start filming me with a video camera. A tall teenage girl starts shooting pictures. The Bryant Park cop stares as if to say “Right, today he rides. Tomorrow he’s molesting todlers.” Three sets of children are waving. Folks sitting at the tables bordering the ride gape uncomfortably.
I have a great time.
When the Italian Um-pa-pa song finishes up, I slide off, thank the nice woman running the thing and head for the subway. It’s the best $1.75 I’ve spent in New York, the sun is shining, I’m free for the weekend.
If I lived here, I’d do this every Friday.