Writers Anonymous, Inc.

2013-12-19T12:25:00.001-08:00

See samples of my new novel,

checkmate.com by Jordan Richman

at:

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2013-08-06T11:26:00.002-07:00

From the Malcolm X Website

A new awakening

That same year, Malcolm went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The trip proved life altering. For the first time, Malcolm shared his thoughts and beliefs with different cultures, and found the response to be overwhelmingly positive. When he returned, Malcolm said he had met "blonde-haired, blued-eyed men I could call my brothers." He returned to the United States with a new outlook on integration and a new hope for the future. This time when Malcolm spoke, instead of just preaching to African-Americans, he had a message for all races.

"Human rights are something you were born with. Human rights are your God-given rights. Human rights are the rights that are recognized by all nations of this earth."

After Malcolm resigned his position in the Nation of Islam and renounced Elijah Muhammad, relations between the two had become increasingly volatile. FBI informants working undercover in the NOI warned officials that Malcolm had been marked for assassination. (One undercover officer had even been ordered to help plant a bomb in Malcolm's car).

After repeated attempts on his life, Malcolm rarely traveled anywhere without bodyguards. On February 14, 1965 the home where Malcolm, Betty and their four daughters lived in East Elmhurst, New York was firebombed. Luckily, the family escaped physical injury.

The legacy of "X"

One week later, however, Malcolm's enemies were successful in their ruthless attempt. At a speaking engagement in the Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965 three gunmen rushed Malcolm onstage. They shot him 15 times at close range. The 39-year-old was pronounced dead on arrival at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

"Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression, because power, real power, comes from our conviction which produces action, uncompromising action."

Fifteen hundred people attended Malcolm's funeral in Harlem on February 27, 1965 at the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ (now Child's Memorial Temple Church of God in Christ). After the ceremony, friends took the shovels away from the waiting gravediggers and buried Malcolm themselves.

Later that year, Betty gave birth to their twin daughters.

Malcolm's assassins, Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson were convicted of first-degree murder in March 1966. The three men were all members of the Nation of Islam.

The legacy of Malcolm X has moved through generations as the subject of numerous documentaries, books and movies. A tremendous resurgence of interest occurred in 1992 when director Spike Lee released the acclaimed movie, Malcolm X. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Actor (Denzel Washington) and Best Costume Design.

Malcolm X is buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.

© Estate of Malcolm X

2013-08-06T10:39:00.002-07:00

Edited from Wikipedia by Jordan Richman for Writers Anonymous

Father Divine (c. 1876 – September 10, 1965),

Father Divine (c. 1876 – September 10, 1965), also known as Reverend M. J. Divine, was an African American spiritual leader[2] from about 1907 until his death. His full self-given name was Reverend Major Jealous Divine, and he was also known as "the Messenger" early in his life. He founded the International Peace Mission movement, formulated its doctrine, and oversaw its growth from a small and predominantly black congregation into a multiracial and international church.

Father Divine claimed to be God. Some contemporary critics also claimed he was a charlatan, and some suppose him to be one of the first modern cult leaders. However, Father Divine made numerous contributions toward his followers' economic independence and racial equality. Father Divine was a contemporary of other religious leaders at that time such as Daddy Grace, Charles Harrison Mason, Noble Drew Ali and James F. Jones, also known as Prophet Jones. Another minister by the name of Jones would play a significant part in a brief struggle to gain control of the Peace Mission following Divine's death - Jim Jones, leader of the 'apostolic socialist' movement Peoples Temple.

Early life and original name

Little is definitively known about Father Divine's early life, or even his real given name. Father Divine and the Peace Movement he started did not keep many records. Father Divine himself declined several offers to write his biography, saying that the history of God would not be useful in mortal terms. He also refused to acknowledge relationship to any family. Newspapers in the 1930s had to dig up his probable given name: George Baker. (This name is not recognized by the Library of Congress, and from 1979, there is no further use of that name as a heading for Father Divine in libraries' catalogs.)[3] Federal Bureau of Investigation files record his name as George Baker alias "God".[4]

In 1936 Eliza Mayfield claimed to be Father Divine's mother. She stated that his real name was Frederick Edwards from Hedersonville, North Carolina, and had abandoned a wife and five children, though Mayfield offered no proof and claimed to not remember his father's name. (Father Divine replied that "God has no Mother.")[5]

Father Divine's childhood remains a contentious point. Some, especially earlier researchers, suppose that he was born in the Deep South, most likely in Georgia, as the son of sharecroppers. Newer research by Jill Watts, based on census data, finds evidence for a George Baker, Jr. of appropriate age born in an African American enclave of Rockville, Maryland, called Monkey Run. If this theory is correct, his mother was a former slave named Nancy Baker, who died in May 1897. Most researchers agree that Father Divine's parents were freed African American slaves. Notoriously poor records were kept about this generation of African Americans, so controversy about his upbringing is not likely to be resolved.

Father Divine was probably called George Baker around the turn of the century. He worked as a gardener in Baltimore, Maryland. In a 1906 sojourn in California, Father Divine became acquainted with the ideas of Charles Fillmore and the New Thought Movement, a philosophy of positive thinking that would inform his later doctrines. Among other things, this belief system asserted that negative thoughts led to poverty and unhappiness. Songwriter Johnny Mercer credited a Father Divine sermon for inspiring the title of his song "Accentuate the Positive".[6][7]

Father Divine attended a local Baptist Church, often preaching, until 1907, when a traveling preacher called Samuel Morris spoke and was expelled from the congregation. Morris, originally from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, had a soft-spoken and uncontroversial sermon until the end, when he raised his arms and shouted, "I am the Eternal Father!" This routine had him thrown out of many churches in Baltimore, and was apparently unsuccessful until Morris happened upon the receptive Father Divine.

In his late 20s, Father Divine became Morris's first follower and adopted a pseudonym, "The Messenger". The Messenger was a Christ figure to Morris's God the Father. Father Divine preached with Morris in Baltimore out of the home of former evangelist Harriette Snowden, who came to accept their divinity. Morris began calling himself "Father Jehovia."

Divine and Father Jehovia were later joined by John A. Hickerson, who called himself Reverend Bishop Saint John the Vine. John the Vine shared the Messenger's excellent speaking ability and his interest in New Thought.

In 1912, the three-man ministry collapsed, as John the Vine denied Father Jehovia's monopoly on godhood, citing 1 John 4:15 to mean God was in everyone:

"Whoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him and he in God."

Father Divine had finally parted ways with his former associates. Denying that Father Jehovia was God, and saying that everyone could not be God, he declared that he himself was God, and the only true expression of God's spirit.

See also: International Peace Mission movement

Preaching as God: 1912–1965

In the South: 1912–1914

Father Divine traveled south, where he preached extensively in Georgia. In 1913, conflicts with local ministers got him sentenced to 60 days in a chain gang. While he was serving his sentence, several prison inspectors were injured in an auto accident, which he viewed as the direct result of their disbelief.

Upon release, he attracted a following of mostly black women in Valdosta, Georgia. He taught celibacy and the rejection of gender categorizations.

On February 6, 1914, several followers' husbands and local preachers had Divine arrested for lunacy. This actually expanded his ministry, with reporters and worshippers deluging his prison cell. Some whites even began calling on him. One white follower, J. R. Moseley, arranged for J. B. Copeland, a respected Valdosta lawyer, to represent him pro bono. Father Divine was found mentally sound in spite of "maniacal" beliefs. He had given no name when arrested and was tried as "John Doe (alias God)".

Brooklyn and marriage to Penninah: 1914–1919

In 1914, Father Divine traveled to Brooklyn, New York, with a very modest number of followers and an all-black congregation. Although he claimed to be God incarnate fulfilling Biblical prophecy, he lived relatively quietly.

He and his disciples formed a commune in a black middle-class apartment building. He forbade sex, alcohol, tobacco, and gambling among those who were living with him. By 1919, he had adopted the name Reverend Major Jealous Divine. "Reverend Major" was chosen as a title of respect and authority, while "Jealous" was a reference to Exodus 34:14, where the Lord says he is a "jealous god". His followers affectionately called him Father Divine.

In this period, Father Divine married a follower, Penninah, who was decades his senior. Like Father Divine, her early life is obscure, but she is believed to be from Macon, Georgia. The date of the marriage is unknown but probably occurred between 1914 and 1917.

In addition to lending her dignified look to Father Divine, Penninah served to defuse rumors of impropriety between him and his many young female followers. Both Penninah, who was often called "Mother Divine", and Father Divine would assert that the marriage was never physically consummated.

Sayville, New York: 1919–1931

Father Divine's house in Sayville, New York.

Father Divine and his disciples moved to Sayville, New York (on Long Island), in 1919. He and his followers were the first black homeowners in town. Father Divine purchased his 72 Macon Street house from a resident who wanted to spite the neighbor he was feuding with. The two neighbors, both German Americans, began fighting when one of them changed his name from Felgenhauer to Fellows in response to anti-German sentiment. His neighbor taunted him, and the feud escalated until Fellows decided to move. As a final insult, he specifically advertised his home for sale to a "colored" buyer to presumably lower his neighbors' property values.

In this period, his movement underwent sustained growth. Father Divine held free weekly banquets and helped newcomers find jobs. He began attracting many white followers as well as black. The integrated environment of Father Divine's communal house and the apparently flaunted wealth of his Cadillac infuriated neighbors. Members of the overwhelmingly white community accused him of maintaining a large harem and engaging in scandalous sex, although the Suffolk County district attorney's office found the claims baseless. Nonetheless, neighbors continued to complain.

Sayville arrests, trial, notoriety, and prison: 1931–1932

On May 8, 1931, a Sayville deputy arrested and charged Father Divine with disturbing the peace. Remarkable during the Depression, Father Divine submitted his $1000 bail in cash. The trial, not as speedy as the neighbors wanted, was scheduled for late fall, allowing Father Divine's popularity to snowball for the entire Sayville vacation season.

Father Divine held banquets for as many as 3000 people that summer. Cars clogging the streets for these gatherings bolstered some neighbors' claims that Father Divine was a disturbance to the peace and furthermore was hurting their property values.

On Sunday, November 15, at 12:15 AM, a police officer was called to Father Divine's raucously loud property. By the time state troopers, deputies and prison buses were called in, a mob of neighbors had surrounded the compound. Fearing a riot, the police informed Father Divine and his followers that they had fifteen minutes to disperse. Father Divine had them wait in silence for ten minutes, and then they filed into police custody. Processed by the county jail at 3 AM, clerks were frustrated, because the followers often refused to give their usual names and stubbornly offered the "inspired" names they adopted in the movement. Seventy-eight people were arrested altogether, including fifteen whites. Forty-six pled guilty to disturbing the peace and incurred $5 fines, which Father Divine paid with a $500 bill, which the court was embarrassingly unable to make change from. Penninah, Father Divine, and thirty followers resisted the charges.

Father Divine's arrest and heterodox doctrines were sensationally reported. The New York frenzy made this event and its repercussions the single most famous moment of Father Divine's life. Although mostly inaccurate, articles on Father Divine propelled his popularity. By December, his followers began renting buildings in New York City for Father Divine to speak in. Soon, he often had several engagements on a single night. On December 20, he spoke to an estimated 10,000 in Harlem's Rockland Palace, a spacious former casino.

By May 1932, meetings were regularly held at the Rockland and throughout New York and New Jersey. Father Divine had supporters in Washington state, California and throughout the world thanks to New Thought devotees like Eugene Del Mar, an early convert and former Harlem journalist, and Henry Joerns, the publisher of a New Thought magazine in Seattle. Curiously, although the movement was predominantly black, followers outside the Northeast were mostly middle class whites.

In this period of expansions, several branch communes were opened in New York and New Jersey. Father Divine's followers finally named the movement: the International Peace Mission movement.

Father Divine's trial was finally held on May 24, 1932. His lawyer, Ellee J. Lovelace, a prominent Harlem African American and former US Attorney had requested the trial be moved outside of Suffolk County, due to potential jury bias. The court acquiesced, and the trial took place at the Nassau County Supreme Court before Justice Lewis J. Smith. The jury found him guilty on June 5 but asked for leniency on behalf of Father Divine. Ignoring this request, Justice Smith lectured on how Father Divine was a fraud and "menace to society" before issuing the maximum sentence for disturbing the peace, one year in prison and a $500 fine.

Smith, 55, died of a heart attack days later on June 9, 1932. Father Divine was widely reported to have commented on the death, "I hated to do it."[8] In fact, he wrote to his followers, "I did not desire Judge Smith to die.… I did desire that MY spirit would touch his heart and change his mind that he might repent and believe and be saved from the grave."

The impression that Justice Smith's death was divine retribution was perpetuated by the press, which failed to report Smith's prior heart problems and implied the death to be more sudden and unexpected than it was.

During his brief prison stay, Father Divine read prodigiously, notably on the Scottsboro Nine. After his attorneys secured release through an appeal on June 25, 1932, he declared that the foundational documents of the United States of America, such as the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, were inspired. Father Divine also taught that contemporary leaders strayed from these ideals, but he would become increasingly patriotic through his life.Harlem: 1932–1942[edit source | t]

The International Peace Mission movement established over 100 Heavens in the Northeastern United States.

Father Divine moved to Harlem, New York, where he had accumulated significant following in the black community. Members, rather than Father Divine himself, held most deeds for the movement, but they contributed toward Father Divine's comfortable lifestyle. Purchasing several hotels, which they called "Heavens", members could live and seek jobs inexpensively. The movement also opened several budget enterprises, including restaurants and clothing shops, that sold cheaply by cutting overheads. These proved very successful in the depression. Economical, cash-only businesses were actually part of Father Divine's doctrine.

By 1934, branches had opened in Los Angeles, California, and Seattle, Washington, and gatherings occurred in France, Switzerland, Canada, and Australia, but the membership totals were drastically overstated in the press. Time Magazine estimated nearly two million followers, but the true figure of adherents was probably a few tens of thousands and a larger body of sympathizers who attended his gatherings. Nonetheless, Father Divine was increasingly called upon to offer political endorsements, which he initially did not grant. For example, New York mayoral candidates John P. O'Brien and Fiorello H. LaGuardia each sought his endorsement in 1933, but Father Divine was apparently uninterested.

An odd alliance between Father Divine and the Communist Party of America began in early 1934. Although Father Divine was outspokenly capitalist, he was impressed with the party's commitment to civil rights. The party relished the endorsement, although contemporary FBI records indicate some critics of the perceived huckster were expelled from the party for protesting the alliance.

In spite of this alliance, the movement was largely apolitical until the Harlem Riot of 1935. Based on a rumor of police killing a black teenager, it left four dead and caused over $1 million in property damage in Father Divine's neighborhood. Father Divine's outrage at this and other racial injustices fueled a keener interest in politics. In January 1939, the movement organized the first-ever "Divine Righteous Government Convention", which crafted political platforms incorporating the Doctrine of Father Divine. Among other things, the delegates opposed school segregation and many of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's social programs, which they interpreted as "handouts".

At the zenith of Father Divine's influence, several misfortunes struck the movement.

