Missing Information

Trying to do research into daily life in Chicago in 1885 without spending a ton of money. It’s hard! I’ve spent a couple of hundred on books so far. Ran into another one tonight that looks essential, but it’s $55, so I’m going to resist for a week or two.

There’s lots of good stuff at university libraries, but they won’t let me into the stacks at Stanford without a student ID card, and I’m not about to fly to Illinois to try to sneak into the University of Chicago library.

Tonight I was looking into the question of indoor plumbing. Or trying to. If you’re going to include a scene in your novel that’s set in a kitchen, you’d like to know whether there are faucets above the sink, or a pump handle, or whether the pump handle would have been outside the kitchen door. In that era, a lot would have depended on whether the inhabitants of the house were wealthy, middle class, or poor. Also, perhaps, on the neighborhood. I know Chicago had water mains, but I don’t know which outlying districts were supplied. And I don’t know whether houses would have had wells, because Chicago was built on land that had been a low-lying marsh. What happens if you dig a well in a marsh?

I’ve read that by the 1870s, a hot water tank would likely have been mounted above the back of the stove. The stove would probably have burnt coal, but perhaps gas — that’s another detail I don’t know. I know there were gas lines running under the streets, because when Chicago was digging trenches for cable car lines in 1881, rerouting the gas, water, and sewer lines complicated the process. But what were the gas lines feeding? Street lights? In-home lighting, or only lights in the business district?

And the big steam engines that provided power for the factories — coal or gas? It makes a difference, because coal smoke was a major pollutant at the time. When not choking on the coal smoke, however, Chicagoans in 1885 rode bicycles. The high front wheel bicycle was the latest fad. Citizens were sometimes arrested for speeding on their bikes (the slang term was “scorching”), because of course the bikes were the fastest thing on the street, short of a galloping horse.

And yes, there were a lot of horses. They pulled streetcars, private wagons, and so on. I found a wonderful little 30-second clip of a film of a Chicago street, made in 1897 by Thomas Edison (or someone in his employ). Amazingly dense crowds, and horses in the foreground.

What I really want is a time machine!

Beastliness

On May 4, 1886, a contingent of police marched into Haymarket Square in Chicago, bent on dispersing a peaceful labor rally. Someone (it was never determined who) threw a bomb into the midst of the police squad, killing half a dozen men.

Seven men were condemned to death on account of the bomb-throwing. Four of them were eventually hanged. But no evidence was ever presented showing that they had planned the bombing or knew who did. They were hanged for having exercised their supposed right of free speech. In spite of the manifest injustice of the convictions, an appeal to the Supreme Court did no good.

In the course of a wonderful, if rather hefty, book called The Rise of Industrial America, Page Smith discusses the Haymarket affair and numerous other atrocities. In the chapter on immigration, he describes the vicious treatment of Jews in Russia during that period. He lifts the lid on the sheer terrorism unleashed on former slaves in the South, the murders and beatings and robberies carried out, with impunity, by white men determined to retain their pathetic power and pitiful prerogatives.

When I was a kid, my father had some highball glasses with cartoons inked on them. The caption beneath one of the cartoons (by now I can’t recall the image itself) said, “People are no damn good.” That’s about the sum of it, I think. For every Shakespeare, a hundred demented monsters. For every Mozart, a hundred vile fools. For every Monet or Van Gogh, a hundred policemen swinging their billy clubs.

And you think you’re special?

Responsibility Run Amok

Headnote (not footnote): The analysis of the contract shown below is, for the moment, still accurate, or as accurate as I know how to make it. But today I spoke to an individual at the City Attorney’s office who seemed to be more than willing to make changes in the contract. So for now, I’m very optimistic. To continue where we left off:

Two weeks ago I wrote about being asked to sign a contract that included an indemnification clause. I would have been required to sign this contract in order to be allowed to teach cello at a local music studio. I said no, thanks.

Today we have an even more amazing example of creeping indemnification.

I contacted the local library and volunteered to give a free 90-minute presentation to interested library patrons on the subject of interactive fiction. The librarian in charge likes the idea. She sent me two pieces of paperwork to fill out and return. One is a simple equipment checklist; the other is entitled “Hold Harmless.” (Ominous rumblings in the timpani.) Here’s the text of the latter document, in its entirety:

“The undersigned shall defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the City, its officers, officials, employees, agents, and volunteers from and against all claims, damages, losses, and expenses, herein, caused in whole or in part by any negligent act or omission of the undersigned or anyone directly or indirectly employed by any of them or anyone for whose acts any of them may be liable, except where caused by the negligence of the City, its officers, officials, employees, agents, or volunteers.”

