A Dispatch from Salem

 Greetings from Spring Break! 

I imagine that right now, y’all are lounging on a beach somewhere working on your tans, drinking age-appropriate beverages with little umbrellas through bendy straws, and generally being paragons of Puritan restraint and decorum.

I, however, am in Salem, MA. 

Morning, my family and I were in Plymouth, famous landing place of the Pilgrims, who had been kicked out of two countries for being too religious (and it took a LOT to get kicked out of Holland in the 1620s, let me tell you). They landed at Plymouth Rock. According to one very very very old guy. Decades after the fact. Who heard it from another guy who was supposed to have been there. The earliest mention of the rock in the historical record was as a big stone marking a boundary. But whatever, it’s a good story. Nobody warned us that the weather in Plymouth was going to be a recreation of the Pilgrims’ first winter, because it was h*cking freezing down by the water. Here is the rock:

It was fantastically good luck that the rock was stamped with the year when they got here, as calendars had not yet been invented. 

So, after we looked at the rock, I looked up the hill above the harbor and saw this brass statue of one of the indigenous people gazing out over the place where the Pilgrims landed:

I did not go up the hill to check, but I’m pretty sure the statue is titled “Oh, Shit.”

After Plymouth, we drove to Salem, about and hour and a half north. This is where the Pilgrims’ dream of killing a lot of innocent members of their own community finally came true.

Salem is goth Disneyland. 

We had an hour or so to kill before we were scheduled to meet friends of my parents for lunch, so we went to the final resting place of many of the instigators and (presumably) the victims of the famous witch hunts. The supposed witches were taken down after they were executed and put in shallow graves, but they were removed by family members presumably to this cemetery. 

The cemetery has a lot of New England charm, and you get a hint of it when you see the oldest cemeteries in Pennsylvania. The headstones are thin and very weathered so that the fronts look almost exactly like the backs. The cemetery was gated and locked (presumably because the markers there look so fragile), but you peer in over a low wall. Built into this wall are stone seats, each bearing the name and execution date of one of the accused witches. Some of them, like Bridget Bishop’s memorial, had lillies placed on them. 

For a town notorious for falsely convicting citizens for being witches, Salem sure does attract a lot of people who profess to be witches. The graveyard is bounded one side by a restaurant called “Casa Tequila” (I hear the Alamo is across from a Walgreens) and by a row of shops and mini museums on the other, all of them, I think, witch themed. I had to go in the one called Pentagram. Had to.

Had to. 

It was a fairly small shop with a large collection of gems and stones on the first floor (way more than anyone asked for on that later), books on the second floor, magic tchotchkes and divination tools throughout, and three booths with curtains drawn across them where psychics were giving readings. We arrived as one of the psychics was showing up for his shift, setting out his crystals on the little table. I really wanted to get a reading, but my family was waiting in the car and I had to be relatively quick. If I do get one, I’ll ask to film it. I did see one woman sign up for a walk-in reading.

The store sells all things “magick,” which is magic but is spelled with a “k.” 

This is a screencap of my phone. There is no movie.

There is a huge wall of herbs behind the register, I presume for spells and the types of preparations in these books:

 

I guess today is the day I learned about “plant magic.”

There also seems to be some cross pollination between Wiccan practices and other beliefs, including Jewish Kabbalah and the Golden Dawn (I am presuming that this is a reference to the offshoot of Freemasonry and the not the Greek fascist party):

They had a display with divining instruments of the type that my students might recognize:

The things that look like cookies are pendulums for divination, a type of dowsing.

And they had another thing. Among the gems and crystals. Which you would not have heard of in my class, at least not before I learned that it was a thing: a lot of amazing jewelry! 

I mean, why would you mix pewter jewelry in with the uncut gemstones and gigantic quartz peni….the hell?!! 

Like, you know me, I’ll ask anyone about anything, but not even I could screw up the courage to ask the woman behind the counter what these gigantic gizmos were in aid of. Luckily, they have a website which details everything that they sell in the shop, including the rose quartz phalluses. The text for the 8.5-incher explains: “The Phallus is a symbol of the divine masculine and fertility. Place on your Altar to bring abundance, growth and prosperity.” I kind of want to know if the 5.75-inch phallus has less potent magick. 

The website really does give you a sense of the subculture. They also sell experiences, including one that I absolutely would love to go see, a seance!

The description is: 

In a time honored tradition we will be celebrating the loved ones who have passed before us. In this small group setting we will be supporting one another as messages of love and healing are brought through. Come with an open.heart and leave with a sense of hope, love, and inspiration.

Not to be that guy, but how do they know what the departed are going to say ahead of time? Anyway, it would be interesting to see a modern take on the seance. Sadly, it’s in April. 