On December 16, John Hunt, a white millionaire and disciple from California calling himself John the Revelator, met the Jewett family of Denver, Colorado. He kidnapped their 17-year-old daughter Delight and took her back to California without her parents' consent. Renaming her "Virgin Mary", John the Revelator began sexual relations with her. He announced that she would give birth to a "New Redeemer" by "immaculate conception" in Hawaii. Father Divine summoned Hunt to New York, separated the couple and chastised his eccentric follower. The Jewetts, finding their daughter apparently brainwashed into believing she was literally the Virgin Mary, demanded compensation. After the movement's attorneys conducted an internal investigation, they refused. Outraged, the Jewetts offered their story to William Randolph Hearst's New York Evening Journal, an established critic of the movement. After a manhunt and trial, John Hunt was sentenced to three years and adopted a new name, the "Prodigal Son". Father Divine publicly endorsed the conviction of John the Revelator, contrary to some expectations (some followers expected him to once again "smite" the judge). However, the scandal brought bad publicity to Father Divine. News coverage implied his followers were gullible and dangerous.

In March 1937, Penninah fell ill in Kingston, New York. Father Divine rarely comforted her on what was widely believed to be her deathbed. He kept running the church, only visiting her once in Kingston, again causing bad publicity. Penninah, however, claimed that she was not seriously ill or in pain.

On April 20, 1937, a violent outburst occurred in a meeting when two men tried to deliver Father Divine a summons. One of the men, Harry Green, was stabbed as Father Divine fled. Father Divine went into hiding to evade authorities.

During this time, one of Father Divine's most prominent followers, called Faithful Mary, defected and took control of a large commune, which was technically in her name. Of the Father she said, "he's just a damned man." She furthermore alleged that he defrauded his followers to maintain a rich lifestyle for himself. Faithful Mary also made a number of sexual allegations, including a charge that Father Divine coerced females to have sex with key disciples.

In early May, Father Divine was located and extradited from Connecticut and faced criminal charges in New York. That summer, Hearst's Metronone newsreel distributed mocking footage of Father Divine's followers singing outside police headquarters, "Glory, glory, hallelujah! Our God is in our land!"

Later in May 1937, an ex-follower called Verinda Brown filed a lawsuit for $4,476 against Father Divine. The Browns had entrusted their savings with Father Divine in Sayville back in 1931. They left the movement in 1935 wishing to live as husband and wife again, but were unable to get their money back. In light of their evidence and testimony from Faithful Mary and others critical of the movement, the court ordered repayment of the money. However, this opened up an enormous potential liability from all ex-devotees, so Father Divine resisted and appealed the judgment.

In 1938, Father Divine was cleared of criminal charges and Mother Divine recovered. Faithful Mary, impoverished and broken, returned to the movement. Father Divine made her grovel for forgiveness, which she did. By the late 1930s, the movement stabilized, although it had clearly passed its zenith.

Father Divine's political focus on anti-lynching measures became more resolved. By 1940, his followers had gathered 250,000 signatures in favor of an anti-lynching bill he wrote. However, passage of such statutes came slowly in New York and elsewhere.

The Verinda Brown lawsuit against Father dragged on and was sustained on appeal. In July, 1942, he was ordered to pay Brown or face contempt of court. Instead, Father Divine fled the state and re-established his headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He still visited New York, however. State law forbade serving subpoenas in New York on Sunday, so he often spoke on the Sabbath day in Harlem, the Promised Land (his Kingston commune), and Sayville.

Pennsylvania: 1942–death

After moving to Philadelphia, Father Divine's wife, Penninah, died. The exact date is not known, because Father Divine never talked about it or even acknowledged her death. However, it occurred sometime in 1943, and biographers believe Penninah's death rattled Father Divine, making him aware of his own mortality. It became obvious to Father Divine and his followers that his doctrine might not make one immortal as he asserted, at least not in the flesh.

In 1944, singer/songwriter Johnny Mercer came to hear one of his sermons. The subject was "You got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative." Mercer said, "Wow, that's a colorful phrase!” He went back to Hollywood and got together with songwriter Harold Arlen ("Over The Rainbow"), and together they wrote "Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive", which was recorded by Mercer himself and the Pied Pipers in 1945. It was also recorded by Bing Crosby with the Andrews Sisters that same year.

After his first wife died, Father Divine married a white Canadian woman called Edna Rose Ritchings in Washington, D.C., on April 29, 1946. The ceremony was kept secret even from most members until Ritching's visa expired. Critics of the movement believed that Father Divine's seemingly scandalous marriage to 21-year-old Ritchings would destroy the movement. Instead, most followers rejoiced, and the marriage date became a celebrated anniversary in the movement. To prove that he and Ritchings adhered to his doctrine on sexual abstinence, Father Divine assigned a black female follower to be her constant companion.

He claimed that Ritchings, later called "Mother S. A. Divine", was the reincarnation of Penninah. Reincarnation was not previously part of Father Divine's doctrine and did not become a fixture of his theology. Followers believed that Penninah was an exceptional case and viewed her "return" as a miracle.

Going into the 1950s, the press rarely covered Father Divine, and when it did, it was no longer as a menace, but as an amusing relic. For example, light-hearted stories ran when Father Divine announced Philadelphia was capital of the world and when he claimed to inspire invention of the hydrogen bomb. Father Divine's predominantly lower-class following ebbed as the economy swelled.

"Woodmont" was Father Divine's home from 1953 until his death in 1965.

In 1953, a follower called John Devoute gave Father Divine Woodmont, a 72-acre (0.3 km²) hilltop estate in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. This French Gothic manor served as his home and primary site of his increasingly infrequent banquets until his death in 1965.

As his health declined, he continued to petition for civil rights. In 1951, he advocated reparations to be paid to the descendants of slaves. He also argued in favor of integrated neighborhoods. However, he did not participate in the burgeoning American Civil Rights Movement because of his poor health and especially his dislike of the use of racial labels, denying he was black.

On September 10, 1965, Father Divine died of natural causes at his Woodmont estate. His widow and remaining followers insist his spirit is still alive and always refer to Father Divine in the present tense. Believers keep the furnishings of Father Divine's personal rooms at Woodmont just as they were as a shrine to his life.

Mrs. S. A. Divine became spiritual leader of the movement. In 1972, she fought an attempt by cult leader Jim Jones to take over the movement's dwindling devotees. Jones based some of his doctrines on the International Peace Mission movement and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. Although a few members of the Mission joined Peoples Temple after Jones made his play for leadership of the movement, the power push was, in terms of its ultimate objective, a complete failure. The fact that Jones was 34 years old at the time of Father Divine's death made his claims of being a new incarnation rather hard to sustain - Jones claimed Divine's spirit had entered his body upon the passing of the elder man - and Ritchings was left unimpressed by Jones' impassioned rhetoric. Jones' custom of tape-recording all his sermons was copied from Divine, who "spoke" to his followers via archived sermon tapes once ill health forced him to cease speaking at meetings.

Physical characteristics and preaching style

Father Divine was a lightly built African American man at a diminutive 5′2″ (1.57 m). Through most of his life, he maintained a fastidious appearance and a neat moustache that he kept well groomed, his hair was invariably neatly combed, and since his days in Sayville, New York, he almost always wore a suit in public.

Like many religious or cult leaders, Father Divine was said to be very charismatic. His sermons were emotionally moving and freely associated between topics. His speech was often peppered with words of his own invention like "physicalating" and "tangiblated". Other eccentricities were drawn from his doctrine. For example, nearly every sermon began with the greeting and exhortation "Peace!" Father Divine believed that peace should replace hello.

Civil rights legacy

Some biographers, such as Robert Weisbrot, speculate that Father Divine was a forerunner to the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, heavily influenced by his upbringing in the segregated South. Others, such as Jill Watts, reject not only this characterization, but also the theory that Father Divine grew up in the Deep South. Watts asserts that Rockville was less oppressive than the South or even Baltimore, Maryland, and believes his civil rights positions are unintelligible without evaluating them in the context of the Doctrine of Father Divine.

Although Father Divine strove extensively against lynching and bigotry, he accepted many of the negative characteristics assigned African Americans. He concluded that those who identified themselves as "black" manifested these characteristics. In short, he believed blacks perpetuated their own oppression by thinking racially. He once said that he was not poor because he did not belong to a poor downtrodden race—that he was not black.

Religious legacy

Edna Rose Ritchings (Mother Divine) is still alive and conducts services for the old and dwindling congregation. The movement still owns several properties, such as Father Divine's Gladwyne estate Woodmont, his former home in Sayville, New York, and the Circle Mission Church on Broad Street in Philadelphia, which also houses the movement's library.

Chapters still exist in Pennsylvania and possibly elsewhere, but the movement is not centralized and exists through a number of interrelated groups.

In 2004, Gastronomica magazine did an article about Mother S. A. Divine and the movement's feasts.[9]

In 2000, the Divine Lorraine Hotel near Temple University on North Broad Street was sold off by the international Peace Mission Movement. It was a budget hotel with separate floors for men and women in accord with Father Divine's teachings.

References

^ Hoshor, John. God in a Rolls Royce. Books for Libraries Press, 1971, p. 37.
^ John Gordon Melton (1965-09-10). "Father Divine (American religious leader) - Britannica Online Encyclopedia". Britannica.com. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
^ * Copy of the letter from the Library of Congress about the catalog heading for Father Divine Copy of the letter
^ Watts, Jill. God, Harlem U.S.A: The Father Divine Story, University of California Press, 1995. p 224.
^ "Life on the American Newsfront: In Richmond, Virginia". Life. 1936-12-07. p. 14. Retrieved February 23, 2013.
^ Gilliland, John. Pop Chronicles the 40's: The Lively Story of Pop Music in the 40's. ISBN 978-1-55935-147-8. OCLC 31611854. Tape 1, side B.
^ "'40s Sounds Return to Radio" (PDF). Oakland Tribune. 29 October 1972. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
^ "This Far by Faith . 1866-1945: from EMANCIPATION to JIM CROW". PBS. 1938-07-31. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
^ Gastronomica 4: 19–24. Winter 2004. doi:10.1525/gfc.2004.4.1.19. Unknown parameter |No= ignored (help)

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

2013-07-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

Picture of lone palm tree surrounded by clouds in a lot at the edge of downtown Phoenix, taken as I walked home from the YMCA. I thought of Williams Wordsworth's poem, Daffodils, or "I Wandered lonely as a Cloud."

"I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD"

          I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
          That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
          When all at once I saw a crowd,
          A host, of golden daffodils;
          Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
          Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

          Continuous as the stars that shine
          And twinkle on the milky way,
          They stretched in never-ending line
          Along the margin of a bay:                                  10
          Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
          Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

          The waves beside them danced; but they
          Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
          A poet could not but be gay,
          In such a jocund company:
          I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
          What wealth the show to me had brought:

          For oft, when on my couch I lie
          In vacant or in pensive mood,                               20
          They flash upon that inward eye
          Which is the bliss of solitude;
          And then my heart with pleasure fills,
          And dances with the daffodils.
                                                              1804.

2013-07-15T13:08:00.001-07:00

Leon Sullivan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edited for Writers Anonymous by Jordan Richman

Leon Howard Sullivan

Born	(1922-10-16)October 16, 1922 Charleston, West Virginia, USA
Died	April 24, 2001(2001-04-24) (aged 78) Scottsdale, Arizona, USA
Ethnicity	African-American
Political movement	African-American Civil Rights Movement, Anti-Apartheid Movement

Leon Howard Sullivan (October 16, 1922 - April 24, 2001) was a Baptist minister, a civil rights leader and social activist focusing on the creation of job training opportunities for African-Americans, a longtime General Motors Board Member, and an anti-Apartheid activist. Sullivan died on April 24, 2001, of leukemia at a Scottsdale, Arizona hospital. He was 78.

Early life

Born to Charles and Helen Sullivan in Charleston, West Virginia. He was raised in a small house in a dirt alley called Washington Court in one of Charleston's poorest sections. His parents divorced when he was 3 and he grew up an only child. Sullivan has often re-told the event which set a course for the remainder of his life. At the age of twelve, he tried to purchase a Coca-Cola in a drugstore on Capitol Street. The proprietor refused to sell him the drink, saying, "Stand on your feet, boy. You can't sit here." This incident inspired Sullivan's lifetime pursuit of fighting racial prejudice.
Sullivan also attributed much of his early influence to his grandmother:

“

(…) my grandmother Carrie, a constant and powerful presence in my life who taught me early on the importance of faith, determination, faith in God, and especially self-help.^[1]

”

As a teen-ager, Sullivan—who as an adult stood 6 ft 5 in tall^[2]—attended Charleston's Garnet High School for blacks and received a basketball and football scholarship to West Virginia State College in 1939 where he was a member of Tau Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity^{[citation needed]}. A foot injury ended his athletic career and forced Sullivan to pay for college by working in a steel mill.

Baptist Minister

Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York

Sullivan became a Baptist minister in West Virginia at the age of 18. In 1943, during a visit to West Virginia, noted black minister Adam Clayton Powell convinced Sullivan to move to New York City where he attended the Union Theological Seminary (1943–1945) and later Columbia University (Master's in Religion 1947). He also served as Powell's assistant minister at the Abyssinian Baptist Church. During this period, Sullivan met his wife Grace, a woman whom he referred to as "Amazing Grace." The two would eventually have 3 children, Hope, Julie and Howard. One of Sullivan’s greater achievements during his time in New York was the recruitment of "a hundred colored men for the police force" in Harlem with Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s support and encouragement.^[3]
In 1945 Sullivan and Grace moved to South Orange, New Jersey where Sullivan became pastor at First Baptist Church. Five years later, Leon and Grace moved to Philadelphia where Leon took on the role of pastor of Zion Baptist Church, located today at 3600 North Broad Street in the City of Philadelphia. Known there as "the Lion of Zion" he served from 1950 to 1988, eventually increasing its membership from 600 to 6,000 - making it one of the largest congregations in America.

Selective Patronage Movement

Sullivan took his first active role in the civil rights movement by helping to organize a march on Washington, D.C. in the early 1940s.^[4] Sullivan believed jobs were the key to improving African-American lives and starting in 1958 he asked that Philadelphia's largest companies interview young blacks. Only two companies responded positively so Sullivan, through his affiliation with other ministers, organized a boycott of various businesses which he referred to as "Selective Patronage". The slogan was "Don't buy where you don't work" and the boycott was extremely effective since blacks constituted about 20% of Philadelphia's population. Sullivan estimated the boycott produced thousands of jobs for African Americans in a period of four years. The New York Times featured the program with a front page story, and later, Fortune magazine brought the program to greater public attention on a national scale. By 1962, the effectiveness of Sullivan's Boycotts came to the attention of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and the SCLC who persuaded Sullivan to share information with them on his success. The exchange led to SCLC's economic arm, Operation Breadbasket, in 1967, headed by Jesse Jackson.^[5]

Self-Help Movement

Sullivan's work was built on the principle of "self-help", which provides people with the tools to help themselves overcome barriers of poverty and oppression. African Americans had been excluded from the types of training which led to better paying jobs. Sullivan realized that simply making jobs available was not enough. He said,

"I found that we needed training. Integration without preparation is frustration.

”

In 1964, Sullivan founded Opportunities Industrialization Centers (OIC) of America in an abandoned jail house in North Philadelphia. The program took individuals with little hope and few prospects and offered them job training and instruction in life skills and then helped place them into jobs. The movement quickly spread around the nation. With sixty affiliated programs in thirty states and the District of Columbia, OIC has grown into a movement, which has served over two million disadvantaged and under-skilled people. This approach also led to the formation of the Opportunities Industrialization Centers International (OICI) in 1969.^[6]
Around the same time, Sullivan established the Zion Investment Association (ZIA), a company which invested in and started new businesses. Sullivan also helped to establish more than 20 programs under the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH) (now headed by his daughter Dr. Julie Helen Sullivan), including the Global Sullivan Principles initiative. Other IFESH programs include the African-African American Summit (now renamed the Leon H. Sullivan Summit), the Peoples Investment Fund for Africa, the Self-Help Investment Program, Teachers for Africa and Schools for Africa. IFESH has placed teachers in Africa, trained African bankers, built schools, developed small businesses, disseminated books and school supplies, created literacy programs, distributed medicines to prevent river-blindness and helped to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS.

