I was shocked that a huge number of people were so quick to mock the New York Times for the paper's suggestion that, hey, maybe its writers should wait more than six months after the invention of a new, trendy term to start casually using it in the newspaper. Are people in the year 2020 or 2050 really going to know what the word 'Tweet' means? Who knows? This "stodginess" is just one of the top common complaints about the Times. So we've taken a long look back at the paper in 1910 and 1911, and found pretty much everything there that people complain about now: it's beholden to Jews! It's in bed with the President (even while quick to absolutely trash his daughters). It's devoted to the stupid trends of the rich (and displays a crazy obsession with rich people and their real estate), it gives away information crucial to public safety, prints thinly sourced gossip, and has an insane op-ed page. And 100 years ago, it already had everyone's favorite thing: a catty, mean profile of a famous popular singer!
Thing the paper is run by and sympathetic to (gasp!) THE JEWS? Well! Here's the Times straight up making fun of Germans who had their little no-Jews-allowed party house bought up by THE JEWS.
Catty stories about the President's daughters? This did not start with Amy Carter or Malia 'n' Sasha! Here's an entire article devoted to mocking Taft's daughter for a non-exclusive outfit. (P.S. I believe this also puts Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan's career in the clear, historically speaking?)
Think the Times is obsessed with rich people real estate, and that it really hates gross poor people? Try this on for size!
Did you know that the Traitorous Times divulges secrets in the interest of our security? And attacks the NYPD? That they think the peoples' right to know is more important than police and military secrecy? Let's burn that newspaper down, but via a time machine, so we can do it in 1911!
THE LIBERAL MEDIA IS IN BED WITH THE WHITE HOUSE!
Devoted, fawning observance to trends among the rich in their "palatial homes"?
Stupid, tardy, vapid trend stories? How about "RICH PEOPLE START SLEEPING OUTSIDE"?
Venal, petty, anonymously sourced gossip, anyone?
The cautious introduction of slang terms and new language into the paper? Why, what is this job called a "trader"?
Bizarre bits of poetry and story-telling, for NO REASON?
The all-anecdote news story! Ordinary man a witness to a new invention! The horror!
Here is my favorite thing ever: a slavish yet cutting feature on a popular singer that devotes itself largely to her CRAZY OUTFIT. If only they'd had TRUFFLE FRIES back then!
Yes, what about this "GARMENT RESEMBLING A BAG"??
Can you believe the editorial page stakes out these crazy positions? WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE? Well here's a trifecta for you. How about this insane editorial on the matter of someone named "Mr. Drexel" (I'm sorry, no idea who that might be, not very well future-proofed!) in a "social prizefight" who was knocked out by a new invention called "the haymaker," which goes on to decry the lack of manliness in society and also denounces "monkey parties" and "pseudo-intellectual diversion of contemporary society"?
The only thing that really is new in the last 100 years is the introduction of a public editor; and the term limits of the third just expired, thank goodness. (So long, Captain Milquetoast!) In the end, this all suggests that, you know, maybe everyone should just get his or her own newspaper. Oh right, we all did! Lucky, lucky us.
Choire, I always think of you as a Jew. You're so smart, and thorough, and quick-witted, and cultured. And so handsome! Have you met my beautiful daughter Rose?
Um...
I like their use of "ironical" very much in the first piece. I think that gentleman's name was "Grunstein" though.
Regarding the trend of sleeping outside, they used to call that "moon bathing" and I had a great aunt who believed in it with some ferocity. The key was to actually have the rays of the moon hit your body, so no tents. She was also a nudist for a bit, well before I ever met her.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Nicely done, Choire. This is delightful in the extreme.
I believe Ed Gein had similar inclinations.
Ed Gein was a nudist? Huh.
Lunacy!
Mary Garden, the Lady Gaga of her day, stays on message.
Can't you just see Mary in a fetching getup, smoking out of a big hookah in her "Turkish room"? And "Mercy, no. I wouldn't go up in the air for worlds" is now replacing "Watercress? I'd sooner eat my way across a front lawn!"
La Garden was celebrated for her sound bites. Once she was singing Carmen in an outdoor arena with lots of animals in the town square scene. A reporter inquired about the novelty of this kind of staging. She replied, "In my experience, there have always been asses in grand opera."
The most famous Garden story of all happened after she retired from singing but was still touring as a speaker. She appeared at an opera opening night wearing a strapless dress, a very new and daring style at the time. One of the directors of the opera company said, "Goodness, Mary, what's holding that dress up?"
She answered, "Two things. Your age and my discretion."
Ha! Superb.
Belle Poitrine, eat your heart out!