I saw half a dozen shops just like this in Salem, and we are going to hit some of them tomorrow. Also, I was not expecting this, but there seems to be a pirate theme running through the town as well. It’s like all of my grade school Halloween costumes come to life! 

 

Next Year is Going to Be Hard

I am checking in at the end of the year to just be on the record.

Though we have not seen the GOP do well in a single election after Trump became president, the press seems to have decided, via polls, that he is a contender for next year's GOP nomination. He may well be, pending convictions notwithstanding. With that in mind, it's going to be a bad year whether he wins or loses. Though I truly think he is unelectable, I'll never consider it unthinkable like I did in 2016. The lead-up to his loss will be brutal. The response to his loss will be also brutal.

That's as optimistic as I get this year. 2024 is going to be hard, but I strongly believe that women and others who will be victimized by a GOP win will step up. 

I am genuinely disappointed in my generation to have allowed us to reach this point. Hell, someone I went to high school with is literally Trump's lawyer. It's disheartening to have the optimism of my young adult life about the future of the country turn out to be so staggeringly wrong in just about every conceivable way. If it weren't for the compassion and empathy of the kids who I've taught (the oldest of them are in their 40s now, sweet Jesus), I'd think that there would be no hope. But the youngest, most empathetic and potentially progressive of the youth have never seen a fuctional political system in their lifetimes like we oldsters have. I get their cynicism. I think that one of my goals will be to convince those who want to hear it that I have seen better and help them see what I saw.

So, knuckle down. Keep living. Keep worried. Keep active. Keep going.

RJB

A Little Bit of Everyday Skepticism

Yesterday a student sent me an example of a weird claim to see if I could explain it. Someone on tiktok had claimed that they had seen a giant on the top of a mountain in Canada. Not long after, they died. The person claimed that they had been followed and might disappear. The tiketytokers were all aflutter over this disappearance. I did what I said I'd do, look into the report and see if there was another explanation.

Here's my report back to the student:

Alright. I'm looking into this. The mountain in Canada where this was spotted is named "Canoe Mountain." I went to Wikipedia, and it's super pretty. But look up at the peak.... Zoom in. You can see that there is something at the top of the mountain. This is looking like a candidate to me. 

Now here's a frame of the video:

The rocky ridge up front sure looks like the same as the one beneath the photo of the whole mountain, so I'm pretty confident that these are the same mountain. I don't know if the words "its a giant" appear in the original video, but if they do, well what we are seeing is ambiguous...it's certainly not obvious what it is just by glancing at it. When we are presented with something ambiguous like this (think "ghost voices" in the static between radio stations or images in random clouds) if we are given a prompt, we see what we are told to see. But anyway, look at this blurry picture of my acoustic guitar leaning up near the wall. You can see the curve of the body, you can see where the neck/fretboard meets the body, and where the sound hole is. But you can see the form of the guitar still. But the only reason you can see the guitar is because I prompted you to see it. Right? 

Actually, this is the giant from the video magnified and flipped upside down. If you saw the guitar it was because I described as a guitar and there is truly not really recognizable form to the object. I often do this when people tell me they have seen ghost faces in photos of mirrors or reflections. If you flip the image, the resemblance to a face disappears, though when you flip a photo of a person, you can still tell it's a person.

So, I think that we have established that 1) there is something there and 2) we don't know what it is. 3) Yet. 

What's at the top of Canoe Mountain, then? 

This communications tower on the peak of the mountain is almost certainly what the tiktoker saw. 

But what about his death? He does appear to have died. He died young (weird). He did not seem to have any physical ailment. But he did express that he was being followed and may have had a paranoid delusion. He hinted that he might no longer be posting. Could he have killed himself? His cause of death is not mentioned, but it's a possibility. It's not the type of thing that families are eager to publicize sometimes. I looked up the most common causes of death for young men 30- 44: accidents, heart disease, and suicide are the top three. 

My conclusion: A misidentification of a communications tower as a human form, and the sighting, absent any convincing independent evidence of him being targeted, is unrelated to his death. (Remember: the post hoc fallacy!)

B 

I love when students send me this stuff. I always take it seriously and give the claim a fair shake. I show them the research and the reasoning that leads me to a conclusion. 

Gotta do a thing...

Chicken Inspector No. 23

Right now, I am just killing time before bed, and I came across a curious advertisement in an 1913 edition of The Billboard magazine:

It reads: 

BE A CHICKEN INSPECTOR

This is what you can call a real novelty sensation. The Chicken Inspector Badges have taken new York by storm. You can see them everywhere, and the only trouble the boys are having is getting back for another load. Badges are highly nickel plated and regulation size. Streetmen and and Novelty Men of all kinds can make enough money with this Badge during the holidays to keep them from worrying for some time. Be one of the wise ones and get it while it's new."