10-36 Plan

Inspired by a well-known parable from the Bible, Sullivan decided to use the church as a vehicle for organizing the black community to consolidate its resources and build a community-owned economic base. In 1962, during one of his Sunday sermons, he introduced his congregation to his vision of self-help through community investment. "One day I preached a sermon at Zion about Jesus feeding the five thousand with a few loaves and a few fish", he recalls. "Everybody put in their little bit and you had enough to feed everybody, and a whole lot left over. So I said, that is what I am going to do with the church and the community. I said, I am going to ask 50 people to put $10 down for 36 months of loaves and fishes and see if we could accumulate resources enough to build something that we would own ourselves." Although Rev. Sullivan had expected about 50 families to sign up for the 10-36 Plan, the response was overwhelming. Over 200 joined the plan that Sunday morning. His idea of bringing people together to invest in a community-owned enterprise had caught fire.
The concept of the 10-36 Plan was to create two separate legal entities. For the first 16 months of the subscription period, investors would contribute to the Zion Non-Profit Charitable Trust (ZNPCT), a Community Development Corporation (CDC) that would support education, scholarships for youth, health services and other programs aimed at social uplift. For the remaining 20 months of the subscription period, investors would make payments to a for-profit corporation, Progress Investment Associates (PIA), which would undertake income-generating projects. At the end of 36 months, subscribers would receive one share of common voting stock and would be entitled to participate in yearly shareholders meetings. As William Downes, the treasurer of the 10-36 Plan and the executive director of ZNPCT explains, the idea of the voting system was to encourage community involvement in the plan.
According to Sullivan's philosophy, it was important for people to begin by contributing to the nonprofit side of the effort in order to develop a psychology of giving before receiving.^[7] It was also important for people to learn basic economic concepts and to see the 10-36 Plan as a long-term investment. Although stockholders were told that they would eventually receive a dividend, they were cautioned not to expect to obtain profits right away. Their most immediate monetary benefit would be a tax deduction for their contributions to the nonprofit. To participate in the 10-36 Plan, investors had to have faith in the idea of investing in a secure future for the next generation. Rev. Sullivan's vision was to use the tools of the free enterprise system to foster something that is vital to community progress - a sense of ownership and a stake in the common good.
Funds accumulated rapidly under the 10-36 Plan, and were soon used to invest in numerous housing and economic development initiatives. In 1964, PIA made its first investment in an 8-unit apartment building in an all-white community. The rationale for buying this property was that it would help address a long-standing problem facing blacks - racial discrimination in housing. The leaders of the Progress Movement believed that money often has the power to speak louder than words in the struggle to improve race relations. One year after its first investment in housing, PIA built Zion Gardens, a middle-income garden apartment complex in North Philadelphia. The $1 million project was financed by using 10-36 funds to leverage a loan from the Federal Housing Administration and a grant from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
While pursuing these development projects, Zion continued to build an equity base through the 10-36 Plan. In 1965, the plan was opened to new subscribers from Zion's congregation, and another 450 joined. Over the years, the Progress Movement has had great success with its strategy of using equity accumulated under the 10-36 Plan to leverage funds from public and private sources, including commercial banks and insurance companies.^[8]

Progress Plaza

After establishing the OIC in the mid-1960s, Zion's next major undertaking was the fulfillment of Rev. Sullivan's dream of building the nation's first black-owned and developed shopping center, to be named Progress Plaza. In addition to addressing his concern about the lack of black ownership of major businesses in America, the project would deal with the problem of unemployment in North Philadelphia by generating a substantial number of jobs. After convincing the city's Redevelopment Authority to donate land for the project, Rev. Sullivan set out to raise the capital needed to build the shopping center. "So I went to the chairman of the bank and I said, I want a construction loan", he recounts. "He said, well Reverend, you need some equity for something like this. Think about it and come back later in two, three or four years, and let's see what we can do." Rev. Sullivan was already prepared for that challenge, however. "Give me the sack", he told Zion's treasurer, William Downes. "I opened it up and $400,000 worth of equities came out", he describes. "The man's eye glasses fell off his eyes. He came around the table and took my hand and said, Reverend, we can work together." Rev. Sullivan's theory about the power of money to deal with persistent racial inequalities was proving to be correct. As he concludes:

“

I found that $400,000 makes a difference in race relations in America!

”

Progress Plaza, which is located on Broad Street, one of Philadelphia's main thoroughfares, was dedicated in 1968 before a crowd of 10,000 well-wishers. In some sense, the shopping center was the culmination of the Progress Movement's multiple goals. Because it was a major construction project, it created a large number of construction jobs for participants in the OIC program. Through an agreement negotiated with Progress Plaza's chain store tenants, the shopping center also made numerous management job opportunities available to African Americans. To fulfill another one of the Progress Movement's primary goals - to encourage the development of black-owned businesses - ZNPCT created an Entrepreneurial Training Center at Progress Plaza. With major funding from the Ford Foundation, the center was able to offer managerial and entrepreneurial skills training to hundreds of area residents. Today, over half of the 16 stores in Progress Plaza are black-owned businesses.
Another one of the Progress Movement's major goals was to address the social needs of North Philadelphia's community residents. To this end, ZNPCT built a comprehensive Human Services Center that centralizes essential services so that they are easily accessible to area residents. Zion's role was to develop the property and lease it at below-market rent to nonprofit and governmental entities whose programs fulfill ZNPCT's charitable mission. Located adjacent to Progress Plaza, the Center currently houses a Social Security Administration office, an unemployment compensation office, a police training academy, and a health service center run by Temple University.^[9]

Sullivan Principles as a response to apartheid

Sullivan Principles

In 1971, Sullivan joined the General Motors Board of Directors and became the first African-American on the board of a major corporation. He went on to serve on General Motors' board for over 20 years. In 1977, Sullivan developed a code of conduct for companies operating in South Africa called the Sullivan Principles, as an alternative to complete disinvestment. As part of the Board of Directors at General Motors Sullivan lobbied GM and other large corporations to voluntarily withdrawal from doing business in South Africa while the system of apartheid was still in effect.
In 1988, Sullivan retired from Zion Baptist Church. Sullivan was determined to provide a model of self-help and empowerment to the people of Africa. He began using his talent for bringing world leaders together to find solutions to international issues through the establishment of the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH)^[10] in order to establish and maintain programs and activities in the areas of agriculture, business and economic development, democracy and governance, education and health. These programs would in turn help governments in sub-Saharan Africa reduce poverty and unemployment and build civil societies. To further expand human rights and economic development to all communities, Sullivan created the Global Sullivan Principles of Social Responsibility in 1997. In 1999, the Global Sullivan Principles were issued at the United Nations. This expanded code calls for multinational companies to take an active role in the advancement of human rights and social justice. Then United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan had this to say about Sullivan's contributions:

“

It shows how much one individual can do to change lives and societies for the better (...) He was known and respected throughout the world for the bold and innovative role he played in the global campaign to dismantle the system of apartheid in South Africa.^[11]

”

Leon H. Sullivan Summit

Sullivan organized the first Summit in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire in 1991 as a result of a number of requests and conversations he had with African leaders seeking an honest dialog among and between leaders of African countries and government officials and leaders from developed countries. Since then, the biennial Leon H. Sullivan Summit has brought together the world's political and business leaders, delegates representing national and international civil and multinational organizations, and members of academic institutions in order to focus attention and resources on Africa's economic and social development. Their mission was inspired by Rev. Leon H. Sullivan’s belief that the development of Africa is a matter of global partnerships. It was particularly important to Rev. Sullivan that Africa's Diaspora and Friends of Africa are active participants in Africa’s development.^[12]

The Leon H Sullivan Summit is now organized by the Leon H Sullivan Foundation, an organization dedicated to expanding Leon Sullivan's vision of empowering the underprivileged, which is headed by Leon Sullivan's daughter Hope Masters.

Awards and honors

Sullivan was the recipient of the following awards:

The Ten Outstanding Young Americans Award, 1955
The Afro-American Achievement Award, 1956
The Freedom Foundation Award, 1960
Life Magazine cited Sullivan as one of the 100 outstanding young adults in the United States, 1963^[13]
The Russwurm Award, 1963
The Philadelphia Bok Award, 1966
The William Penn Award, 1967
The Edwin T. Dahlberg Peace Award, 1968
The Spingarn Award by the NAACP, 1971
The Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America, 1971
The Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service, 1986
The Four Freedoms Award by the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, 1987
The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award that the American government can give, by President George H. W. Bush, 1991^[14]
The Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Service Award by Africare, 1995
The Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights by President Bill Clinton, 1999
In August 2000, Charleston, West Virginia city leaders changed the name of Broad Street, near his boyhood home, to Leon Sullivan Way.

During his lifetime he was also awarded honorary doctorate degrees from over 50 colleges and universities and served as a board member of General Motors, Mellon Bank and the Boy Scouts of America.^[15]

Books by Leon H. Sullivan

America is theirs: And other poems (1948)
Build Brother Build (1969)
Alternatives to Despair (1972)
Philosophy of a Giant (1979)
Moving Mountains: The Principles and Purposes of Leon Sullivan (1998)

References

^ Sullivan, Leon H. (1998). Moving Mountains: The Principles and Purposes of Leon Sullivan. Judson Press. ISBN 0-8170-1289-3.

^ "Leon Sullivan". Sunday Gazette-Mail. Retrieved 2007-02-11.
^ Sullivan, Leon H. (1969). Build Brother Build. Macrae Smith Company. ISBN 978-0825584602.
^ "Leon H Sullivan". West Virginia Archives and History. Retrieved 2007-01-20.
^ Columbus Salley (1998). The Black 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential African-Americans, Past and Present. Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-2048-5.
^ "Founder and History". OIC International. Retrieved 2007-01-26.
^ "Zion Non-Profit Charitable Trust (ZNPCT), Philadelphia, PA". Pratt Center for Community Development. Archived from the original on 2007-06-29. Retrieved 2007-01-21.
^ "Zion Non-Profit Charitable Trust (ZNPCT), Philadelphia, PA". Pratt Center for Community Development. Archived from the original on 2007-06-29. Retrieved 2007-01-21.
^ "Zion Non-Profit Charitable Trust (ZNPCT), Philadelphia, PA". Pratt Center for Community Development. Archived from the original on 2007-06-29. Retrieved 2007-01-21.
^ "IFESH". IFESH. Archived from the original on 2007-02-07. Retrieved 2007-05-15.
^ Wilson, Kendall (2001-04-27). "Leon Sullivan's Living Legacy". The Philadelphia Tribune.
^ "The Leon H. Sullivan Summit". Leon H. Sullivan Foundation. Archived from the original on 2007-04-03. Retrieved 2007-05-15.
^ ,"Biography". Leon H. Sullivan Foundation. Archived from the original on 2007-01-17. Retrieved 2007-01-20.
^ "Remarks on Presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom Awards 1991-11-18". Retrieved 6 March 2012.
^ "IFESH". IFESH. Archived from the original on 2007-02-07. Retrieved 2007-05-15.

External links[

	Biography portal
	African American portal
	Social movements portal

Rev. Leon H. Sullivan Official Website
The Leon H. Sullivan Foundation
Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America
Opportunities Industrialization Centers International
Leon Sullivan Health Care Center, nursing home in Seattle, Washington
Presidential Medal of Freedom citation - Leon H. Sullivan (1991)
Leon Sullivan at Find a Grave

Video and audio material[edit]

2012-12-17T16:16:00.002-08:00

A Footnote on My Introductory Painting to this Website

Nausicaa, princess of Phaeacia, comes upon Odysseus in Odyssey Book VI. She and her attendants are making an event of doing the laundry. Odysseus is lying on the beach where he landed a shipwreck without clothes. He grabs some available greenery in the interest of modesty.

2012-12-17T15:14:00.002-08:00

A Summary and Analysis of James Joyce's Ulysses Thirteenth Episode

The Nausicaa Episode

A mawkish, clichéd, third-person narrative describes the summer evening on Sandymount Strand, near Mary, Star of the Sea church. Bloom stands across the beach from three girlfriends—Cissy Caffrey, Edy Boardman, and Gerty MacDowell—and their charges: Cissy’s twin toddler brothers and Edy’s baby brother. Cissy and Edy tend to the babies and occasionally tease Gerty, who is sitting some distance away. The narrative sympathetically describes Gerty as beautiful, and outlines the commercial products she uses to maintain her looks. Gerty’s crush—the boy who bicycles past her house—has been aloof lately. Gerty daydreams of marriage and domestic life with a silent, strong man. Meanwhile, Edy and Cissy deal loudly with the children’s disputes. Gerty is mortified by her friends’ unladylike obscenity, especially in front of the gentleman (Bloom). Nearby, at the Star of the Sea church, a men’s temperance retreat begins with a supplication to the Virgin.

The toddlers kick their ball too far. Bloom picks it up and throws it back—the ball rolls to a stop under Gerty’s skirt. Gerty tries to kick the ball to Cissy but misses. Gerty senses Bloom’s eyes on her and notices his sad face. She fantasizes that he is a foreigner in mourning who needs her comfort. Gerty displays her ankles and her hair for Bloom, knowing she is arousing him.

Gerty wonders aloud how late it is, hoping Cissy and Edy will take the children home. Cissy approaches Bloom and asks for the time. Bloom’s watch has stopped. Gerty watches Bloom put his hands back in his pockets and senses the onset of her menstrual cycle. She yearns to know Bloom’s story—is he married? A widower? Duty-bound to a madwoman?

Cissy and the others are preparing to leave when the fireworks from the Mirus bazaar begin. They run down the strand to watch, but Gerty remains. Gerty leans back, holding her knee in her hands, knowingly revealing her legs, while she watches a “long Roman candle” firework shoot high in the sky. At the climax of the episode and Gerty’s emotions (and Bloom’s own orgasmic climax, we soon realize) the Roman candle bursts in the air, to cries of “O! O!” on the ground.

As Gerty rises and begins to walk to the others, Bloom realizes that she is lame in one foot. He feels shock and pity, then relief that he did not know this when she was arousing him. Bloom ponders the sexual appeal of abnormalities, then women’s sexual urges as heightened by their menstrual cycles. Remembering Gerty’s two friends, he considers the competitiveness of female friendships, like Molly’s with Josie Breen. Bloom remembers that his watch was stopped at 4:30, and he wonders if that is when Molly and Boylan had sex.

Bloom rearranges his semen-stained shirt and ponders strategies for seducing women. Bloom wonders if Gerty noticed him masturbating—he guesses that she did, as women are very aware. He briefly wonders if Gerty is Martha Clifford. Bloom thinks about how soon girls become mothers, then of Mrs. Purefoy at the nearby maternity hospital. Bloom ponders the “magnetism” that could account for his watch stopping when Boylan and Molly were together, perhaps the same magnetism that draws men and women together.

Bloom smells Gerty’s perfume in the air—a cheap smell, not like Molly’s complex scent, opoponax. Bloom smells inside his waistcoat, wondering what a man’s smell would be. The scent of the lemon soap reminds him that he forgot to pick up Molly’s lotion.

