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 

Still Futzing with ChatGPT

Today, AI writes letters excusing me from teaching class, Q-drops, and a history of the Jews from the perspective of Kanye West. 

Please write a letter to send to my students explaining why I cannot go to class today.

Dear Students,

I regret to inform you that I will not be able to come to class today. Unfortunately, I have come down with a sudden illness and need to rest in order to recover. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and I will do my best to make sure that you receive any necessary materials or information that you may need in order to continue your studies.

I will be in touch with the school administration to make arrangements for a substitute teacher to cover the class. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns. I hope to be back to teaching as soon as possible and I look forward to seeing you all in class again soon.

Sincerely, [Your Name]

Please write a letter explaining to my students that I am unable to attend class because aliens are invading Earth.

Dear Students,

I am sorry to say that I will not be able to come to class today. As you may have heard on the news, Earth is currently being invaded by aliens. This is a situation that is beyond my control and I must focus on ensuring my own safety and the safety of my family.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and I understand that this may be a difficult and confusing time for you. Please know that the school administration and the government are working hard to address the situation and protect our planet. In the meantime, I encourage you to stay safe and follow any instructions that are given by the authorities.

I will do my best to keep in touch and provide updates as the situation develops. I hope that this situation will be resolved quickly and that I will be able to return to teaching as soon as possible.

Sincerely, [Your Name]

Please write a letter explaining to my students that I will not be in class today because I woke up to find myself a character in a Julio Cortazar story.

Dear Students,

I regret to inform you that I will not be able to come to class today. When I woke up this morning, I discovered that I am now a character in a Julio Cortazar story. I realize that this may sound strange, but please believe me when I say that it is the truth.

As you may know, Julio Cortazar is a famous Argentine writer who is known for his surreal and dreamlike stories. In the story that I have become a part of, I am unable to leave my house and I must interact with the strange and fantastical events that are taking place around me.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and I will do my best to make sure that you receive any necessary materials or information that you may need in order to continue your studies. I hope to be back to teaching as soon as possible and I look forward to seeing you all in class again soon.

Sincerely, [Your Name]

Write a Q drop.

Q drop:

"The time has come for the truth to be revealed. The darkness that has been lurking in the shadows is now being exposed. The great awakening is happening and the people are starting to see the truth. Trust the plan and know that justice will be served. We are Q."

Write a more cryptic Q drop.

Q drop:

"The storm is coming. The deep state is shaking in their boots. They thought they could control us, but they were wrong. The light will triumph over the darkness. Trust the plan and stay strong. We are Q."

Write a Q drop that makes use of numerology.

Q drop:

"The number is key. Look to the date, the time, and the coordinates. The hidden meaning will be revealed. The truth is out there, if you know where to look. Trust the plan and trust the numbers. We are Q."

Write a paragraph about the history of the Jews in the style of Kanye West.

Yo, it's ya boy Kanye comin' at ya with the realest truth about the history of the Jews. These people have been through it all, y'all - from Pharaoh's Egypt to the Nazi concentration camps, they been through the fire and came out stronger than ever. But let me tell you, the journey ain't been easy. They been persecuted and oppressed, but they never lost their faith and their spirit. And that's why they continue to thrive today, against all odds. Respect to the Jews, y'all, for keepin' it real and never givin' up. Kanye out.

You do not understand Kanye West.

I apologize if my previous response did not accurately reflect the style or perspective of Kanye West. As a large language model trained by OpenAI, I do not have personal experiences or perspectives, and my responses are based solely on the information and text that I have been trained on. I strive to provide accurate and helpful responses to the best of my ability, but I may not always be able to provide the level of detail or context that is desired. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to let me know.