Sherry Chandler

Life is Short

Thanks to Charlie for the heads up.

It’s Labor Day and we should be celebrating the 40-hour week and the week-end. Right? Well, maybe not. Check out this NYTimes op-ed by Tom Lutz, author of Doing Nothing.

Left to our own devices, we seldom organize our time with 8-to-5 discipline. The pre-industrial world of agricultural and artisan labor was structured by what the historian E. P. Thompson calls “alternate bouts of intense labor and of idleness wherever men were in control of their working lives.” Agricultural work was seasonal, interrupted by rain, forced into hyperactivity by the threat of rain, and determined by other uncontrollable natural processes. The force of long cultural habit ensured that the change from such discontinuous tasks to the regimented labor of the factory never went particularly smoothly.

In 1877 a New York cigar manufacturer grumbled that his cigar makers could never be counted on to do a straight shift’s work. They would “come down to the shop in the morning, roll a few cigars,” he complained to The New York Herald, “and then go to a beer saloon and play pinochle or some other game.” The workers would return when they pleased, roll a few more cigars, and then revisit the saloon, all told “working probably two or three hours a day.” Cigar makers in Milwaukee went on strike in 1882 simply to preserve their right to leave the shop at any time without their foreman’s permission.

In this the cigar workers were typical. American manufacturing laborers came and left for the day at different times. “Monday,” one manufacturer complained, was always “given up to debauchery,” and on Saturdays, brewery wagons came right to the factory, encouraging workers to celebrate payday. Daily breaks for “dramming” were common, with workers coming and going from the work place as they pleased. Their workdays were often, by 20th-century standards, riddled with breaks for meals, snacks, wine, brandy and reading the newspaper aloud to fellow workers.

An owner of a New Jersey iron mill made these notations in his diary over the course of a single week:

“All hands drunk.”

“Jacob Ventling hunting.”

“Molders all agree to quit work and went to the beach.”

“Peter Cox very drunk.”

“Edward Rutter off a-drinking.”

At the shipyards, too, workers stopped their labor at irregular intervals and drank heavily. One ship’s carpenter in the mid-19th century described an almost hourly round of breaks for cakes, candy and whiskey, while some of his co-workers “sailed out pretty regularly 10 times a day on the average” to the “convenient grog-shops.” Management attempts to stop such midday drinking breaks routinely met with strikes and sometimes resulted in riots. During much of the 19th century, there were more strikes over issues of time-control than there were about pay or working hours.

OK Go on Treadmills

Zombie Letters from e-zombie.com

I’m an idiot for this stuff.

Picked up the link at Rox Populi.

Gonna get to 93 in the shade here in Central Kentucky today with a heat index of 103. Almost hot enough to inspire a folk song. Or one by Tom Waits, who has a lyric that goes something like “when the weather gets rough and it’s whiskey in the shade.”

I’ve often wondered why people like Tennessee Williams think being hot and sweaty makes a woman feel hot and sexy. Mostly it just makes me want to take a cold shower. But then, I’ll admit, I have little in common with Ava Gardner.

So what with heat inspired lassitude and a recovering eye that still keeps me from reading much, I’ve decided to start this work week by letting Matt work for me. Just watching him expend all that energy makes me want to sit down with a fan and a tall glass of iced tea.

Where the Hell is Matt?

Thanks to Donna for the link. Probably will load in slowly on a modem.

Be sure to check out Alan Beggerow’s response in the comments to my post about him. He has kudos for Charlie W and tells us a little bit about what it’s like to be held up as an example of white male rebellion in the New York Times. Check out his blog, too, where he tells us what it’s like to be interviewed by Tucker Carlson.

Welcome to the conversation here, Alan. One of the really fun things about blogging is that it can put a human face on folk you would not otherwise ever get to meet.

For your Friday afternoon amusement, I recommend Harry Partch’s Instruments

These instruments were made to be beautiful in sound, vision, and “magical purpose.” They were tuned according to the natural overtone series… Some, like the Chromelodeon, had as many as 43 tones in a single “octave.” [Harry Partch] made particular instruments for specific needs in his compositions, not the other way around. But, more than this, he designed the instruments to be “corporeal.” To Partch, corporeal meant to involve the whole body, the whole person in the art.

That being the case, it seems almost sacrilege to “play” these virtual versions of the instruments. Nevertheless, I’m inviting you to do that at the link.

Link from Poesy Galore

Now you see why I paint with words and not with a mouse.

Click to try your own. It’s fairly easy to figure out. Left click to change colors.

From, as usual, Donna.

Off to have the wool pulled away from at least one of my eyes, so I won’t be doing much computer work for a few days. I leave you this to play with. And Poppysmatus will pinch hit, I think.

As Shamash has reminded me, we must not forget Google videos. Donna pointed me to this one:

This is a six-minute video, so it isn’t suitable for downloading via modem.

With a hat tip to Carl Sandburg of course.

I love what looks like a little terrier tail in the middle of cat there.

Try it at Spell with Flickr.

I didn’t make any attempt to figure out how this works because the text is blue on black and that is more than my cataract befuzzled eyes can handle.

Thanks as always to Donna.

Steel City’s Finest.com presents a collection of videos for your amusement.

The first one, a Honda ad, I’m told was shot in real time with no FX.

Link as always, compliments of Donna.