A “nobleman” passes Bloom. Bloom wonders about the man and considers writing a story called “The Mystery Man on the Beach.” This thought reminds him of the macintosh man at Dignam’s funeral. Looking at Howth lighthouse, Bloom considers the science of light and colors, then the day he and Molly spent there. Now, Boylan is with her. Bloom feels drained. He notices that Mass seems to be over. The postman makes his nine o’clock round with a lamp. A newsboy cries the results of the Gold Cup race.

Bloom decides to avoid going home just yet. He reconsiders the incident in Barney Kiernan’s— perhaps the citizen meant no harm. Bloom thinks about his evening visit to Mrs. Dignam. Bloom tries to remember his dream last night. Molly was dressed in Turkish breeches and red slippers.

Bloom picks up a stray piece of paper, then a stick. Wondering if Gerty will return tomorrow, he begins to write her a message in the sand—“I AM A”—but stops as there is not sufficient room. He erases the letters and throws the stick, which lands straight up in the sand. He decides to have a short nap, and his thoughts become muddled by sleep. Bloom dozes off as a cuckoo clock chimes in the priest’s house nearby.

Analysis

In Episode Thirteen of Ulysses, Gerty MacDowell corresponds to Princess Nausicaa, who, in The Odyssey, discovers Odysseus asleep on the beach and tends to him. Gerty, associated with blue and white, also seems to correspond to the Virgin Mary. Sounds from the nearby temperance retreat are interspersed with Gerty’s narrative, creating an ironic parallel between Gerty and Mary: as Gerty dreams of ministering to a husband and opens herself to Bloom’s supplicating sexual attention, so do the men in the church appeal to the statue of the Virgin Mary for comfort and aid. Episode Thirteen is the first episode of Ulysses that centers on a female consciousness, and it inaugurates the final sections of the book, which are more female-centered in their characters and settings.

The first half of Episode Thirteen centers on Gerty’s appearance and consciousness, and we only hear Bloom’s interior monologue in the second half of the episode. Gerty’s half consists of several barely distinct narrative points of view and styles. The narrative is sympathetic with Gerty, and Gerty’s consciousness slides in and out of the narrative—her interior monologue is sometimes rendered directly. The narrative’s style borrows from (and parodies) the prose of both moralizing, sentimental literature and consumer-oriented women’s magazines. The style is accordingly full of emotional clichés, effusive diction, and imprecise descriptions. Additionally, the style of the narrative is such that unpleasant realities and indelicate details are filtered out. Thus, Gerty’s lame foot is only slightly alluded to, as is masturbation.

The feminine pleasantries and the focus on sentimental love in Episode Thirteen seem to be something of a response to Episode Twelve’s masculine violence and prejudice. This hypothesis fits with the workings ofUlysses, by which previous perspectives are tempered by later styles and character viewpoints. Thus, Bloom’s foreignness—a detriment in Episode Twelve—becomes an attractive asset for him in Episode Thirteen. Yet Episodes Twelve and Thirteen ultimately turn out to have straightforward affinities. Excess lacking substance seems common to both, from the hyperbolic lists of Episode Twelve to the lush expositions of Episode Thirteen. And both episodes seem to offer examples of categorical or stereotypical thinking. The citizen’s logic worked on the seemingly straightforward basis of race and religion. Gerty’s thoughts offer conventional ideas, while the narrative of Episode Thirteen invites us to evaluate Gerty as an entirely typical Irish girl.

Women in Episode Thirteen are defined, in part, by their perceptiveness about who is looking at them and when. Women become sexual beings through their ability to present themselves to be looked at, and Bloom’s erotic moments are voyeuristic. Stephen, in “Proteus,” experimented with closing his eyes and concentrating on his other senses. The second half of Episode Thirteen reflects a shift of emphasis from the eyes to the nose. Bloom’s thoughts hover around smells and smelling. The distinction between the emphasis on senses in the two beach episodes seems to lie in the import of Stephen’s and Bloom’s musings—Stephen seeks to understand how our senses order our relationship to the physical world, while Bloom’s thoughts dwell on sight and smelling as ordering relationships between people.

Like the other women whom Bloom has seen and fantasized about so far inUlysses, Gerty eventually reminds Bloom of Molly, suggesting that Bloom’s desire for Molly is often refracted through another woman. It is in this episode that Bloom notices for the first time that his watch has stopped, apparently sometime between four and five o’clock—perhaps at the exact time of Boylan and Molly’s tryst. Yet our sympathy for Bloom’s sadness at this thought is tempered by the circumstances of the discovery—Bloom himself is conducting a tryst at this later hour, albeit an unconsummated one.

Josef Foshko

2012-07-30T19:57:00.000-07:00

The American Shakespeare

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

I Hear America Singing.

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe
and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deck-
hand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing
as he stands,
The woodcutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morn-
ing, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work,
or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young
fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

From Johnson's Quarrel with Swift, Jordan Richman

2012-06-25T17:01:00.000-07:00

On The Characters of Women

Nature—passion, the body—lives through reason, that is wit, good sense, and decency. Friendship is a prime value because it keeps the other pleasures alive. The word friendship was not a platitude for Swift:

Dear Jim, pardon me, I know not what I am saying; but believe me that violent friendship is much more lasting, and as much engaging, as violent love. Adieu (Correspondence, III, 322).

Herbert Davis sees Swift’s attempt to fashion a “new view of woman” as going beyond his seventeenth-century models. He describes this woman as unromantic but not unpleasing: “She is able to take her place in the world on equal terms, a free, intelligent gentlewoman, worthy of man’s highest regard and friendship whether within or without the bounds of holy matrimony” (Davis, p. 45). I believe Johnson follows the example of Swift in his expectation of women, an expectation based on the urge to balance and reconcile nature to reason and effected by bringing men and women together for the purposes of polite conversation. Though he expressed doubt about the Letter to a Young Lady, he is actually close to Swift’s thinking in fashioning several female portraits in The Rambler.

Johnson also teaches that the distance between men and women should be narrowed for the sake of reason that assumes friendship and understanding. Female behavior when it is either too conventional, i.e., artificially reasonable, or too unconventional, i.e. artificially natural, is disagreeable. In Rambler 115, Camilla sees herself as a disciple of Swift’s advice:

She …proclaimed her approbation of Swift’s opinion that women are only a higher species of monkeys, and confessed that when she considered the behavior or heard the conversation of her sex she could not but forgive the Turks for suspecting them to want souls (Works, II, 46).

In the portrait of Camilla, Johnson does not disagree with Swift, because Swift in his Letter to a Young Lady also cautions against the kind of role Camilla assumes:

I know very well, that those who are commonly called learned Women, have lost all Manner of Credit by their impertinent Talkativeness, and Conceit of themselves (Works, IX, 92).

It is possible to view Johnson’s coward Anthea also as another representation of a Swiftian attitude toward the female. Swift also expresses distaste for cowardice as a female virtue:

There is, indeed, one Infirmity which is generally allowed you, I mean that of Cowardice . . . At least, if Cowardice be a Sign of Cruelty, (as it is generally granted) I can hardly think it an Accomplishment so desireable [sic], as to be thought worth improving by Affectation (IX, 93).

Anthea, who appears in Rambler 34, completely confirms Swift’s denunciation down to the last detail of seeing cowardice as a sign of cruelty. The objects of Anthea’s frights, such as frogs and coaches, are on the same scale as those listed by Swift. I interpret Johnson’s ironic ending as a sign of Anthea’s cruelty:

At last we came home, and she told her company next day what a pleasant ride had been taken (Works, II, 170).

That she can make such a statement after all the confusion, disorder, and annoyance she has caused by her obsessions reveals the kind of cruelty that accompanies female cowardice. As Johnson humorously displays her, Anthea really wants to manipulate people.

The difficulty in narrowing the distance between the sexes is the attractions of power the woman sees in either extreme. As an Amazon or a coward she is looking for power to master her social unease.

Johnson suggests the possibility of a compromise through the character of Cornelia, while at the same time attacking the conventional role of the wife as a kitchen manager. Lady Bustle is a super-housewife. She is someone who:

makes an orange pudding which is the envy of all the neighbourhood and which she has hitherto found means of mixing and baking with such secrecy, that the ingredient to which it owes its flavour has never been discovered (II, 249).

Cornelia’s humility makes her wonder whether she:

shall throw away the books which I have hitherto thought it my duty to read for The Lady’s Closet Opened, The Complete Servant Maid, and The Court Cook, and resign all curiosity after right and wrong for the art of scalding damascenes without bursting them, and preserving the whiteness of pickled mushrooms (II, 248).

While Lady Bustle’s presumed virtues are humorously dispatched, Cornelia stands as the personification of a modern woman because of her inquisitive concern for the values of right and wrong and her awareness of the roles which are offered to her. She sees Lady Bustle and her entire family, including the husband, engaged in a mindless pursuit of abundance. By this pursuit they have dulled their minds to humanity, thereby losing some of their own. Ultimately her moral neutrality must be seen as a kind of immorality when Cornelia observes that:

She has no curiosity after the events of a war or the fate of heroes in distress; she can hear without the least emotion the ravage of a fire or devastations of a storm. Her neighbours grow rich or poor, come into the world or go out of it, without regard while she is pressing the jelly-bag or airing the state-room (II, 248–249).

By protesting against “these ladies as the great patterns of our sex,” Cornelia is protesting against domestic complacency. It is a protest Swift makes when he observes: “your Sex employs more thought, memory, and application to be Fools, than would serve to make them wise and useful.” Swift would agree that a wife should be able to give her husband more than orange-pudding. However, neither Johnson nor Swift felt that it could be love in the romantic sense of the word:

Swift: Venus, a beautiful, good-natured lady, was the goddess of love; Juno a terrible shrew, the goddess of marriage: and they were always mortal enemies (Works, IV, 247).

Johnson: But love and marriage are different states (Boswell’s Life, I, 381).
It is commonly a weak man who marries for love (III, 3).

The Foundation for Marriage: To be continued…

2012-06-24T06:14:00.000-07:00

Work Wanted: For people with writing needs

Who are they?

Writers who need advice, criticism, or copyediting for their book.
Senior citizens who want their autobiographies reviewed for their families or publication

Students who need consultation on dissertation Proposals

Small Businessmen who need Business Proposals for banks

or government loans

Bloggers

Legal Depositions

Medical Grants

Credit Problems

English as a second language writers
Love Letters

and many others need a freelance writer to help them

with their writing needs.

Call me, Dr. Jordan Richman, at 602-256-2830,

anytime and I will get back to you via a Google phone.

Or, email me at jordanp.richman@gmail.com

From 'Johnson's Quarrel with Swift,' by Jordan Richman

2012-06-24T05:57:00.000-07:00

As late as 1756 Samuel Johnson was still writing in a Swiftian vein. In A Project for the Employment of Authors, from the Universal Visiter (April, 1756), Johnson dons the mask of a mild-mannered, reasonable, and plodding projector. As in Swift’s Modest Proposal, the shock is delayed by a careful introductory survey of the problem. Writers are extremely useful to society, but with their ever-increasing numbers, their value declines so that “every man must be content to read his book to himself” (Johnson, Works, V. 358). It is only when the essay is more than half completed that proposals are made. Early in the essay the mild-mannered projector explains that he will not discuss such formidable evils as heresy, sedition, or hypothetical fictions produced by the “misapplication of literature,” but “some lighter and less extensive evils” (V, 356). The essay poses the problem of the relationship between writers and literature in a society which does not reward their endeavors. There can be no question of the usefulness of literature:

Literature is a kind of intellectual light, which like the light of the sun, may sometimes enable us to see what we do not like (V, 356).

But the writer who serves literature can have no guarantee of payment:

The condition is nearly the same of the gatherer of honey, and the gatherer of knowledge. The bee and the author work alike for others, and often lose the profit of their labour (V, 357).

Thus Johnson’s “gatherer(s) of knowledge,” the Grub Street authors, have little

“sweetness and light” in their lives:

The Reviewers and Critical Reviewers, the Remarkers and Examiners can satisfy their hunger only by devouring their brethern. I am far from imagining that they are naturally more ravenous or bloodthirsty than those on whom they fall with so much violence and fury; but they are hungry, and hunger must be satisfied; and these savages, when their bellies are full, will fawn on those whom they now bite (V, 360).

2012-06-22T11:35:00.001-07:00

Memoirs of a Phoenix Octogenarian

Chapter I

Medical History of the Phoenix Octogenarian

From 1996- 2012

Membership in Medicare HMOs

My first Medicare HMO (1996) was Cigna.

Cigna had a catalog of its doctor's showing their faces (a la Face Book), background, and interests.

My attention was drawn to Dr. Lupa who was from Poland, studied and practiced medicine in Canada, and now was one of Cigna's star primary physicians. I was impressed with her affection for chamber music and interest in dermatology.

To show my gratitude for the care she gave me, I presented her with a CD of the Canadian film, "The Red Violin."

In my haste, however, to give my present, I forgot that I had removed the CD from its jacket (to make a copy of it for myself)! Fortunately, the next day I immediately rectified the awful mistake.

She graciously accepted my apologies for this gift-giving malpractice.

She, in turn, removed a real nasty basal cancer from my left leg that was sitting on top of my tibia. All the derms and docs who looked at her work afterwards always complemented her excision of the basal tumor.

A Cigna surgeon, Dr. Butler, said its position on top of the bone made it difficult to extend removal of its margins without leaving a hole in the leg. Such had been the case of another patient of his. He advised me to douche the area with hydrogen peroxide until it was fully healed.

Dr. Lupa was so good, a son of one of her cancer patients, a captain in the US Navy, married her. The marriage ceremony was held aboard his ship. Shortly after her marriage she was transferred to the Scottsdale Branch of the Cigna network in Arizona.

I live on thirteen street near McDowell Road and my Cigna is located on McDowell and tenth street, Phoenix.

If ever you are in the 85006 Phoenix area, drop in for some of Vita's excellent coffee

Or, you can send your medical history to jordanp.richman@gmail. I will gladly publish it alongside of mine in this Google blog. Or, if you feel I have been unjust in reviewing the work of the doctors mentioned in this section, I will be glad to present your experiences.

To be continued...

2012-06-15T18:24:00.000-07:00

At Battery Park, Shanghaiing drunks was still going on when I was 11 years in 1904.

The First mate of a schooner was anxious to Shanghai me when he saw me, a husky boy, sleeping one night in the park.

He gets me up, takes me to a saloon and fills me with whiskey and then brings me to his ship. He says to the Captain of the ship, "I have one for you. He is young and strong."

The Captain looks at me, grabs me by the shoulders and gives me a shake, and then asks me how old I am. I look up at the Captain and tells him I am 11 years old now.

The Captain turns to the mate and says, "Are you crazy? I do not want to Shanghai children. Get him off the ship!"

Putting Abe Richman's Memoirs Together

The Final Draft

I was sitting on the fire escape at the time I was four years old watching the steam engine trains on the elevators run by. The Street was Allen Street on the Lower East Side of New York City.

It was 1895, the middle of the Gay Nineties and New York was as raw as a raw steak.

The Bowery was four blocks from Allen Street and at that time it was the hottest street in New York. When I was 5 years old I walked to the Bowery and sat at the curb watching the Cable Cars go by.

Later on, we moved to Stanton Street at the corner of Meagan Street two blocks from the River. It was the time of the Spanish American war. Admiral Dewey was the hero of the day.

