Alexander’s Ragtime Band

If there had been a Super Bowl in 1912, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” probably would have been the biggie in the halftime show.

This old favorite by Irving Berlin was the top tune of 1911, selling many millions of copies of….the sheet music. Most people heard the song when someone in the family sat down at the piano to tickle the ivories. The iconic Victrola phonograph was just starting to get up some steam in the consumer market, and radio didn’t go commercial until 1920.

Scott Joplin

“Alexander’s Ragtime Band” is a simple version of ragtime—Scott Joplin could have played it with one hand tied behind his back, more or less. So more or less anybody could easily learn it and play it when it was a new release before World War I.

Here's a link to a 1911 recording made a few months after the song hit the market….and here's a link to The Andrews Sisters (their career spanned 1925-1967) doing their version.

You can sing along too, you already know some of the words:

“Come on and hear, come on and hear

Alexander’s Ragtime Band…

The best band in the land

They can play a bugle call

Like you never heard before…”

Book review: Shakespeare: The World as Stage

Johnny says "drink up!"

Outsourcing: what's it all about?

Take it or leave it?

Lest we forget

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

Johnny says “drink up!”

John Chapman “Johnny Appleseed” (1774-1845)

"Johnny Appleseed" got rich planting apple trees in Pennsylvania and Ohio after the Revolutionary War.

John Chapman was a savvy businessman who followed the early American settlers as they headed west over the Appalachian Mountains, and he made a pile of money selling them apple orchards and apples to make fermented apple cider.

The happy-go-lucky “Johnny Appleseed” myths were created about 100 years ago by big commercial apple growers who were trying to rehabilitate their image in a time when the evils of John Barleycorn were a big social issue.

Chapman was born in Leominster, MA, just before the Revolutionary War got started. In 1797, at the age of 27, he set out for Ohio country, and lived a more or less itinerant life thereafter.

In much of the frontier lands, hard cider was the only booze readily available. Chapman traveled far and wide, buying cheap riverbottom land and planting apple orchards. He hired boys to help tend the trees, and when they matured, he sold the apples and often sold the orchards to nearby farmers. When he died, he owned more than 1,200 acres of valuable orchard property and he was a rich man. He was a businessman.

The traditional "Johnny Appleseed" persona is “usually pictured shoeless, clad in rags, with a tin pot for a hat, striding happily through the forest with a bag of apple seeds over his shoulder and an assortment of woodland animals as his companions. He is portrayed as a gentle and godly man, who brought the wholesome apple to men and women living on the edge of civilization.”

Chapman was a nature lover and a God-fearing man, but his apple gig was strictly business.

Outsourcing: what's it all about?

Crimestoppers

No secret about good writing....

Writing: I can tell you this....

Lest we forget

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

Outsourcing: what’s it all about?

You’ve heard the arguments: American companies are outsourcing jobs to overseas locations so they can pay cheaper wages. American companies are moving their operations and headquarters overseas (“inversion”) so they don’t have to pay U.S. corporate taxes on their profits.

I saw a curious statement by Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, who said recently that the cost of labor is a tiny fraction of total production costs in many manufacturing operations.

NewYorker.com says that a couple years ago Immelt mentioned this: “If you look at an aircraft engine, the content of labor is probably less than five per cent. We have two hours of labor in a refrigerator. So it really doesn’t matter if you make it in Mexico, the U.S., or China.”

TWO HOURS of labor in a refrigerator?!?

One source I checked said the average cost of a refrigerator is about $1,100—of course, you can spend less or a lot more.

I’m thinking, now, why does a refrigerator cost that much if there’s only two hours of labor in it?

I’m thinking, now, I’m gonna need some help listing all the reasons why anybody in his or her right mind would pay full list price for a refrigerator, instead of waiting for the “once in a lifetime” sale that happens every month or so at most of the big appliance dealers.

Crimestoppers

No secret about good writing....

"We're from the news media and we're here to help you"

"...centuried rust..."

No secret about good writing....

A dark corner of history....

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

Crimestoppers

Here’s my opinion: yesterday, on CNN, Donald Trump committed a federal crime.

Let’s be fair: Sen. Ted Cruz did pretty much the same thing.

Why isn’t every Republican and Democratic leader in America calling for both of them to drop out of the presidential race?

A CNN interviewer asked Trump for his thoughts about the Republican convention voting for the party’s nominee.

Trump said if he doesn’t get the nomination, “I think you’d have riots.”

That’s a clear message to Trump supporters encouraging them to take to the streets to riot, break things and hurt people. It’s a federal crime “to incite a riot.”

Cruz said almost the same thing. He said a “brokered convention” with delegates choosing a nominee who didn’t have the most votes on the first ballot “would be an absolute disaster. I think the people would quite rightly revolt.”

Trump is dangerous for America. Cruz is dangerous for America.

Why isn’t every Republican and Democratic leader in America calling for both of them to drop out of the presidential race?

"We're from the news media and we're here to help you"

Time to talk about Trump

The few have spoken again....