Oh Choire, you get so sore when people hate on your riches.
God bless the public domain.
Re. "traders": I always felt that the contemporary term "stock operator" had a much more leeringly accurate sound to it.
I also love that the news peg in the Garden interview is that she is did not get married.
YET
Well, she DID come back with a ring, that at first glance, looked like a gold band.
Well, okay, one more Garden story. She was the star of the Manhattan Opera Company that performed in the building that is now the Hammerstein Ballroom on 34th Street. Anyway, the understanding was that as prima donna, there were certain opera parts she would sing and no other singer would be allowed to take on at that company. One day Mary arrives for a rehearsal and finds a poster saying "Next Wednesday: Lina Cavalieri as Thais." (Thais was one of Mary's roles.)
Mary complains to the manager of the company, who says that Cavalieri has basically blackmailed him into letting her sing the one performance; otherwise she'll walk out on the whole season, and he's sure she's doing it just to spite Mary. Garden leaves the theater, goes back to her apartment, and has her assistant make the necessary telephone calls to the gentlemen of the press: Garden is leaving New York on the next boat, canceling her entire season, and she will take questions in half an hour.
Every reporter in town crowds into Garden's drawing room, and they all want to know why she's leaving. Garden sits there with a yappy little dog on her lap, and in between everyone telling the dog to shut up, Mary just says, "I'm not going to answer any controversial questions."
Well, of course, everything about this is controversial, but Mary just keeps saying, "No comment" and that awful dog just keeps on barking. Finally all the reporters leave, but one stops in the door and says, "Just one more question, Mary. What's that dog's name?
"I call her Cavalieri. Good day, gentlement!"
@Cieca: I would love another, if you can spare it!
Great stuff. Was it Garden who had her assistant sleep with a very long string tied to her toe, so if Mary needed her in the next room in the middle of the night, she could just pull the string? Read that in the Koestenbaum book, he thought it very S&M.
Well, this one is more art related, but...
Mary Garden went to Paris to study voice and and (as young singers did in those days) to learn the words and music of a few popular operas such as La traviata and Romeo et Juliette so that, when she was ready to start singing professionally, she would have some parts ready. While she was a student, she got a lot of comp tickets to the Paris Opera Comique, where they were rehearsing the world premiere of a new opera called Louise. Mary fell in love with this opera from hearing it in rehearsals she sat in on and she went to hear the opera at least once a week once the performances began. She was such a fan of the work that the director of the opera gave her a score so she could sing bits of it back at her apartment.
So one night, Mary is at a performance of Louise, and during the intermission, a man from the opera company asks her if she can please come backstage. She follows him to the manager's office where everyone is in hysterics: the leading lady for the opera just got sick and can't sing any more tonight, and there's no understudy.
They ask Mary if she knows the opera (which, remember, she's never officially actually studied). Without hesitation, she says, "Yes, I know every word and every note."
And the manager says, "Then you are going to finish this performance. Let's find a costume for the young lady."
Fifteen minutes later, Mary is on stage -- the first stage she's ever been on, and in fact the first time she has ever sung in public -- singing the big aria from Louise "Depuis le jour." In the five minutes it took to sing that aria, she became a star. In telling the story later Mary claims she was perfectly calm. "I had no need to be nervous, because I knew what I could do."
Brava!
My time machine is pretty much only useful for starting historical fires. On arrival it immediately ignites a pillar of fire in its immediate vicinity.
Ha ha, can we send this to the blogger guy who thinks that the New York he once loved is gone, gone forever?
Have you seen http://sundaymagazine.org yet? The top story right now is a NYTimes trend piece from 1910: "The Hobble Is The Latest Freak In Woman's Fashion."
And the hobble is back! Keep on shuffling, Steampunkers!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/fashion/10CRITIC.html?nl=nyregion&emc=urb2
"overrefinement leads to decay." What a great phrase. I'm not sure overrefinement is a word, but it's a great turn of phrase.
Marconi is to Twitter as...
Marconi plays the mamba; listen to the radio.
To the Public Editor, The New York Times:
Sir --
I must respectfully take issue with your op-ed piece titled "The Social Prizefight." Admittedly, the traditional monkey party, with its showgirls served up in pie crust, is no longer as "popular" as it once was. Certainly, the current crop of socialites may demand their "jazz" singers to be displayed in creme brulée, or their fallen heiresses to step out in mascarpone. However, for my money, a monkey party without at least one pie-crusted showgirl is like a tuna banner without a carpetbagged Tibetan.
Yours,
- Gef "the talking Mongoose" The Talking Mongoose
monkey party at gef's place. byob. pseudo-intellectual diversion and pants are optional.
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