Later on, when I was much older I decided to swim in the River. I was a wild kid, so one day I saw the bigger boys swimming in the River. In those days no one wore or knew about bathing suits. Everyone was in the nude swimming.

For some reason I thought I knew how to swim, so I jumped in the River.

III

When I went down I wondered when I would come up. Finally, when I did come up I waved my hands frantically. The Big Boys could see I was drowning, so they jumped in and grabbed me by the hair and saved me.

For two days I was sick from the water I consumed.

As I grew older I started to peddle newspapers at the Brooklyn Bridge. At that time they were two papers for a Penny and I sold them for a Penny each. Selling newspapers at the Brooklyn Bridge lead me to Chinatown where I saw the opium dens.

There were no laws against drugs at that time. Young girls were lying in the bunks and smoking opium pipes. I became a CHARACTER following that kind of life.

When I was 12 years old, a man took me to the London Theater Burlesque show for .10. It was raw!

New York was then full of brothels with young girls from 13 to 18 working them, while the older women walked the Bowery. Prices for girls and women ranged from .50 to $1.00.

While it was hard for women to find work there was lots of work for men, such as dock work, trucks, and building railroads.

In 1904 when I was 12 years old, I left school, never to return to any other school at any other time in my long life. The only school I thereafter ever attended was TSOHK, The School of Hard Knocks! But I was fortunate that in those days there were no truancy laws that either I nor my father knew about, so my father used my 12 year old muscle power to subsidize his budding painting business to help pay for my younger brother's, (Hymie) cello lessons, while I went to work as a painter in my father's business. It was slack season in the winter, so I applied for a Messenger Boy job at the Western Union located at 195 Broadway.

Turner, the hiring man, said I will give you the job if you will first take the paint off your hands. So I became a messenger boy,

Finally, I began shipping out of town to railroads.

I worked for the Union Pacific Railroad putting down steel rails.

The wages were a $1.75 a day for 10 hours a day.

We worked in open wild country.

We camped on the jobs.

VII

I shipped out to Guild, Tennessee to work on a dam. We were put on trains and we rode South.

To be continued...

2012-06-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

I WAS SITTING ON THE FIRE ESCAPE AT THAT TIME. I WAS FOUR YEARS OLD. WATCHING THE STEAM ENGINE TRAINS ON THE ELEVATORS RUN BY. THE STREET WAS ALLEN STREET IN NEW YORK.

NEW YORK WAS RAW AT THAT TIME. IT WAS 1895. IT WAS YET THE GAY '90S.

THE BOWERY WAS FOUR BLOCKS AWAY FROM ALLEN STREET. THE BOWERY AT THAT TIME WAS THE HOTTEST STREET IN NEW YORK.

WHEN I WAS 5 YEARS OLD I WALKED TO THE BOWERY AND SAT ON THE CURB

WATCHING THE CABLE CARS GO BY.

LATER ON WE MOVED TO STANTON STREET 2 BLOCKS FROM THE RIVER.

AT THAT TIME AROUND 1898 THERE WAS THE SPANISH AMERICAN WAR ON.

ADMIRAL DEWEY WAS THE HERO. WHEN I GOT OLDER I WENT SWIMMING IN THE RIVER.

I THOUGHT I KNEW HOW TO SWIM. SO I JUMBED IN THE RIVER. WHEN I WENT DOWN I WONDERED WHEN I WILL COME UP.

WHEN I CAME UP I MOVED MY HANDS.

III

AND BIG BOYS SEEN THAT I WAS DROWNING.

SO THEY JUMBED IN THE RIVER AND GRABED ME BY THE HAIR AND SAVED ME.

FOR TWO DAYS I WAS SICK FROM THE WATER THAT I CONSUMED.

AS I GOT OLDER I STARTED SELLING NEWS PAPERS AT THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE.

AT THAT TIME THE PAPERS SOLD WHOLESALE 2 PAPERS FOR A PENNY AND I SOLD THEM FOR A PENNY EACH.

I WENT SELLING PAPERS AT THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE THAT LEAD ME TO CHINE TOWN.

AS I GOT OLDER I WENT TO WORK ON RAILROADS.

AND DOCKS AND SHIPS.

THE STORY I WANT TO EXPLAIN THAT HOW WE LIVED IN THEM DAYS.

WE WORKED LONG HOURS AND WE WORKED HARD.

ALSO WE ATE VERY GOOD BECAUSE FOOD WAS VERY CHEAP.

2012-06-06T16:50:00.000-07:00

MY FATHER BOUGHT A PAINT STORE ON WATKIN STREET COR SUTTER AVE.

WHO REMEMBERS MARX THE BUILDER ON WATKIN STREET. WE USE TO HAVE A LOT OF FUN WITH HIM. HE HAD A BROWN HORSE ON THE FIELD. ONE MORNING SOUR PAINTERS WHITEWASHED THE HORSE. WHEN HE LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW HE COULDN'T BELEAVE HIS EYES.

THERE WAS A DELI. ON STONE AVE AND SUTTER AVE. WE USED TO GET A BIG CORNED BEEF SANDWICH FOR .10

THEN WE WHENT TO CARNARSIE. THEY HAD THE GOLDEN CITY PARK RIDES WHERE FOR .05 ENTRANCE FEE THE RIDES WAS FREE.

AND FOR .25 ALL DAY WE GOT A ROWBOAT. AND WE ROWED IN JAMACIA BAY.

THERE WAS THE HUREN (Huron) CLUB (When we were in the limousine at our mother's funeral my father asked my sister Roz and her husband if they had bought a new Vulva car (Volvo). It certainly lightened the mood of the event.) ON HOWARD AVE AND BLAKE AVE. AL McCOY AND SOLDIER BARTFIELD AND I TRAINED THERE. WE USED TO DO ROAD WORK ON HUNTERS FLY ROAD WHICH IS NOW KINGS HIGHWAY.

Abraham Richman, 1872-1969

2012-05-30T19:30:00.004-07:00

Dad (1937)

Memoirs of the Past

I
AROUND THE TURN OF THE CENTURY AT 1900.
I LIVED IN STANTON STREET NEAR THE RIVER.
THERE WAS A BIG CHICKEN MARKET.
A LIVE CHICKEN WAS A QUARTER EACH AND
.05 FOR THE MEAT, .06 A POUND FOR THE MEAT
AND THE BEST STEAK MEAT WAS .09 a pound.

Eggs was 2 dozen for a quarter.
a big pumbernicle bread was .05 EACH.

A BIG PITCHER OF BEER 2 QUART SIZE WAS .06
12 Big Bananas .05.

THE HIGHEST PRICE LABORS WERE SHOVELING SNOW AT THAT TIME FOR .25 PER HOUR.
AND ALSO ON THE DOCKS PAID .25 A HOUR.
THEY, THE MEN, WOULD SHAPE UP AND GET A BRASS CHECK

II
WITH A NUMBER ON THE CHECK AND WE WOULD UNLOAD THE SHIPS.

WE DID'NT NO ABOUT UNIONS AS YET.
ANYONE THAT WAS WAY STRONG WAS GIVEN A JOBS ON THE DOCKS.

PAINTERS WAGES WAS $2.25 A DAY FOR 9 HOURS A DAY.
PAINTERS UNION STARTED AROUND 1910.

CARPENTERS WAGES WAS @2.75 A DAY BEFORE 1910, BRICKLAYERS $3.00 BEFORE 1910.
ELECTRICIAN WAS MOSTLY UNKNOWN AT THAT TIME IN THE 1900.

HOW POOR PEOPLE LIVED AT THAT TIME.

A BIG SCHOONER OF BEER WAS .05 WITH A HOT PLATE OF SOUP

III
FREE ALSO BREAD AND THEY HAD FREE LUNCH COUNTERS ALSO FREE FOOD.

A BIG GLASS OF WHISKEY WAS .10

THE RENT WAS A FLAT $9.00 OR 11.00 A MONTH. FOR 4 OR 5 ROOMS.

IN THEM DAYS THERE WAS NO STEAM OR HOT WATER.
THEY HAD COAL STOVES AND COAL WAS $4.00 A TON.

AT THAT TIME SOME BUILDINGS HAD THE TOILETS IN THE YARD AND SOME IN HALLS.

THERE WAS A LOT OF BIG CHARITY ORGANIZATION. AT THAT TIME AND A DOCTOR WOULD COME TO YOUR HOUSE FOR .50 A VISIT.

THERE WERE NO WELFRARE AND RELIEF DEPARTMENT AS YET OR SOCIAL SECURITY OR UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE THEN AS WE SEE IT TODAY.

Brooklyn College 9/50

2012-05-28T17:18:00.002-07:00

Sight Singing 101

I came late for that class an awful lot, plus I often cut it. The 'teacher' had a Russian accent and was fond of making a steady stream of sarcastic (or sardonic) remarks. He was cool, aloof, and indifferent. His impersonal demeanor I now recognize as typical of about 10% of the Brooklyn College faculty whose great goal in life was to flunk as many students as possible. He was only one of several Ivan the Terribles I have had to deal with in my long life

He continuously played softly on the piano in a cute sort of way, favoring the key of D minor and stuffed with octaves sounding out the Slavic melodies used in our over sized red sight singing book.

There were about 10 people in the class. The most striking looking one was a very tall, heavy set, good looking young man with blond hair named Prokofiev who always wore a fresh business suit and tie. There was always so much conversation between the Russian teacher and Prokofiev that I do not remember him singing anything.

There was also a skinny, nondescript, casually dressed jazz clarinetist who sang the exercises so quickly the teacher would ask him to repeat it over and over again. Ivan would then sit silently cogitating over the skinny clarinetist's performance:

"You are singing all the notes in perfect pitch and time but you are nowhere near the song itself," he would declare.

That statement would lead to much controversy between the students and teacher that lead nowhere.

There was a girl and a guy sweating it out along with me and another petite pretty girl who incessantly played the arpeggios from the Bach violin Chaconne flawlessly on the piano between breaks.

The guy who was sweating it out told me he enjoyed the orchestra and when he found out that I had been accepted for it, he insisted I should come to rehearsals where, unlike this class, I would have a lot of fun.

When Ivan the Terrible, the introductory sight singing teacher contrived to read over everyone's performance at the end of the term to give them their grade, the class fought for me to get a B, but Ivan with lots of weltschmerz in his voice complained that I was absent and late too much, so he was giving me a C.

There were about three other classes at Brooklyn College that lived up to and even exceeded the standards of Ivan the Terrible. Only once was I able to beat the Ivan's to the punch.

I was, along with the rest of a newly formed class, waiting for the arrival of the unknown German teacher. When he tardily arrived about 15 of us rushed for the doors and got our drop slips. When I gave him mine to sign he stared at me quizzically and looked then hurt that I wanted out from his chamber of horrors.

My friend, the pianist Monty Eisman, also was taking a sight singing class from another teacher said he was doing well with the do, re, mi, fa, method that teacher used. Ivan used the interval system.

Which system do you use?

Three Coney Island 'Friends': A Mosaic Study

2012-05-28T14:56:00.004-07:00

Murray, Harry, Jordan (1992 mosaic)

Most people thought of Murray as a hopeless social freak--handsome, witty, intelligent, and an intensive conversationalist, but, nevertheless, without purpose or direction. Of his style of life the kindest observation that could be made was 'dissipated.' After all the years that I have not seen him or learned anything about him, there may still be the possibility that he is grinding away as a harmless bureaucrat waiting for his pension. Or, he may have died from AIDS.

Once, in the early 60s, we were having coffee in Greenwich Village, he told me about seeing Rex Harrison in Washington Square Park walking with two beautiful women hanging from each of his arms. How alive, debonair, and poised Harrison appeared to him. Such a man, he confessed to me, was to be envied.

If only he too could be like Harrison at 60, as he now views him in his early 30s.

At first I was surprised to hear such a shallow view of a life, but then I realized how consistent it was with his attempt to grapple with some of the severe choices he had to now make at this stage of his life.

Harry was another story. After a troubled youth, he had managed to prove his worth as a university sociologist. Once when I visited Coney Island in the late 60s his mother who was working at the Half Moon Hotel shouted to me from the Hotel, "He has made Stanford."

We all respected him for his academic accomplishments. Shortly after his mother's Half Moon Hotel Stanford announcement, I spent a day with him in Coney Island, on the boardwalk where we ate giant hot egg rolls from a Chinese food vendor. I can still see the egg roll steaming out of Harry's mouth and I marvelled at the gusto with which he devoured the hot egg roll.

However, I felt that his "do good ism" was still cankered over by an unrelenting egocentricity which he carried over from his earlier Narcissistic days.

All three of us had strong adolescent desires to see American capitalism somehow change for the better.

That did not happen.

For the early '90s when I wrote this sketch, it appeared that the polarities of capitalism and communism had been temporarily resolved by a Pax America supporting a world economy. American capitalism grew by leaps and bounds each day. Politics based on Marxism of any variety became remote, futile, and even ridiculous

World politics and movements in the early '90s are on such a novel scale as to defy the simplistic Marxian dialectics from the 1940s thru to the 1960s. The term Post-Modern says it all.

Those of us who have held radical views (like Jeremiah Wright) have been catapulted into our own self-seeking orbits. For us, the "Coney Island Friends," there is no longer a common denominator.

Mosaics From 1949-1954 (Year-Tight Compartments)

2012-05-28T13:15:00.002-07:00

1948-Wallace Convention in Philadelphia, Truman Election, Editor for Lou Relin's Lincoln High Landmarks.

Worked as editor for my high school English teacher's yearbook. Also kept his classes attendance logs. Students were taking their photos for the book.

Time of Slavin's Solid Geometry course and run-in with Orgel with George Gabin, who now, at the age of 80, is incredibly a world class European artist! Thank God sister Roz helped me out of that mess.

It was a period of intense shyness and feelings of physical inadequacy which was not helped by acne.

Decided to switch to night high school (Seward Park) to avoid some of the difficulties I was having in my senior year at Lincoln High. Murray Liebman encouraged me to make the switch since he wanted an intelligent companion to help him through some of the courses he was taking, like English, American History, and Economics. He really seemed to enjoy listening and talking to our Economics teacher on the subject of the Wall Street Stock Market.

2/49

Switch to Night School. In English and American History class with Murray Liebman. We took the American History Regents together and the night the teacher handed out our grades I was absent. When I asked him how I did he first teased me and then fessed up that I had received the highest mark in the class, and that the teacher told the class that in all his many years of teaching American History he had never read such a brillant analysis of the Spanish-American War period in United States History on a Regent's Examination!

After that bit of suprising news I realized what a good friend Murray was and has been from 18 to 80.

It is strange how the act of reminiscing and writing are so much at odds with each other. Writing about the past seems to always be pushing you into the present and demands that you organize, shape, and polish the stream of consciousness of your past life.

Summer of 1949

I can't remember at all what I did then. I think it may have been carrying beach chairs? A really weird Coney Island type Summer job.

Going back to January of 1948 I went back to Lincoln High to pick up my grades in physics. I had an interesting teacher who had been Irving Ziller's teacher and had nominated him for the Physics Medal at his Graduation. That teacher (Edelman, or something like that) was from England, very dignified--he wanted me to take the Westinghouse Science Test!!! I won his attention by my first hand knowledge of vibrating strings from my study of the violin, an important subject which goes back to Greek Pythagorean Philosophers and endorsed by Plato.

The day I picked up my Physics grades was after the night of sister Shirley's marriage to the Columbia Grad school novelist, Eugene Ziller. There was an orgy of drinking at that wedding and I remember being put to bed by an old family friend, Irving Kaufman, who was nicknamed 'Red' for his red hair, which is now gray. Is that the fate of all red heads? Like the Mentalist's "Red John?"