Populism: just say no

The gotchas and the gliblies

The few have spoken in Iowa

I didn't bother on Thursday night

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

"We're from the news media, and we're here to help you...."

The news media are making the whole terrible Trump thing worse.

The media are wantonly giving free air time to Trump and implicitly legitimizing his antics, his hate messages and his demagoguery.

The news media are keeping Trump top-of-mind, and they’re making him more dangerous.

A couple points of reference:

TheNation.com reports that Trump is getting 10 times more coverage than Rubio.

In February the Republican primary debacle was getting twice as much coverage as the Democratic wrangle.

Trump is getting 23 times more face time with America than Sanders.

John Nichols at The Nation says “…the modern media shape the narrative, as opposed to simply reporting on it…” 

More:

“The past 20 years have seen radical changes in the American media: the pandemic downsizing of newsrooms, sweeping layoffs of journalists, and a desperation for clicks and ratings that guarantees that civic and democratic values will always be trumped by commercial and entertainment demands.”

Here’s a wacky thought: turn off your TV for 24 hours, and think about what’s important to you in America and in your life.

Time to talk about Trump

Political ads on TV

That trust thingie....

Full circle....

The few have spoken again....

Populism: just say no

The gotchas and the gliblies

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

“…centuried rust…”

I like this one, mostly.

Amy Lowell (1874-1925) was a poet of the so-called "imagist" school (see below).  It seems that I incline to think in imagist terms……

Her poem below is not a masterpiece by any means. I particularly do not respond with gusto to reversal of subject-verb order (“…burns the twilight…”)

"March Evening" is a grand description of the dying down of day.

I love the weathercock’s “…centuried rust…”

I love “…wrapping the mists round her withering form, day sinks down…”

I love “…to-morrow travails to birth…”

I didn’t notice until I was reading the poem for the fourth time that she uses rhyme.

March Evening

Blue through the window burns the twilight;

  Heavy, through trees, blows the warm south wind.

Glistening, against the chill, gray sky light,

  Wet, black branches are barred and entwined.

Sodden and spongy, the scarce-green grass plot

  Dents into pools where a foot has been.

Puddles lie spilt in the road a mass, not

  Of water, but steel, with its cold, hard sheen.

Faint fades the fire on the hearth, its embers

  Scattering wide at a stronger gust.

Above, the old weathercock groans, but remembers

  Creaking, to turn, in its centuried rust.

Dying, forlorn, in dreary sorrow,

  Wrapping the mists round her withering form,

Day sinks down; and in darkness to-morrow

  Travails to birth in the womb of the storm.

“March Evening” was published in Lowell’s book A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1912).

Imagism:

The imagist movement included English and American poets in the early 20th century who wrote free verse and were devoted to “clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images.” As a strand of modernism, imagism was officially launched in 1912 when Ezra Pound read and marked up a poem by Hilda Doolittle, signed it “H. D. Imagiste," and sent it to Harriet Monroe at Poetry magazine.

The movement sprang from ideas developed by T. E. Hulme, who as early as 1908 was proposing to the Poets’ Club in London a mode of poetry based on absolutely accurate presentation of its subject with no excess verbiage. The first tenet of the imagist manifesto: “To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word.”

Them’s words to write poetry by.

  

"...surely it will"

"...soil that knows only yes..."

Another poet heard from....(part 10)

Kernel and husk

Another poet heard from....(part 8)

"...they tend to joy..."

"...surely it will"

Writing: I can tell you this....

Soul talking....

Homeward

Up for the count

Understanding

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

“…they tend to joy…”

Après-midi des enfants

My poem about the kids, in the afternoon, in the water….

This post has been moved to my website:

http://richardsubber.com/apres-midi-des-enfants/

Public housing: less there than meets the eye

Regardless of your political view of public housing, here’s a not-so-fun fact:

Most of the folks who qualify for public housing—because they can’t get decent housing privately with their own resources—don’t actually live in public housing.

Why?

The existing stock of public housing is only sufficient for 1 out of 4 of the families who are poor enough to qualify for it.

Three-quarters of the families who would think public housing is a step up can’t take that step, because there is no place for them to step up to.

Try to imagine what it’s like to live where they live now.

Matthew Desmond, in the March 6 Sunday New York Times, extends the perspective by asking this question:

“What if food stamps only covered one in four families?”

By the way, just for the record: there are more white (non-Hispanic) folks getting benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program than any single minority. SNAP administers the food stamp program. About 20 million white folks get food stamps. About 15 million black folks get food stamps. You get the picture.

Expensive toilet paper

Job security at Apple?

There are givers, and keepers

Really?

The bad news about the good news

Better off in North Korea?

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

Time for everybody to talk about Trump and America

Say it out loud: Yes, there are some decent people who have decided for now, for their own reasons, to support Donald Trump.

Say it out loud: Trump is saying hateful things. He doesn’t offer constructive leadership for America. What he’s doing is dangerous for our country.

Vote for someone else.

Tell your friends.

Say it out loud.

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

Expensive toilet paper

Inequality has its impact in so many ways, many big ways, many small ways….