THE PASTIME NOVELTY CO.

Like, chicken inspecting badges? A craze? Sure. I shared it and made a snarky comment on @mstdn.social, where I spend my time studiously avoiding twitter. But then I googled. It really was a thing. 

(Source: https://23skidoopostcards.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/pins-chicken-badge.jpg) 

In a comment online, someone mentioned that Chicken Inspector 23 badges were being confiscated by the police, for some reason. What the hell? I thought. I only have one life, and if I must spend it investigating chicken inspector impersonators, so be it. 

The earliest relevant mention of a "chicken inspector" that I find in a public newspaper database, Chronicling America, comes from The Newark Evening Star from November 1913:

I know what all of these words mean, just not in this order. 

The first example of someone getting into legal trouble over a chicken inspector badge, as far as I can tell, god bless him, comes from New Jersey. In Jersey City, according to the Nov 11, Newark Evening Star:

Wag Gives Him Badge, He Demands Policeman’s Pay

JERSEY CITY, Nov. 15.—Peter Lottilaro, thirty years old, of 526 Grove street. was held yesterday by Judge O'Brien in the Second Criminal Court as to his sanity. For weeks Lottilaro has been haunting the City Hall and the Court House, buttonholing politicians and insisting upon being regularly appointed to the local police force.

Some wag gave him a New York “chicken inspector” badge. The number is 23, and, displaying the badge, he has on one or more occasions demanded that he be placed on the payroll.

This must be a reference to something; otherwise, who cares what the number is? Right? 

Chicago's The Day Book (Dec 8, 1913) has a report from D.C.:

"--Dealers in badges, inscribed 'Chicken Inspector No. 23,' warned by police they might run afoul of the law against impersonating officers. District of Columbia has chicken inspector who inspects poultry. No. 23."   

In the weirdest trade magazine I've come across, U.S. Egg and Poultry Magazine (Dec 20, 1913), we find a report of someone literally scamming chickens using this novelty badge: 

"A visitor wearing a humorous- reading badge—'Chicken Inspector 23'—visited farmers around Lancaster, Pa., told them he represented the state department of agriculture, under a new law, and that the law required every poultry raiser to send three fowls to Harrisburg for inspection. And the inspector took the chickens."

I've found another ad, in the Washington Sunday Star (Nov. 23, 1913), soliciting business partners in the lucrative Chicken Inspector credential hustle:

In the New York Evening World from Dec. 1, 1913, I find an example of the phrase "chicken inspector" being used as a synonym for a flim-flam man in what I believe is a fictional vignette:

It seems that even the people of the day didn't know what the crap "chicken inspector" meant, at least it seems so in this article from a Colorado newspaper:

In Chicago, a kid was arrested in the Loop for selling the little badges:

And here's a case of someone actually...impersonating a chicken inspector and getting in trouble for it:

And another person, this time in Albuquerque:

What does it signify, people? In June 1914, there seems to have been a movie released called The Chicken Inspector. 

See?

This was a short produced by Vitagraph, who I never heard of either. It starred Walty Van and Flora Finch. IMDB has a plot summary, but I don't see as copy of it anywhere:

He is the talk of Jimpsonville, a typical village cut-up, and his name is Willy Wildwave. He visits New York dressed in loud college style. A street fakir talks him into buying a "Chicken Inspector" badge. He explains the privileges of the badge and Willy says, "I'm on." He returns home with the badge and a rubber stamp reading, "Approved by Chicken Inspector No. 23," and proceeds to examine and stamp everything that looks like chickens, even to reviewing the "squabs'" and "broilers" in a young ladies' seminary. The principal sends for the constable to arrest him, hut when Willy shows his badge, they surrender. The seminary girls file out in caps and gowns and the "Chicken Inspector" gives them the "once over." Willy next decides to "Inspect" the burlesque show. The manager apparently "falls" for his talk, but in reality conspires with the company to "fix" him. The burlesque girls are lined up and, after Willy signifies his approval, march out. At the manager's signal, the actors and stage hands make a rush for Willy, armed with all sorts of weapons. He grabs a "prop" tree and it goes over with him, the whole crowd piling on top. Scrambling to his feet, he rushes out past the astonished audience. Followed by a big crowd, he finally dodges into a henhouse. The owner, hearing a suspicious noise, pokes a shotgun in and fires. Willy, with a shriek of pain, rushes out and is grabbed by the owner. He breaks loose, leaving his badge in the farmer's hand. He then dashes for freedom, nursing the perforated seat of his trousers.

Ah. Chicken. (When I mentioned this topic to my roommate, she said it sounded like a euphemism.)