He folded my arms as if I were a corpse and smilingly consoled me that Eugene and Shirley were off to New England for their Honeymoon and that it was time for me to, "Gay Schloffen," Yiddish for me to go to sleep. And then he placed a small bouquet of red roses in my folded hands.

When I woke up it was a rainy, miserable cold day. I went to our corner candy store for a cup of coffee and I felt like hell with my first hangover from the night before. Although I felt encouraged by the good grades I received in Physics, it was then that I resolved to go to night school.

To be continued

Running on Empty: The Problem of Fatigue at the Workplace

2012-01-02T14:05:00.000-08:00

Chapter 4: Running on Empty
Jordan Richman
George Miller Beard and Sigmund Freud: The Id Versus Civilization

George Miller Beard coined the term neurasthenia in 1869 to describe a set of symptoms which revolved around the issue of fatigue. Freud studied the use of Beard's term, accepted it and then described himself as a neurasthenic. He later modified the meaning of the word to limit it to a description of a nervous disorder caused by sexual frustration.

Id, ego, superego, and libido were key terms in Freud's psychoanalytical theories.

The Id is the primitive, unconscious store of energy from which come the instincts for food, love, sex, and other basic needs. It is constantly in search of pleasure and seeks to avoid pain.

The libido represents the energy forces behind sexuality. Freud believed sexual energy could be sublimated or channeled to serve the demands of society.

Conflicts between the individual's sexual needs and the work ethic sap sexual energy and lead to fatigue as well as other neurotic symptoms.

The ego or "I" maintains a balance between the demands of the Id and the superego which represents one's sense of right and wrong--the conscience--and the knower of the outside world (external reality).

Freud then developed an elaborate explanation of neurosis, basing it on unresolved sexual conflicts from early childhood and the various stages of infantile and child sexuality. In Western culture, Freud believed neurosis developed by the continued existence of an attachment of the child to the parent of the opposite sex into adulthood, the Oedipus and Electra complexes. There are a number of other concepts which are identified as Freudian theories concerning personality and neuroses, such as penis envy, psychomatic disorders from unresolved childhood conflicts, the importance of dream symbols, and the need for therapeutic catharsis to resolve neurotic guilt feelings.

The neurotic personility might develop different combinations of symptoms, pains, ailmments, or dysfunctions similar to the neurasthenic patient. Freud's neurotic image, like the neurasthenic one, would always include the presence of fatigue, exhaustion, and incapacity at various levels. The only treatment for Freud's neurosis would be psychotherapy, preferably Freudian.

Beard died at the age of forty-four and Freud at seventy-six. In his longer life, Freud was able to develop and modify his ideas more thoroughly than Beard.

Beard and his fellow neurologists postulated the existence of a mystery substance that provided enegy for the nervous system. He believed that some people had a limited amount of that energy. They were easily distressed by "the forces of civilization," a phrase Beard used to describe the technological advances of society and the complex urban relationships that were beginning to take place in America after the Civil War. This stress "bankrupts" the nerve cell enegy of those who are by temperament inclined toward neurasthenia, while stronger constitutions are able to withstand the stress of the new tech tecnologies and forms of social organization.

In Civilization and its Discontents (1939)), Freud viewed the wars and revolutions of the twentieth century and concluded that there were two forces at work in the western psyche, Thanatos, the death wish, and Eros, the urge for life. Thanatos leads to hate and war, Eros to love and the energy sublimations (transformations) necessary for the development of civilization. Since sublimation is easy for some and difficult for others, the fate of civilization always hangs in the balance as the two forces struggle against one another for dominance.

Running on Empty in the Big City: Work and Depression in the Shadows of New York City

2011-11-29T22:43:00.000-08:00

ART REVIEW

ART REVIEW; Views of a Yiddish Past Spring Comically to Life

By GRACE GLUECK

Published: September 14, 2001

Meet Julius Knipl, real estate photographer, distinguished by his fedora, fine-line mustache and healthy length of nose. Living in a time warp on a rich diet of nostalgia, he is the brainchild of Ben Katchor, a cartoonist who has peopled an imaginary world with characters from a mid-20th-century Yiddish past that he manages to make vividly present.

In Knipl's universe, wholesale-calendar salesmen, importers of folding rain bonnets, stagers of going-out-of-business sales, manure futures brokers and other small-business men are caught up in the sights, scents and sounds of low-end urban life.

They spend hours riding escalators for the thrill of it, attend canned-food tastings at neighborhood groceries, catch their faces reflected in the sheen of egg-washed Danish pastries and give home musicales based on the sounds emitted by faulty radiators. One man, Emmanuel Chirrup, a skidproof-slipper tycoon, has replicated the squalid apartment of his parents at the time of his birth, down to the aroma of reheated pot roast.

Knipl (the name means a small treasure or nest egg in Yiddish) and other Katchor characters strut their stuff in ''Ben Katchor: Picture-Stories,'' a display at the Jewish Museum of the cartoon strips and drawings created by Mr. Katchor since 1988 for The Village Voice, The New York Press, The Forward and the design magazine Metropolis.

There are also excerpts from his comic-strip novel ''The Jew of New York'' and color drawings for his opera, ''The Carbon Copy Building,'' which won an Obie award when it was staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1999.

What's artful about these drawings -- mostly in black and white, with gray ink wash -- is their evocation of New York's demoniacal energy, the look of its down-at-the-heels neighborhoods and storefront facades, and the ethnic faces that Mr. Katchor has evolved from perusal of books like ''Lexicon of the Jewish Theater,'' published in 1931, with its illustrated biographies of actors and actresses.

Then, too, there is the zaniness of his characters' ruminations, like Knipl's poetic inventory of the remains of dinner with friends at the Hylozoic Restaurant: ''a piece of brisket lost in the shadow of a dessert plate; a wedge of sour tomato reflected in a pool of cole slaw dressing.'' And his subway reminiscences: of chocolate-vending machines, subterranean luncheonettes and track workers reading soft-bound leather books.

Born in 1951 in Brooklyn, Mr. Katchor grew up on comic strips, and in his teens began publishing his own on a mimeograph machine. In the 1980's, he contributed to the underground comics magazine Raw, and in 1988 he began the Knipl strip for The New York Press. Obsessed with urban life, he says in a filmed interview shown at the exhibition that for him ''every inch of pavement is a whole new world of activity.''

One of his meatier creations is ''The Jew of New York'' (1992-93), a ''historical romance'' originally done as a serial for The Forward. It takes off from the real-life effort of a 19th-century visionary, Mordechai Noah, to create a Jewish state on an island in the Niagara River in western New York State.

But the real story here is the peripatetic adventures of the hero -- Nathan Kishon, a slaughterhouse worker dismissed for mixing kosher with nonkosher animal tongues -- among hustlers of beaver pelts, importers of mother-of-pearl buttons, peddlers of soil from the Holy Land, would-be carbonators of Lake Erie water and Indians passing as Jews.

Like the rest of Mr. Katchor's work, the tale is told through vivacious, verbose cartoon strips and wanders off in many directions. It ends with a gray but graphic fire, ignited by an apparatus rigged to generate the smell of pickled herring at a theater presenting ''The Jew of New York,'' a play about the life of Mordechai Noah.

But Mr. Katchor's sagas never actually end, even when they come to a halt. You know they will regenerate in other strips, like ''Hotel and Farm'' (named for Katchor's Hotel and Farm in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., operated by his father in the 1930's), which currently appears in The Forward. Its action switches back and forth between rural and urban life, with farms that now cater to the canned- and frozen-food markets, and seedy hotels peopled by characters of varied virtue.

Given the visual challenge of a show devoted largely to black-and-white comic strips that demand a good deal of close-up reading, the museum has done a creditable presentation. The display has been enlivened with artfully fabricated artifacts, like the desiccated remains of turtle soup (circa 1831) from one Ormon's Restaurant in Manhattan and early samples from the Lake Erie Soda-Water Company.

And there are audio excerpts from ''The Knipl Radio Show,'' a 1995 production by David Isay, starring Jerry Stiller, that was broadcast on National Public Radio. ''Pleasures of Urban Decay,'' the film in which Mr. Katchor is interviewed, is also shown as a continuous loop.

Although the show seems to include miles of cartoons, you don't have to eyeball every episode to agree that he is an outsize talent, one that has found itself in a brilliant archaeological exploration of a very special world (with maybe some help from fellow diggers like Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks, Zero Mostel and E. L. Doctorow).

''Ben Katchor: Picture-Stories'' remains at the Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue, at 92nd Street, Manhattan, (212) 423-3200, through Feb. 10.

Photo: A detail of the cover of ''Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: Stories,'' part of ''Ben Katchor: Picture-Stories,'' at the Jewish Museum. (Ben Katchor/the Jewish Museum)

Adventures in Neurasthenia, continued

2011-11-29T14:06:00.000-08:00

The popularity of treating symptoms like mental and emotional fatigue as neurasthenia ran from 1870 to 1910.

A large number of celebrities in literature, the arts, politics, and business were labeled as being neurasthenic, a diagnosis they accepted for themselves.

Theodore Roosevelt went out West to deal with his neurasthenia, while Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper, to challenge the male physicians' ways of dealing with neurasthenia as she experienced it.

By 1920, the Freudian approach, which was much more complex in explaining symptoms of fatigue, began to supplant the simple one-disease theory of neurasthenia. Satires against quack doctors who treated patients suffering from persistent fatique and other nervous disorders were written during the heyday of neurasthenic rest cures. S. Weir Mitchell's The Autobiography of a Quack, (1900) is one such example. In 1910, O'Henry wrote a satire called Let Me Take Your Pulse: Adventures in Neurasthenia.

More recently, a historical novel on the subject was written by T.C. Boyle called The Road to Wellville (1994).

The appearance of a condition labeled Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) in the mid-1980s through to the mid-1990s has brought a renewed interest in the the term neurasthenia. In JAMA, April 27, 1994 appeared an article, "Was Neurasthenia a Legitimate Morbid entity":

During its heyday, which lasted from the 1870s to the turn of the century, the diagnosis of neurasthenia provided patients with a scientifically legitimate explanation of their inability to perform their expected roles. Furthermore, the patients, who tended to be in their 20s and 30s and from the urban middle classes, recovered.

Today, many people feel, like Beard's patients that they are living on a plane lower than normal. Symptom clusters that include fatigue and a general lack of vitality continue to command considerable medical attention. One has only to consult current medical journal articles on chronic fatique syndrome to see that symptom puzzles that engaged our recent ancestors continue to intrigue us.

Neurasthenia does live on, however, as a popular diagnostic entity in China, where its discourse of nerves and energy flows is believed to be more compatible with traditional Chinese explanations of fatigue and malaise than with the more purely psychological explanation[s] from the post-Freudian West.

My Energy Staircase, Overcoming Fatigue, Oblomov Review from a fellow blogger, The Lectern

2011-11-25T17:13:00.000-08:00

Walking up the Energy Staircase!

10) Nirvana--No bad thoughts or feelings; just humming away at work

09) In control of feelings; Not letting the phone, mail, or internet distract you from a targeted activity

08) Happy to discover activities that bring smiles to your lips.

07) Using the NEXT approach. After you tie your shoelaces you think NEXT and put your shirt on.

06) Steam at Y or walk on treadmill.

05) Maybe ability to relate to music (violin, flute , piano, guitar.) I just sold my old wooden Italian clarinet to an old buddy at the Y. I was amazed how well he played. He said he had not played for 40 years!

04) Look for sustained efforts: weights, walk, music, blog...etc.
Definition of sustained efforts:
a. at least an hour of activity
b. any activity as long as it's the same
c. need to do not relevant for b.
d. organize and weed out for c.
e. nap or sitting for an hour also okay
f. watching tv for an hour is okay, especially if you are able to catch up on some sleep while you are watching.

03) Show some sign of flexibility or versatility in your movements.

02) You are capable of some movement like answering the phone. I have a friend who tells me that he knows who is ringing his phone but that he is too tired to pick it up.

01) Almost total mental and physical paralysis.

If you have a fatigue diagram you use or know of one, why don't you send it in so I can post it for fellow fatigue addicts.

Also, if you have tips on falling asleep.

The Lectern

"Oblomov" Goncharov

What’s the good of a man like you? You might as well be a bundle of straw.

I wish I could lie down and go to sleep for ever.

This magnificent book is about whether to simply endure life or to really live it, and if the latter, then how.

Ilya Ilyitch Oblomov is a good-hearted man of independent means who lives a life of excessive laziness. Ensconced in his bed, or on his sofa in one room in his apartment, he spends his days in his worn and filthy dressing gown doing nothing, not even reading or writing (there is not a shred of paper in the place, and the ink in the inkwell has dried up), and bickering incessantly with his servant, Zahar, who has been with him since his childhood and treats his master with a mixture of contempt, devotion, insolence and humility. At times their relationship takes on some of the hilarious character of Beckett’s ambiguous and bleak male-male relationships:

“You lose everything,” [Zahar] remarked, opening the door into the drawing room to see if the handkerchief was there.

“Where are you going? Look for it here. I haven’t been in there for two days. Do be quick,” Ilya Ilyitch said.

The plot involves Oblomov’s struggle to escape the vice of sloth, in his failed love affair with the ravishing Olga Sergeyevna, his growing love for his landlady Agafya Matveyevna, and the machinations of her brother and his crony to rob Oblomov of the income from his estate. Oblomov is motivated by a drive to achieve the perfect bliss of family life, to which he thinks Olga can help him. Ironically, he achieves this state only with his landlady, and it takes him a while to realise this. Olga eventually marries Oblomov’s childhood friend, the worldly and practical Stolz, while Oblomov succumbs to the enervating effects of indecision, prevarication and idleness.

The theme of the true nature of love is dealt with in the relationship between Oblomov and Olga, and later in the relationship between Olga and Stolz. Early in their love, Oblomov panics and writes a long letter to Olga, warning her away from him, declaring that her love is a mistake. He clearsightedly warns that the projection of a false ideal on to an object of potential love can be mistaken for love itself; indeed that love often consists in this very projection: What you feel now is not real love, but only an expectation of it; it is merely an unconscious need of love which for lack of proper fuel burns with a false flame that has no warmth in it. The relationship between Stolz and Olga, which comes to prominence in the third part of the novel, is very well drawn with great psychological subtlety. The older Stolz teaches Olga the real meaning of love, and the relationship stands as a wonderful symbol of the marriage of innocence and experience: With the lamp of experience in his hand he ventured into the labyrinth of her mind and character, discovering each day new facts, new qualities….When Olga experiences depression later in their married life, it is Stolz who helps her most with these extremely wise words: Your sadness and yearning is rather a sign of strength. A lively active mind strives sometimes to go beyond the boundaries of life, finds of course no response to its questionings, and the result is sadness, temporary dissatisfaction with life… it’s the sadness of the soul questioning life about its mysteries. That is what one has to pay for Prometheus’s fire! You must not merely endure but love this sadness and respect your doubts and questions, they are the overflow of the luxury of life and appear for the most part on the summits of happiness. Through the character of Stolz, Goncharov reveals himself as great a philosopher of love as Stendahl.