Take toilet paper.

Of course you do. Everybody does.

It’s a classic commodity product: easily made, relatively inexpensive, easily transported, non-perishable, available everywhere, one size fits all, there is predictable universal need and predictable consumption, goes with any décor, more or less a unitary product (let’s not squabble about one-ply or two-ply).

Why do poor people spend more for toilet paper than their more affluent fellow citizens?

Hint: when was the last time you bought the 20-pack of toilet paper when the big sale was on?

Poorer folks—who are, inter alia, cash poor—don’t have enough ready money to buy the 20-pack when it’s on sale. They are more likely to repeatedly buy another roll or two when they have need. They are more likely to pay “regular” price.

Emily Badger of The Washington Post reports that poorer folks pay about 6% more for toilet paper.

One legal way the rich get richer is by filling the cart with t.p. when it’s on sale.

p.s. ditto for diapers, see this White House website

Job security at Apple?

There are givers, and keepers

Really?

The bad news about the good news

Better off in North Korea?

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

Another poet heard from…..(part 12)

 Nothing

can replace

poetry

in my life

and one day

surely

it will

"Nothing" from Big Enigmas, by Ken Mikolowski © 1991

This piece offers the kind of stark lucidity that I like, and it’s robustly true.

That pretty much says it all.

Après-midi des enfants

"...soil that knows only yes..."

Another poet heard from....(part 10)

Kernel and husk

Another poet heard from....(part 8)

"...there are only endings."

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

“Mama!”

Alexander Graham Bell patented his “electrical speech machine” 140 years ago. A few months later he tried unsuccessfully to sell the patent to Western Union. Apparently the company didn’t think the invention had much promise.

I think Bell would have bet the ranch that it was plain crazy to imagine that people would someday be able to walk down the street while they were talking to a friend on the other side of the world. One story has it that Bell thought folks would use the telephone primarily to listen to distant musical performances.

In his youth Bell was a dedicated tinkerer, with a steady penchant for inventing gadgets and stuff. Before the telephone became a reality, he and his brothers “built a working model of a mouth, throat, nose, and movable tongue, and attached a set of bellows for lungs. They were so successful in getting the model to wail 'MaMa' that the neighbors began to search for a child in distress.”

What are your kids inventing these days?

Dark corner of history....

Lest we forget....

The boob tube....

Your great-grandmother didn't have a teddy bear

"Don't step in the...."

"...ain't no protest song."

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2012 All rights reserved.

“Opinion” isn’t relevant….

Kronebreen Glacier in northern Norway

This is what global warming looks like....

Robert Frost had no inkling of global climate change when he published “Fire and Ice” in 1920:

“Some say the world will end in fire…”

We're cooking the planet (part 13)

The barrel is worth more than the oil

A good step

Progress?

Energy company profits are simply theft

"Oceanfront property"....uh oh

California dreamin'....about water

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

Dark corner of history….

Here’s a despicable flashback you’ll wish you don’t have to believe:

May 30, 1922, the formal dedication of the new Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

The few black folks who were invited were forced to sit in a separate, roped-off section. Robert Moton, president of Tuskegee Institute—he was a featured speaker that day—was not permitted to sit on the speaker’s platform, and instead had to sit in the segregated section.

A reporter for the Chicago Defender, appalled by this flagrant display of racism, wrote “The venomous snake of segregation reared its head at the ded­ication…The conquered have become victorious."

  

Lest we forget....

Homework....think again....

Get crazy!  Let your kids go outside and play

How many are enough?

"...ain't no protest song."

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

Lest we forget….

Maybe it was mentioned in the “too white” Oscar flub-a-dub, but I’ll just rack ‘em up one more time for Hattie McDaniel.

If you’re asking “Who’s Hattie McDaniel?” you’re not a Gone With The Wind fan.

Hattie McDaniel (1895-1957) was “Mammy” in that remarkably durable romantic swashbuckler.

She also was the first black thespian to earn an Oscar. She took Best Supporting Actress in 1940, one of the eight Oscars awarded to Gone With The Wind.

Hattie had many talents. She sang in traveling minstrel groups as a teenager, and was one of the first black women to be a radio singer in the U. S. She started doing films in 1932, and played the roles of maids and cooks in almost 40 films in the 1930s, capping that run with her memorable role as a house slave, opposite Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.

Hattie’s portrayal of stereotypical black servants was criticized in some quarters, but she shrugged that off, saying she’d rather play a maid than be one.

Too bad it’s too late to say “You go, girl!”

p.s. my trusted personal advisor notes that Hattie—the only black person who was sitting down at the Oscar awards ceremony—wasn’t seated at one of the banquet tables with the white folks, she sat with her escort at a small round table near the kitchen door. Oh yeah, another thing: Clark Gable had intended to escort Hattie to the premiere of Gone With The Wind in Atlanta, but he was waved off—neither Hattie nor any other black person was allowed to attend the film showing.

Homework....think again....

Get crazy!  Let your kids go outside and play

Soul talking....

How many are enough?

The boob tube....

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.