Below this text (which was pasted into the .doc file as a graphic, so that it can’t be edited, thereby saving them, I suppose, the trouble of having to proofread it to make sure the signer didn’t try anything sneaky) is a space for my signature.

By doing a little research online on indemnity and contract law, I was able to spot ten or twelve separate problems in that one seemingly simple paragraph. And it was given to the librarian, for her to pass on to prospective volunteer presenters of free (that is, unpaid) programs, by the City Attorney’s office.

The individual I spoke to today (Sept. 22) said, in the course of the conversation, ”That’s a standard form. We’ve been using it for years, and no one has ever asked about it before.” What I didn’t say to him, because he seems a very nice, reasonable person, was, any time someone in an attorney’s office says the language in a form is “standard,” check your wallet.

The biggest problem with this contract is so huge that I read the document a dozen times before I noticed it. Have you spotted it yet? The difficulty is

What Was

Becoming fascinated by history. Specifically the latter part of the 19th century. It was an amazing period. I started out reading about Chicago, which is fascinating enough, but Chicago was only a microcosm of the whole period, a sort of Petri dish in which the diseases of the time festered and bloomed.

Here’s a lovely quote from the Introduction of The Rise of Industrial America by Page Smith: “Americans, in the absence of any of the traditional ways of authenticating themselves and finding their places in the system — caste, clan, or ‘order’ — had to depend primarily upon money; making money became the validation of personal worth….”

From what I’ve read so far, that description fits Chicago in the 1880s like a glove.

Maybe one of the reasons I’m captivated by the 19th century is that the dominant cultural idiocies of the day are far enough removed from our own (if only barely) that I can look at the unfolding human drama as tragedy and comedy rather than as a struggle that I need to participate in. What happened, happened. Most of it happened because people, with a few happy exceptions, are cruel and stupid. But I can observe the cruelties and stupidities of the 19th century with a pleasant detachment.

Plus, top hats. What’s not to like about top hats?

Idiots Who Vote

The practice of using literacy tests to qualify (or, more likely, disqualify) voters got a very bad name in the United States during the years (roughly from the 1870s through the 1960s) when such tests were used to deny the vote to African-Americans. From what I’ve read, even quite well-educated black people generally failed the tests (which were, of course, administered by whites), while white people who could barely write their names were routinely judged literate.

My goodness, do we not want to go back there!

If, however, a literacy test could be administered in a truly color-blind way, with the results tabulated by judges who did not know the race (nor the political affiliations) of the person being tested, would it be desirable, as a matter of public policy, to require that those who are to vote in elections be able to demonstrate not only basic literacy but a basic understanding of the world in which we live? This is a question that I think can legitimately be debated.

If you’re going to cast a vote on matters that affect fiscal policy, shouldn’t you be required to demonstrate that you know how to balance a checkbook? That you understand the manner in which interest on a loan is compounded?

If you’re going to cast a vote on matters that affect foreign policy, shouldn’t you be required to demonstrate that you know the names and locations of, perhaps, twenty prominent foreign nations, the names of the languages spoken there, and the names of the current leaders of those nations?

If you’re going to cast a vote on matters that affect the environment, shouldn’t you be required to demonstrate that you know a bit about water circulation, toxins, microbes, and the role of the oceans in the life cycle of the planet?

Shouldn’t everyone who aspires to have an opinion about public policy (starting with newspaper reporters) be required to demonstrate an understanding of statistics? The science of statistics matters. The “statistics” reported in most newspaper stories are meaningless. They’re gibberish. Why? Because the reporters, even if they understand statistics themselves, know perfectly well that their readers don’t understand statistics and don’t see why they need to. As a result, the level of alarmist misinformation being spread around is just staggering.

And if you’re going to cast a vote on any matter at all, shouldn’t you be required to show that you can read a newspaper and understand the content of newspaper stories? Not only that, but if you’re going to vote in the United States, would it be too much to ask that you demonstrate

That Windy City

Doing a little historical research on Chicago in the 1880s. If you were awake during American history class, you may recall the Haymarket affair, at least vaguely, but the more I learn, the more I want to know.