Another marriage depicted in the novel, is that of the peasant Zahar, and the housekeeper Anyissa. She is extremely able, and puts Zahar’s clumsiness, and laziness constantly to shame, for which he exacts revenge by thrusting his elbow sharply into her breasts. Behind the high comedy of this marriage lurks the foresight of the great artist, in which the complex position of the peasant in Russian culture is symbolically described. Anyissa shows Zahar the correct way to do housework, to which Zahar responds: You stupid, I have done it my way for twenty years and I’m not likely to change for you. This little exchange exemplifies the hostile and bitter reaction the idealistic Populists were to encounter 15 years later during the 1870s in their attempts to better the peasants’ lives and improve them through modern agrarian methods and literacy. The presence of the servants in the novel added force to the controversy around the book. Goncharov’s contemporaries held that the Oblomov-Zahar relationship depicted the corrupting influence on both parties of the institution of serfdom. In the indolent figure of Oblomov, moreover, they saw a critique of Russian laziness and ineptitude, and in the practical figure of Stolz (a Russian German whose name means ‘proud’) a symbol of superior Western know-how, which Westernizers saw as the only and ultimate saviour of Russian problems. Our men of action have always been of five or six stereotyped patterns: lazily looking around them with half closed eyes, they put their hand to the machine of state, sleepily pushing it along the beaten track, treading in their predecessors’ footprints. But behold, their eyes are awakening from sleep, bold, lively footsteps can be heard, and there is a sound of animated voices… Many Stolzes with Russian names are bound to come soon! Oblomov thus acts as a bridge between the Slavophile/Westerniser debates of the 1840s, and the Father/Son debates of the 1860s as well as more generally articulating the Asian/European dialectic that has been at the heart of Russian culture since the age of Peter.

The book is of course an examination of laziness. The main foil for this is Stolz, who is a direct opposite of Oblomov, a man of action, an entrepreneur, a traveller and a socialite. Stolz claims that Oblomov is wasting his life lying on the sofa, and that the purpose of life is work, ambition, transcendence: live for the sake of the work itself, and nothing else. Work gives form and completeness and a purpose to life. Oblomov claims to the contrary that it’s his mode of life that is the real living, and that men of action are simply hiding from the fact that their lives are meaningless: There is no centre round which it all revolves, there is nothing deep, nothing vital. All these society people are dead men, men fast asleep, they are worse than I am. Empty reshuffling of days! Oblomov claims that his laziness makes him conscious of the gentle flow of life, of the delicious splashing of its stream, a moment by moment awareness of the passing of time that the busy men of action have no awareness of, but which should be the real purpose of existence: Isn’t the purpose of all your running about, your passions, ways, trade, politics, to secure rest, to attain this idea of a lost paradise? Oblomov is aware of the damage to his character his sloth is causing: he was painfully conscious that something fine and good lay buried in him and was perhaps already dead or hidden like gold in the depths of a mountain. But at the same time, he is an artist working in dreams. In part one, there is a long chapter entitled Oblomov’s Dream (the only named chapter in the novel) in which Oblomov’s childhood on his estate Oblomovka is described in idyllic terms. While this section gives plausibility to Oblomov’s psychology (he is shown to have been spoilt by over-indulgent parents, particularly his mother) it stands at the same time as a symbol of the golden age of Russia’s past, a vision of an ideal future towards which all Russians should strive, and a vision of a dreamlike alternative to the grimness of reality. This section was published separately in 1849, ten years before the rest of the novel, and did much to stoke the controversy the book aroused. Stolz loves to listen to Oblomov’s depictions of a perfect life on his estate, in which Oblomov paints a word picture of a kind of rural idyll with no falsity, no strife, a state of pure communion amidst plenty and the beauty of nature: Go on painting your ideal of life to me. Humanity at all times in all places has yearned for this dream: it is called peace.

Oblomov is one of the first novels in literature to deal explicitly with the concept of leisure time. Leisure time exists as an unarticulated fact in 19th century literature, both in novels and outside them, and is related to the emerging urban middle classes, who were not always working (like the rural peasantry) or not always doing nothing (like the landed aristocracy) but who switched between the two. However, it is not explored as a conscious theme until Oblomov. Oblomov used to have a job, but he gave it up when he became aware of the split between his working self and his leisured self: When do I live? He keeps repeating like a mantra throughout his working life. When then are you going to live? Why slave all your life? Oblomov is the first character in 19th century literature to voice the difference between the working self and the leisured self, and to reject the drive for personal transcendence and social betterment. Dostoevsky is claimed to have said: “We all come out from under Gogol’s overcoat”. Likewise, we are all the inheritors of Oblomov; out from under his filthy dressing gown, come Des Essientes, Ignatius Reilly, Zoyd Wheeler, and all the couch potatoes of our era.

Posted by Murr at 6:46 PM Labels: Essais

1 comments:

Makifat said...

Excellent analysis. I read Oblomov a couple of years ago. I forget how many pages pass before our hero even gets out of bed. The Beckett comparison is astute.

Paul Lafargue and the Right to Be Lazy

The purpose of this paper is to consider the utopia of one forgotten classic of the left, namely Paul Lafargue's pamphlet, The Right to Be Lazy. What is remarkable about this short book is its genre, which is both Marxist and utopian. For many good reasons, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels avoided that sort of writing themselves. In the 1840s, when they were first won to socialism, the workers' movement suffered from a surfeit of utopian schemes. It was not that Marx or Engels had anything against utopias, per se. But thinking of themselves as practical men, both were embarrassed by the disjunction between the glorious visions of William Weitling, Charles Fourier and Robert Owen among others, and the naïveté with which they planned to get there. The results are scorned in Engels's Anti-Dühring:

If pure reason and justice have not hitherto ruled the world, it is only because they have not been rightly understood. What was missing was only the individual man of genius, who has now arisen and who has recognised the truth. The fact that he has now arisen, that the truth has been recognised precisely at this moment, is not an inevitable event following of necessity in the chain of historical development, but a happy accident. He might just as well have been born 500 years earlier and he might then have spared humanity 500 years of error, strife and suffering.

Engels' response to the utopian socialists was clear - no utopia mattered to him, unless its author knew which group in society was supposed to bring it into being. In this sense the Marxism of the founding fathers was very much a transitional theory. Contrary to Rosa Luxemburg, what mattered to Karl Marx and Frederick Engels above all was the means of how to get to the new society, rather than the end of what to do when they got there.

Similar tastes have been carried into the labour movement since. Marx hinted at the nature of the future Communist society in passages from his German Ideology and The Civil War in France. Then, in the middle of the Russian revolution of 1917, Lenin considered the future of the state after a successful workers' uprising. His pamphlet, The State and Revolution, predicted that the revolution would abolish the coercive apparatus of the state. Without inequality there would be no class divisions, and without classes who would be left to police? In addition to this important example of utopian theory, scientific socialists have made do with a few short pamphlets, several Marxist utopias in the form of fiction, and as far as I can see … not much more than that. We have no Marx 'On Socialism', no Engels, no Lenin, no Sartre, no Trotsky, no Serge. The literature which exists is not much of a guide, when labour activists attempt to think of a post-capitalist society, and perhaps this absence of discussion is one reason why so few socialists make that imaginative leap today.

The absence of utopian writing in the Marxist tradition helps to explain the appeal of Paul Lafargue's book. Certainly in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, his pamphlet was one of the three or four most popular books to be sold within the Second International. First published in summer 1880 as a series of articles in the newspaper L'Égalité (Equality), Le droit á la paresse came out as a short book in 1881, with new editions following in 1883, 1898 and 1900. 'According to Alexandre Bracke, the longtime socialist deputy, it was the socialist pamphlet most extensively translated after the Communist Manifesto and was translated into Russian before the Manifesto.' A first English translation was made by Charles Kerr of Chicago, based on the 1883 edition. Since then the pamphlet has continued in print, with the most recent French editions appearing in 1975 (Maspero) and 1994 (Mille et une Nuits), and English editions in 1989 (Charles Kerr) and 1999 (Fifth Season). The Right to Be Lazy was an important and widely-read pamphlet, but Lafargue's has suffered as much any of the socialist classics from the pessimism which has descended on the left since the fall of the Berlin Wall. For most of the past dozen years, there has been no English edition in print. Fifth Season must therefore be congratulated for their recent republication of The Right to Be Lazy, complete with a new translation by Len Bracken.

This paper will consider first, the life and career of Paul Lafargue, next, the argument of his pamphlet, its source, and then its reception since. One question is answered at the end of the article: How useful is Lafargue's pamphlet, how relevant is this utopia to labour movement activists, one hundred and twenty years after it was first produced?

Lafargue: A Rebel Life

Paul Lafargue was born in Santiago, Cuba, on 16 June 1842. Among his grandparents, Lafargue counted a French republican, a French Jew, a mulatto and a Caribbean Indian. In the words of the American syndicalist Daniel De Leon, 'Paul Lafargue had a constitutional affinity with the oppressed.' Originally a supporter of the French socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Lafargue settled in London, and was acquainted with one of Proudhon's rivals within the First International, namely Karl Marx. Eventually won over to Marx's vision of socialism, Lafargue married the Old Moor's daughter Laura in 1865. Working as a political activist in Spain and France, Paul Lafargue helped to found the French Workers Party, which was led by his friend Jules Guesde. He and his wide corresponded with Engels until his death in 1895. The loss of three children caused Laura and Paul to devote themselves solely to political work. Their partnership ended only in 1911, with their joint suicide. Given that most socialists were suspicious of even voluntary euthanasia, it is appropriate to quote from Paul Lafargue's final note, which sets out his reason for ending his life in this way:

Healthy in body and mind, I end my life before pitiless old age which has taken from me my pleasures and joys one after another; and which has been stripping me of my physical and mental powers, can paralyse my energy and break my will, making me a burden to myself and to others. For some years I had promised myself not to live beyond 70; and I fixed the exact year for my departure from life. I prepared the method for the execution of our resolution, it was a hypodermic of cyanide acid. I die with the supreme joy of knowing that at some future time, the cause will triumph to which I have been devoted for forty-five years. Long live Communism! Long Live the Second International.

This short biographical summary highlights several themes which would be important in the genesis of The Right to Be Lazy, including Lafargue's relationship with Karl Marx, the distinctive and unfinished character of his Marxism, and the relationship between the personal and the political, as it shaped Paul Lafargue's life.

Lafargue met Karl Marx at a session of the International Working Men's Association (IWMA, or First International) in spring 1866. Marx was not very much impressed with his young co-conspirator. The problem once again was utopianism. Lafargue held to the Proudhonist doctrine that all 'nationalist' politicians whether romantic (Mazzini), reactionary (Bismarck) or revolutionary (Garibaldi) were fundamentally the same. Such a characteristically-French lumpen Communism drew Marx's scorn. This is how he described one meeting of the International in a letter addressed to Frederick Engels in June 1866:

The English laughed heartily when I began my SPEECH with the observation that our friend Lafargue, and others, who had abolished nationalities, had addressed us in 'French', i.e. in a language which 9/10 of the audience did not understand. I went on to suggest that by his denial of nationalities he seemed quite unconsciously to imply their absorption by the model French nation.

Lafargue slowly adopted Marxist doctrines through conversations held during strolls on Hampstead Heath. By the time of the 1867 Congress of the International, Lafargue was in a position to second Marx's suggestion that the Association should become 'a common centre of action for the working class'. The following year, Lafargue married Laura Marx, thus placing himself near the centre of the family. Both he and his wife corresponded with Marx and Engels, and both took on to defend the substance of Marx's socialism. Certainly when the French Socialist Workers Party split in 1881, Lafargue played the role of defending Marxist orthodoxy. Paul Brousse's party, the 'Possibilists', came out in favour of municipal reform, theoretical diversity and national defence; while Paul Lafargue and Jules Guesde's 'Impossibilists' stood for revolution, Marxism and international solidarity. The content of Lafargue's internationalism had developed, from a naïve belief in the 1860s that nations were a thing of the past, to his revolutionary claim of the 1880s that nationalism had to be fought.

During the period of the Second International, an orthodox socialist was someone who was loyal to that brand of Marxism which was developed in reading Marx, and through the interventions of Karl Marx himself, Frederick Engels and then Karl Kautsky. Lafargue's socialism was criticised by his rivals in France precisely for such fidelity - it was far too 'German'. A similar criticism is made by Leszek Kolakowski, the biographer of this generation. He maintains that Lafargue was an economic determinist whose philosophy was closer to the late Feuerbach than Marx, 'In short, it cannot be said that Lafargue enlarged or improved upon Marxist doctrine in any way.' Two responses come to mind. First, for the devotees of Marxist philosophy, it is true by definition that only philosophy matters. Such skills as the popularisation or development of existing theories do not count. Only originality is allowed. The best example of such creative thinking becomes that generation of Marxist philosophers, 'the children of Marx and Coca Cola', who have nicely reconciled Marxism with liberalism, every one of them announcing the same formula that 'grand narratives' (herds) are a thing of the past. Second, the judgement of the philosophers is unfair to the man himself. Lafargue was a much more interesting and diverse thinker. Having come to scientific socialism late, and through admiration for both Proudhon and especially Auguste Blanqui (who Paul Lafargue met as a student activist), our author retained some of his old libertarian background. It is this unusual combination of Marxism with pre-Marxist French socialism which makes The Right to Be Lazy such an interesting document to read.

As for the contradiction between the personal and the political, every socialist activist in history has encountered a tension between these two. This problem follows from the contradictions within the socialist project, which were raised at the very opening of this paper. The reason to become a socialist, is that people want to see a different, equal society, without inhumanity and want. But stuck in a racist, sexist and capitalist world, it is impossible for anyone to escape to the future, and emancipate themselves thereby from the pressures to conform to the dictates of the present. Different writers and activists have resolved this tension keeping more or less of their dignity intact. Frederick Engels worked as a factory-manager, while Karl Marx owned shares, and Paul Lafargue had no better answers to these problems than anyone else. Moving towards the contents of his pamphlet, was Lafargue indolent in the way that The Right to Be Lazy demands? Certainly, Paul Lafargue was not a disciplined student, and his natural indolence helps to explain his failure to qualify as a doctor, at least as much as the important distractions that he encountered on the revolutionary left. Yet liberated after 1870 by an inheritance from his father which rescued him from the need to find paid employment, Paul Lafargue settled down and became a hard-working and widely-published socialist activist. Our hero could be as disciplined as anyone else, when the task in question was something which he wanted to do.

Work: A Strange Madness

The Right to Be Lazy was a masterpiece of studied contempt. Lafargue relaxed his pen, and employed the satirist's skills of scorn and sarcasm, as he never had before. The structure of his first sentence owed something to the first line of the Communist Manifesto, 'A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism'. The difference is that in Paul Lafargue's account, the monstrous danger was something to be avoided, and not praised:

A strange madness has taken possession of the working-classes of those nations in which capitalist civilisation dominates. This madness brings in its wake the individual and collective sufferings which for two centuries have tortured an unhappy humanity. This madness is the love of work, the destructive desire for labour, carried even to the extent of exhausting the vital forces of the individual and his offspring.

For his negative model, Lafargue took the seventy-hour working week which was practised by so many people in late nineteenth-century France: 'Work, work, proletarians to augment social wealth and your individual misery. Work, work, so that becoming poorer you will have more reasons to work and be miserable. This is the inexorable law of capitalist production.' In its place, Lafargue advocated leisure - not the wretched leisure industry of our day, but the emancipation of work through its re-integration into older patterns of short-work and frequent rest, 'The proletariat must constrain itself to work for no more than three hours a day and spend the rest of the day and night resting and banqueting.'