And you see this 23 recurring on fake badges as late as 1947. (Actually I can't vouch for the date. The same advertisement has been represented as appearing across 3 decades.) If you look at the bottom, you see it in a "bathing suit inspector" badge. It's like having pervert certification: 

Who knows? It turns out that for a brief time, Chicken Inspector no. 23 was a thing. I would be really interested in seeing that short film, by the way. Just to have done so. If anyone finds a copy of it online, let me know. 

RJB

Indicted

The orange guy, not me.

So, it's happened. I tell you though, after the last half decade of excruciating hope that justice would ever come to bear on one of the most felonious felons to ever felon, I've been conditioned for disappointment. 

I'm glad it's happened, that the first indictment has come along. Maybe it makes it easier for other, far more vital prosecutions to come along. I have every hope and expectation that Jack Smith's investigation will yield results. I also am hopeful that the Georgia prosecution will proceed. 

What next?

I used to be more chatty on these bloggy things. Twitter is a ball of fire right now. So many communities built up over the years, real connections and friendships and vast investments of time, destroyed because one man is a vengeful petulant twit.

Sigh.

Well, at least I have my research. 

I've been puttering about in online databases for the last year looking for info about a traveling medicine man, and I accumulated something like 1000 different articles and advertisements from the 1880s that talk about him. The problem is that, when I started, I wasn't looking ahead to anything so I was not taking formal notes. I was truly just farting about. When I got in deep, I realized that a bigger project had started. I still don't know what, but I have recently used the word chapter. 

Ominous.

I tried to update my handwritten notes. I redid at least a month's worth. Honest to god, though, I'm pretty sure what I have is currently unusable. What I really needed to do was merge entries from different newspaper databases into a single chronological story, and the notes that I took were spread across something like 6 different notebooks, sorted by chronology, but separated by source database, and then when another, related topic came along, that was stuck in there too. It was so bonkers that I came up with an index for my notes. And it's still unusable. Clearly, if I knew where I was going when I started, I would have come up with a better, more complete note-taking system.

You know who was organized? Walter Ong. That dude had an extensive filing system for...all knowledge ever. I worked in the special collections of the SLU library around the time that his papers were accessioned. It was a prodigy of organization. I am not that thing. 

So, what's the solution? Nothing that doesn't involve a lot of work. I've settled on Zotero, I think. It's working for me. When I signed up for the various newspaper databases, I digitally clipped articles, then printed out the clips to take notes from. Turns out if you have the Chrome plugin for Zotero, you can go back into those databases, view everything that you have ever clipped, sort it chronologically, and then bring up each of those clips in a different tab. When you add that clip to Zotero, the citation manager recognizes a lot of the metadata, almost enough to do a respectable bibliography. 

I said almost.

So, over about 2 weeks, I went through everything and added copies of all those clips to my Zotero collection (and, yippee, shared it across several computers I work on). The main problem now is that all the entries all have basically the same title: "Clipped from [source name]." At least the ones from newspapers.com do. All the other info is there. So, I'm going through and giving everything a name based on the content of the clip. For sanity's sake, for once, I've decided on a pretty simple scheme. There are only about 3 varieties of newspaper clipping here. One is a news article or adopts the form of a news article: if it has a headline, I use that as the title. If it falls in a "Local Notes" column or something similar, I use the name of the feature. There is a style of ad that has no headline, but is just a paragraph maybe, visually set apart from other text with a dividing line or a space. For these, I just use the first few words without capitalization as the title. If I've clipped what is unambiguously a paid advertisement from Kit, and if it has capitalization or large print or whatever, I take the first line of that as the title. This is not what MLA or APA wants you to do, but I truly, truly despise citation styles. When I teach citation, I tell my students that a writer's job is to make reading as easy as possible for your reader, who could honestly be doing literally anything besides reading what you've written. Part of that duty to the reader is to make it as easy as possible for them to find your sources. So, parenthetical citations (or footnotes or whatever) should lead to an alphabetized works cited. Your citation should have all the elements that your reader will need so they can decide whether or not to find that source, and if they do decide to do so, that they can find it easily. Be complete and be consistent, I say. Hence, my little method. 

My god, style guides are such a scam. 

So, this new method has me doing a lot of updating of metadata. This will take a long time. I had thought of seeing if my research budget would allow me to take on an undergrad research assistant. And then for whatever reason, I thought, meh. Anyway, I am tearing through these a couple dozen at a sitting, not rereading them, just retitling them. Next, I'll go through and read them more carefully and add tags that describe the contents. This too will be really helpful, but I expect vastly more time consuming. If there were only some way that I could automatically do OCR and tag proper nouns. That would be ideal.

Hey, it turns out I had at least one more blog post in me!

B