The labor movement in the U.S. is responsible for little niceties like the 8-hour workday, paid vacations, and paid overtime. Without the labor unions, we’d still be … oh, wait. That all changed, didn’t it? Today you have to work two jobs to support your family, so we’re back to 16-hour workdays. If we still had a strong labor movement in this country, maybe things would be different, but the moneyed classes have managed to tar labor with a broad brush. Exactly as they did 125 years ago, though generally with a little more gentility. The brutal campaign directed against the workers in Chicago in the 1880s left a lot of people (most of them ordinary factory workers) dead.

A lot of other things were going on in Chicago at that time. It wasn’t all riots. The world’s first skyscraper (10 stories tall) was built. And when the police weren’t taking bribes or hitting the unemployed with their billy clubs, they built an impressive city-wide network of dispatch call boxes. If there was a fire, or thieves, you could run down to the corner and pull a lever, and only a minute or two later a police wagon (drawn by horses) would dash down the street to answer your call.

The police force was predominantly Irish. My bet is that that’s why those wagons came to be called “paddy wagons.”

So there were technological innovations, banks, factories, taverns … it wasn’t all riots. Life went on. It’s important to remember that historians focus on the most dramatic incidents. The lives of ordinary people are generally ignored. Except when they’re rioting in the streets because they’re unemployed and starving, of course.

Advanced Techno-Babble

Poking around in craigslist tonight, glancing at ads for writer/editors. A company called Sybase is looking for a writer. I don’t think it’s me, but I was curious about what they do. Their home page is designed with all kinds of little pop-up widgets — very sexy. One of the widgets says “Afaria.” I had no idea what that word might mean, so I clicked on it. Figured I might learn something.

Here’s what I learned:

“Afaria provides comprehensive management and security capabilities to ensure that mobile data and devices are up-to-date, reliable and secure.”

Mobile data — there’s a concept to make your head swim! What I think maybe they’re talking about is, your CEO is using his Blackberry while on a flight to Singapore, and Afaria makes sure he can access an encrypted database. But that’s a pure blind guess on my part.

“With Afaria,” the body copy goes on, “IT has the level of control and visibility required to proactively manage and secure multiple device types, applications, data and communications critical to frontline success, regardless of the bandwidth available. By putting control in the hands of IT, frontline workers are freed from the burden of management tasks, which increases user adoption and productivity. Afaria uniquely combines mobile device management and mobile security from a single console, providing the best protection against security threats and compliance issues.”

I think I’m getting a sense of why they need a writer. Not that I’m tempted to apply. What does any of that goop mean? I have no idea what a frontline worker is, but it seems clear that Afaria is going to ensure that they remain peons, “freed from the burden of management tasks.” And I guess we’re talking about orphaned frontline workers, probably under-age ones, if they’re in need of adoption.

Mobile security, that’s another interesting idea — now your security is here, now it’s gone somewhere else. And compliance issues are something a psychologist would have to sort out, right?

Teaching cello can be frustrating at times, but it has the enormous advantage that I’m dealing with utterly concrete matters. “You used your 3rd finger instead of your 2nd finger.” “You skipped ahead during that rest.” “You’re lifting the bow from your shoulder. You need to learn to use your wrist.” I seem to be on an entirely different planet than Afaria. And frankly, I’m very happy about it.

Indemnity We Trust

Until today, I was planning to start teaching cello this fall at a sort of high-end private music studio. Unlike the three teaching studios I’ve been associated with most recently (including Ingram & Brauns in Pleasanton, where I still teach), this new place wanted me to sign a contract.

They didn’t bother to tell me about the contract last November, when I initially agreed to teach there; they only emailed it to me two days before my first scheduled lesson. This was perhaps just a wee bit unprofessional on their part, especially considering that the student whose lesson I was scheduled to teach had already paid for a full month’s lessons on the mistaken assumption that the studio had a cello instructor on the roster; but never mind that.

The contract, while sensible enough for the most part, included this charming language: “Instructor shall indemnify, defend and hold harmless [the studio] from any and all damages, claims, liability, unpaid taxes, and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, arising from and related to Instructor’s obligations under this Agreement and any services provided by or activities of Instructor.”

This is pretty typical of contracts drawn up by lawyers. I’ve rejected contracts in the past because of indemnity clauses that the company in question wasn’t willing to strike. The trouble with an indemnity clause is that it asks me to push my life savings into the middle of the poker table and BET that nothing bad will happen. Since my life savings is also my retirement plan, you may imagine that such a wager might not seem entirely prudent to me.