One of the most distinctive themes of Lafargue's argument was his frequent use of classical and sometimes even older sources to praise an earlier world in which leisure was seen as a higher virtue than permanent toil. The Bible was praised both for the Sermon on the Mount ('Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not neither do they spin') and for the example given to everyone in Genesis, 'The bearded Jehovah gave his followers the supreme example of ideal laziness - after six day's work, he rested for eternity.' There were also references to Antipatros, Cicero, Arcadian parrots, Venus, Herodotus ('even women were not allowed to spin or weave so as not to detract from their nobility'), Brutus the Elder, Tarquin, Plato, Xenophon ('work steals time'), Plutarch, Lycurgus and Daedalus. Paul Lafargue praised to the skies the Greek ideal of civilised leisure:

The ancient Greeks had no more desire for work: free men practised only physical exercise and games of intelligence. This was the era when Aristotle, Phidias and Aristophanes moved and breathed among the people; when heroes at Marathon crushed the Asian hordes, who were also conquered by Alexander. The philosophers of Antiquity taught contempt for work - the degradation of the free man.

You might from this passage conclude that Lafargue had been boning up on his classics - indeed, as I will show, he had been doing just this.

One less attractive theme of The Right to Be Lazy was its author's confusion of matters of class and race. This point was never made explicit, nor was Lafargue arguing in defence of racial privilege, but like several other nineteenth-century writers, Paul Lafargue found it easiest when looking for a capitalist, to name a Jew. There are three references to Rothschild in this fifteen-thousand word pamphlet, which is at least two more than any other banker or industrialist who came to Lafargue's mind. A similar disorder infects the following passage, harmless in itself, but odd to a twenty-first century ear, 'For which races is work an organic necessity? The Auvergnians; the Scots (Auvergnians of the British Isles); Galicians (Spanish Auvergnians); Pomeranians (German Auvergnians); the Chinese (Asian Auvergnians).' Was race really this important? - I doubt it. The pamphlet makes no racist argument, nor was Paul Lafargue a recognisably racist writer - either by the standards of his day, or our own. Yet there is something crude here, which does not impress.

Of more interest is Lafargue's attack on organised religion, as far as he was concerned, Christianity had justified slavery in antiquity and now it glorified alienated labour. Paul Lafargue had nothing bad to say against scripture, as we have seen. Yet our author had no good word to say for the work-ethic of Protestantism, bemoaning the death of feudal work-practices in eighteenth-century Britain. Before the industrial revolution, by contrast, everything was fine, 'Morose England, immersed in Protestantism, was then known as "Merrie England".' Catholicism received even shorter shrift from Paul Lafargue's pen: 'Christian hypocrisy and capitalist utilitarianism didn't pervert the philosophers of the ancient Republics … The Bastiats, Dupanloups, Beaulieus and co with their Christian and capitalist morality, these thinkers and their philosophers recommend slavery.' Such anti-clericalism was a common part of Paul Lafargue's socialism, certainly until the time of the Dreyfus affair, when it appears that secular intellectuals took over this target role.

In the final few paragraphs of The Right to Be Lazy, Lafargue reminded his reader of the Greek philosopher Aristotle's desire that machinery would user in a new era of human rest, 'if every tool could be used effortlessly, or move itself like the masterpieces of Daedalus or begin spontaneously their scared work like Vulcan's tripods; if, for example, the weaver's shuttles did their own weaving, the head of the shop would not need any assistant, nor the master, slaves.' Paul Lafargue wholeheartedly endorsed this vision of the future of technology, where human inventions could be used to secure the idleness people deserved, 'The genius of the great capitalist philosophers remains dominated by the prejudices of the salary, the worst slavery. They still don't understand that the machine is the redeemer of mankind, the God who will rescue humanity from the sordidae artes of wage slavery, the God who will give us leisure and liberty.' To this I add, Amen!

Origins of an Idea

The success of The Right to Be Lazy, and the general absence of footnotes in the pamphlet, have encouraged historians to look for earlier manuscripts which acted as source-material for it. One influence could be the philosophy of Epicurus. He has been associated with the idea that a good life is a happy life - or as this philosophy has been understood in English, 'eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die'. Indeed, Epicurus is no accidental figure to associate with the nineteenth-century left. Marx devoted his doctoral thesis to a comparison of the natural philosophies of Democritus and Epicurus, concluding heavily on the side of the latter. A second potential source could be Lafargue's long-term influence, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The introduction to his pamphlet Sunday, recommends leaving aside the 'discussion of work and wages, organisation and industry' in favour of the study of 'a law which would have at its basis a theory of rest'. Another influence may have been Charles Fourier, whose work includes its own passionate critique of toil. A fourth and most likely influence is Karl Marx. The message of Lafargue's pamphlet is close to the themes of Marx's earlier philosophical writings, including the German Ideology and his 1844 Manuscripts. Most of these remained unpublished until the twentieth century - but it is likely that some of the same themes recurred in those formative strolls along Hampstead Heath.

One source we know for certain, even though Lafargue declined to provide a reference. The very name of Lafargue's pamphlet was plundered from an earlier book by Louis Moreau-Christophe, The Right to Idleness and the Organisation of Slavery in the Greek and Roman Republics. Lafargue gently tweaked the phrase, to give his title a more provocative edge. No doubt Moreau-Christophe also provided the classical references. Our author came across the earlier book in the private library of Karl Marx, and was later sent Marx's original copy, following the older man's death in 1883.

We cannot really know what Marx made of Moreau-Christophe's book, and still less can we know what opinions he passed on to his son-in-law. Yet Marx wrote several comments on his copy of this book. Many were aimed at Joseph Naudet, who wrote a critical after-word to Moreau-Christophe's original paper. Marx's marginal notes included a criticism of Naudet's belief that the law was a means to achieve justice, 'This proves that Naudet, although he cites the authors didn't understand the first word of Roman Law. Product, property - whose? That means law - whose? Force, armed theft or rapine.' Later Marx responded to Moreau-Christophe's defence of the duty to work, with a caustic aside worthy of Lafargue, work is … 'that which Christianity came to teach the world.' Although these comments are interesting in themselves, sadly they do not constitute any 'missing link' to Lafargue's pamphlet. They were not read by Paul Lafargue, and if he did read them, it was only after The Right to Be Lazy had already been published.

A Pamphlet and a Programme?

Part of the historical interest of Lafargue's pamphlet lies with the moment at which it was published. Over the past dozen years or so, several writers have sought a return to a pure set of left-wing values, a 'classical Marxism' unsullied by the defeat of the Russian Revolution. The phrase 'classical Marxism' is taken from the Polish revolutionary, Isaac Deutscher, who was a supporter of Trotsky in exile and later became an inspiration to the New Left that grew up in the 1960s. Deutscher was very much an enthusiast for the Marxism of Lafargue's day, talking of the 'striking, and to a Marxist often humiliating contrast between what I call classical Marxism - that is, the body of thought developed by Marx, Engels, their contemporaries and after them by Kautsky, Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg - and the vulgar Marxism, the pseudo-Marxism of the different varieties of European social-democrats, Stalinists, Kruschevities, and their like.' Not everyone has been so friendly to the Marxists of the Second International. John Rees has condemned the lack of imaginative, dialectical thinking among several members of this generation, including especially Karl Kautsky. It is hard to fit Paul Lafargue's into this debate. His significance is uneven, his presence contradictory. His other translated works lack the wit of The Right to Be Lazy, are derivative, and generally confirm the negative judgements given above. Yet this pamphlet is Lafargue at his best. Its utopianism stands beyond the perspective of his contemporaries. The living essence of Marxism - the dialectical method - is there.

What about Lafargue's argument? In the one-hundred-plus years since the publication of Paul Lafargue's pamphlet, critical judgement has varied. The Right to Be Lazy has found unlikely enemies, and a few surprising champions as well. Among the unexpected critics, I would include the dissident Marxist Leszek Kolakowski, who was mentioned earlier. His claim is that Lafargue's socialism was a step backwards from classical Marxism. He suggests that the flaw of The Right to Be Lazy was that it described socialism purely in terms of consumption - 'resting and banqueting'. Such 'hedonistic Marxism', according to Kolakowski, fails to explain what will happen when labour is no longer alienated. Even after the revolution, we will still need hospitals, schools, food and power supplies. So how will these be established, if nobody is going to do any work? Lafargue gives two direct answers to this question in The Right to Be Lazy - the first is that the use of machinery should lead to greater leisure, the second is his acceptance of the need for a three-hour working day - yet both responses are insufficient as answers. On my reading of Paul Lafargue's pamphlet, a third and more compelling answer to Kolakowski's question is implied, although it is only lightly traced. I will say more about this in a moment.

Among Paul Lafargue's surprising admirers can be counted the current French government. In 1999 Lionel Jospin's socialists passed a new law introducing the 35-hour week. French workers already benefit from five week's paid holiday, two month's summer vacation, and a range of public holidays to make their confreres in Britain and America weep. Indeed Jospin has dropped his own hints suggesting the influence of Paul Lafargue on the new law. Although Lafargue's general belief that shorter working hours could reduce unemployment may have influenced Lionel Jospin's coalition, the most compelling reason for introducing the law would have been to strengthen a Socialist Party challenged by no less than three electoral blocs to its left - the Trotskyists, the Greens, and the Communists, each of which achieved over 5 per cent of the vote in last year's Euro-elections.

Between the crude ultra-left criticised by Kolakowski and the mild-mannered reformist beloved of Jospin, is there any space for the real Paul Lafargue to make himself known? One point which occurs to me is that Lafargue's claims are really not that exceptional. Even the physicist Albert Einstein, on those rare occasions when he gave substance to his socialist politics, spoke of the need to reduce the working week: 'In each branch of industry the number of working hours per week ought to be reduced by law so that unemployment is systematically abolished. At the same time minimum wages must be fixed in such a way that the purchasing power of the workers keeps pace with production.' On this reading, the importance of Lafargue is that he reminds us of a basic truth which the left knew all along. The politics of Marx, the influence of Proudhon, the memory of the Paris Commune (during which Lafargue was a delegate-at-large in France), each of these influences can be traced in his book. The true originality of The Right to Be Lazy is that everyone else forgets to make these points in their propaganda, and it was left to Lafargue to fill the gap.

Kolakowski's challenge remains unanswered. If work is to be abolished, then what (in socialist theory) should take its place? It seems to me that the answer implied in Lafargue is the traditional Marxist answer. Certainly people will continue to produce after the revolution, but their labour will be different from 'work' as we understand it now. For one thing, there will be no class of employers, and no class of the employed. Therefore work will not be alien, in the sense that it will belong to the worker. No-one will be expected to labour on tasks which they have not chosen. More fundamentally, the nature of employment will change. The one literature in which people have seriously considered what useful work will be like beyond the confines of the market, is in educational theory. Thirty years ago Paulo Freire wrote about education as a means to self-emancipation. More recently, the most widely-used concept has been 'play'. When educational writers use this word, they have in mind the unstructured learning which children develop in their first years. Rules are developed by individuals and groups, without external compulsion. Education without rules, self-development and unconstrained learning, these are the ideals that writers have in mind.

The one author I know who has attempted to marry The Right to Be Lazy to play-theory is an anarchist Bob Black. His web-tract, 'The Abolition of Work' follows closely the argument of Lafargue, 'Karl Marx's wayward son-in-law'. There are several unconvincing puns on 'ludic' game-playing, but the content of Black's argument provides a serious answer to Kolakowski's challenge, mentioned above. Bob Black includes a useful definition of work (as 'forced labour') as well as a mapped-out alternative to it:

What I really want to see is work turned into play. A first step is to discard the notions of a 'job' and an 'occupation'. Even activities that already have some ludic content lose most of it being reduced to jobs which certain people, and only those people, are forced to do to the exclusion of all else … Second, there are some things that people like to do from time to time, but not for too long, and certainly not all of the time … Third, other things being equal, some things are unsatisfying if done by yourself or in unpleasant surroundings or at the orders of an overlord, are enjoyable, at least for a while, if these circumstances are changed.

I don't think Lafargue would have cut a single word from this passage. I would restate his belief in mechanisation (democratically controlled by workers, not by managers), and his notion of a remaining transitional three-hour day. The picture becomes clearer then and more consistent, the future more worked-out and more real.

In conclusion, it seems to me that Paul Lafargue's notion of a work-less future provides a compelling vision of the alternative society that most labour movement activists would actually like to bring about. Indeed I suspect that his utopia would be compelling to much wider layers of people, even than that. Each year seems to bring new advances in labour-saving technology, but the working week never shortens - not for Spanish-speaking workers who are now challenging African-Americans to take on the roles of labourer, driver and cleaner for white urban America; not in Russia, where life expectancy has fallen over the past fifteen years; not in France where unemployment remains at 10 per cent; and not in Britain where the gap between rich and poor has hardly narrowed in the 100 years since statistics were first collected. The anarchists, turtles kids and Lesbian Avengers who were at Seattle last year have at least as much to say about Lafargue, as the hard-hats who marched with them. Spread the word.

From: DKrenton.com.uk

Adventures in Neurasthenia, continued

2011-11-24T19:45:00.000-08:00

Men and women were both subject to nervous diseases from different pressures. Beard thought that men in the professions, especially his own, medicine, were most inclined to neurasthenia (he diagnosed and treated himself as a neurasthenic) because of the pressures of overwork and guilt for not living up to the standards of their professions

Adventures in Neurasthenia, continued

2011-11-22T11:38:00.000-08:00

In Nervous Exhaustion (1880) and American Nervousness (1881) George Beard argued that while similar disorders appeared in other countries, neurasthenia was an illness peculiar to America and was brought on by changes in the conditions of the United States in his own time. Elsewhere, Men were expected to follow in their father's footsteps. In America, they were expected to work their way up the economic ladder, to make something of themselves!

But how were they to accomplish this mission if they were plagued all the time by severe fatigue?

Writers Anonymous, Inc.

Early life and original name

Preaching as God: 1912–1965

In the South: 1912–1914

Brooklyn and marriage to Penninah: 1914–1919

Sayville, New York: 1919–1931

Sayville arrests, trial, notoriety, and prison: 1931–1932

Pennsylvania: 1942–death

Physical characteristics and preaching style

Civil rights legacy

Religious legacy

References

Further reading

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

"I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD"

Early life

Baptist Minister

Selective Patronage Movement

Self-Help Movement

10-36 Plan

Progress Plaza

Sullivan Principles as a response to apartheid

Sullivan Principles

Leon H. Sullivan Summit

Awards and honors

Books by Leon H. Sullivan

References

^ Sullivan, Leon H. (1998). Moving Mountains: The Principles and Purposes of Leon Sullivan. Judson Press. ISBN 0-8170-1289-3.

External links[

Video and audio material[edit]

Analysis

From Johnson's Quarrel with Swift, Jordan Richman

From 'Johnson's Quarrel with Swift,' by Jordan Richman

Abraham Richman, 1872-1969

Brooklyn College 9/50

Three Coney Island 'Friends': A Mosaic Study

Mosaics From 1949-1954 (Year-Tight Compartments)

Running on Empty: The Problem of Fatigue at the Workplace

Running on Empty in the Big City: Work and Depression in the Shadows of New York City

ART REVIEW

ART REVIEW; Views of a Yiddish Past Spring Comically to Life

By GRACE GLUECK

Published: September 14, 2001

Adventures in Neurasthenia, continued

My Energy Staircase, Overcoming Fatigue, Oblomov Review from a fellow blogger, The Lectern

Adventures in Neurasthenia, continued

Adventures in Neurasthenia, continued