Let’s suppose, for instance, that an insane parent decides to sue the studio because they feel (quite wrongly) that a representative of the studio promised them that little Bobby (who is tone-deaf, dyslexic, and has

Bull Sheet

The demise of the brick-and-mortar sheet music store is one of the lesser-known but keenly felt tragedies of the late 20th century. Perhaps not quite on the scale of Serbian atrocities in Kosovo, but the degradation in quality of life is nonetheless palpable, to those who are paying attention.

Once upon a time, you could walk into a great big barnlike sheet music store (Byron Hoyt in San Francisco, for instance), paw through rack upon rack, and find whatever you needed, be it ever so obscure. But finding it wasn’t even half the point. With popular works, you could compare half a dozen different editions and choose one that you liked.

Today this material — a huge slug of our cultural history — is available only online. And the people who prepare online catalogs of sheet music have neither the time, the expert knowledge, nor the motivation to provide the kind of information prospective buyers need.

Tonight I went searching for an edition of the Brahms B Major Trio, Op. 8, revised edition. I found a Dover edition of the complete Brahms trios on Amazon, with both the original and revised versions of Op. 8. It said that on the cover, that’s how I knew. But nowhere on the Amazon Web page, nor in either of the customer reviews, could I find any mention of whether the edition was strictly a piano score or whether it included the violin and cello parts.

That’s a stark example, and it’s the norm, not the exception. Amazon has a product in stock, and I’d like to buy it from them, but I can’t, because they don’t give me enough information. The reason they don’t is because they don’t give a damn about classical sheet music. It’s not a big enough or profitable enough market for them. They want to sell me a Kindle (suuure…).

Even if they ponied up the essential information, though, shopping at Amazon would be nothing like shopping at Byron Hoyt in its heyday. On Amazon I can’t leaf through the music, decide if the print is large enough to be readable, decide if I like the editor’s markings, and also (with an unfamiliar piece) decide if it’s technically within my grasp.

I buy a fair amount of cello sheet music from cellos2go.com. It’s a great site for cellists, and Ellen Gunst, who is a cellist herself, recommends products (books, cases, whatever) that she feels are superior. But most of her sheet music listings have almost no information, just a scan of the cover, the composer, author, or editor’s name, and the price. With five books of scales and arpeggios to choose from, how do you know what to buy? Answer: It’s a crap shoot.

And here’s a sonata by L. Auerbach for cello and piano. It’s $69.95. I’ve never heard of Auerbach. Am I going to pay that kind of price without looking at the music? Of course not.

The good news is, by searching the Web I was able to find a downloadable PDF of the trio, complete with the violin and cello parts. It was scanned from an 1891 Simrock edition, and while the edition was in mint condition and the scan carefully done, the PDF is kinda gray and fuzzy. But that’s okay. I’ve got the music, and it cost me nothing except the printer paper and ink.

What I don’t have, online, is the ability to browse through music that I don’t know. And that’s a real loss.

Nakedness

For a long time I’ve wondered why people go in for tattoos. I mean, what if you change your mind?

The charitable interpretation is that these folks are celebrating the fact that all of the decisions in your life are real and permanent. There are no do-overs. But somehow I can’t convince myself that their thinking is that sophisticated.

This morning I saw a wacky little ad on Facebook — something about tattooing your Facebook home page because it’s naked. And the lightbulb went on. That’s why people get tattoos! They’re scared of being naked.

Our culture places a huge emphasis on outside things as markers of identity. All human cultures do. When you’re naked, you can’t define yourself in terms of your job, car, shelf of bowling trophies, or whatever. Okay, you’ve still got your haircut, but that’s it. In the absence of outside markers, we suffer a loss of identity — a loss of self. We don’t know who we are, apart from those things. Indeed, most of us probably have a lurking suspicion that we’re not anybody. Or at least, not the person that we’d like to be.

So a tattoo is an admission to the world that on some inner level you’re afraid of being overwhelmed by loss of self — of being revealed as nothing, as nobody. Thanks to the tattoo(s), though, even when you’re naked you’re still wearing the Nike swoosh or the Raiders eyepatch or whatever marker helps you construct your identity. Not saying anybody actually gets a Nike swoosh tat, that would be lame. But how is that barbed wire around your ankle really any different?