Kaufmann

[lynn cates]

scans

Hello Maria. Thanks, and good luck.

By the way, I hope to have those scans to you today.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Hello Lynn.
What I have to say is the continuation of our discussion in your Stride reenactment thread, but thematically it fits better with your Kaufmann thread, thus I'm posting it here.
I'm in Paris now, and today I conducted a bit of research on Piotr Rachkovsky's Danish political journalist friend, Jules Hansen, who was tight with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and helped Rachkovsky get in touch with leading ministers and politicians, including president Loubet. Jules Hansen apparently became the principal channel for promoting a friendly press for Russia in western Europe. He wrote 3 books. At some point in the coming weeks, I might be willing/I might manage to quickly go through Hansen's book #1 L'alliance franco-russe (Flammarion 1897), depending on if I find the time to fit this in. How about if you ordered and read Hansen's book #2, in its German translation (by Christoph Luerot)?: Diplomatische Enthüllungen aus der Botschafterzeit des Barons von Mohrenheim, 1884-1898, Oldenburg: G. Stalling 1908, 208 p..
I wasn't able to locate an exemplary of Hansen's book #3, Les coulisses de la diplomatie, publication year unspecified, in any Parisian libraries.
Monday (among much else) I'll call the Archives Nationales to ask if their public fonds collection contains criminal records and records of the Police de Sûreté. As for the archives at the Police Museum, it's still too early, since they open from Wednesday to Friday.
(Besides this, I've just discovered a BOMB at the music department of the Bibliothèque Nationale for the Meyerbeer opera (L'étoile du Nord) I'm researching about (for a paper and for its future critical edition): The autograph score remains unfortunately and stubbornly lost, but I just located an exemplary of the first printed score (prepared by the editing house Brandus) which contains abundant autograph corrections and additions by Meyerbeer himself. The general editor of the Meyerbeer Werkausgabe in Bayreuth (for whom I conduct research) doesn't yet know about this! If I manage to stay alive for a few years, I might be contracted to prepare the edition in question myself, as my boss's reaction when I last asked him about the eventuality of this was “I'm afraid it's inevitable“...
Still, it's best to take it one day at a time as I'm about to conk out (after working non stop since 5.30 a.m. this morning and having gone through 3 libraries, the post office, 2 supermarkets, and one pharmacy for groceries). Tonight was supposed to be girls' night out, but I don't think so, as I'm shivering like a leaf, or like a car breaking down. Plus I STILL haven't written the Mellon post doc proposal, 2 days AFTER its deadline, but I might still go for it, since I suspect that the real deadline is Monday. I'm not sure if I can do this tonight, though...

[lynn cates]

Quail

Hello All. I just found a link to John Quail's "The Slow Burning Fuse." It is an excellent history of British Anarchism.

Enjoy!

http://web.archive.org/web/20091028121657/geocities.com/~johngray/fuse01.htm

(Chapters 5 & 6 are a must read.)

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Hello Lynn,
hmm... maybe a fine sheet worn over the Victorian dress? (I'm so sorry, I'm not good with dresses.)
Cuts while shaving (which ladies get on their legs) are very superficial, and yes, the blood appears not instantly. I've cut my fingers relatively deeply (from my ice skates blades and from eating the fins of my surfboard) and I've torn my lip deeply a couple of times, and I assure you both of it bleeds instantly and energetically. A carotid cut bleeds like a fountain, in the rhythm of the decreasing pulse. A cut in the wrists (as for people committing suicide) bleeds much-much slower than the carotid. Even a knifing in the guts produces less blood. The only worse bleeding that the carotid would be a shark attack.
Perhaps it would be even more interesting if you conducted the experiment on Berner Street! Then it would be quite like that movie Crash (by David Cronenberg), where supposedly they were recreating Isidora Duncan's and James Dean's death scenes.

[lynn cates]

blood

Hello Maria.

"Perhaps your wife would accept to wear a sheet or a doctor's/nurse's/painter's blouse over her dress?"

But that spoils the taffeta. This MUST be Victorian!

"Lynn, I've been cut a few times (never on the neck, but definitely on the face), and I assure you it bleeds instantly, profusely, and messily, not just in one direction."

Perhaps that depends on the blood vessels cut. I sometimes cut myself shaving and wait nearly 30 sec before the blood comes. I suppose, however, that a carotid would flow almost immediately.

At any rate, I just signed a contract for the room for November 5. Hope it works out.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Hello Lynn,
Perhaps your wife would accept to wear a sheet or a doctor's/nurse's/painter's blouse over her dress?
Lynn, I've been cut a few times (never on the neck, but definitely on the face), and I assure you it bleeds instantly, profusely, and messily, not just in one direction.
What academic achievements? I'm about to starve to death here!
By the way, good news from the sponsors for my Paris conference (they are interested and said to submit a budget), and my article's deadline has been pushed to end of November, so I'm chilling for a couple hours now. (Especially after yesterday's crazy day, running around the city like a headless chicken).
But later on I have to do a check of the financial details for the German application, to submit the rest of the paperwork tomorrow. What fun...

[lynn cates]

we got answers

Hello Maria.

"A serious problem with your reconstruction is that you can't really attempt to cut your wife"

Why not? (Just kidding!)

I thought about a red liquid, but that could foul the dress. Perhaps my wife will have an idea?

Of course, if the sequence lasts only 2-3 seconds, and given a slight delay between cutting and sanguinary onset, she may have bled very little before lowering took place.

Moreover, I think the direction of the neck will speak volumes.

Congratulations on your academic achievements!

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Hello Lynn,
I meant tricky for the assailant, as it's obviously tricky to cut someone while lowering him to the ground, because the blood won't flow all tidy to the ground in such an attack. Even if the assailant is very strong and the assaulted person very weak, or even if the assailant practically towers over the assaulted person, the blood flow situation is going to be messy. A serious problem with your reconstruction is that you can't really attempt to cut your wife (at least, I hope you won't!) during your experiment, so you won't have really proven anything. Wait a second, I have an idea! What if you arranged a little plastic bag with some liquid of thick consistency (similar to the consistency of blood) and color (so that you can really see where it goes) around her neck and cut into THAT? Perhaps you could use red paint in relatively thick consistency? But then you have to forget about her wearing her taffeta dress (which is not a requirement, anyway!)
The way I envision it with Stride being put on the ground trouble-free, cachous firmly in hand, is through a stranglehold from behind, which can be done with only one arm, if one is reasonably skilled, knife held in the other hand. Not surprisingly, many others have reconstructed the attack on Stride precisely like this, as discussed in several threads and in several pieces in Ripper Notes and in the Examiner.
Here things are CRAZY. I'm preparing for several applications for different positions and fellowships, including 2 in Germany, 1 in France, and 5 in the US, all of them with a deadline on November 1st. I wasn't expecting this situation, as I only thought I had 2 application deadlines and would be able to concentrate on my article. Now the article's gone to the back burner (or to hell in a basket).
At least a couple of positive things have happened: Last night I got the Sorbonne IV's cooperation for a conference I'm organizing at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, which now permits me to approach an additional sponsor (the Université Franco-Allemande) which might accept to give up to 10.000-€ (for the conference costs and the publication of the Acts, none of this would go inside my pockets, apart from them covering my easyjet tickets).
And do you perhaps recall these 2 German proposals I was bitching about having to prepare 2 weeks ago? Pertaining to the second one I not only got accepted in the conference, but the Gesellschaft für Musikforschung put me in their committee for "sociology and social history of music". The position includes teaching, but (at the moment, due to the severe economic crisis) they provide NO salary besides covering my travel expenses. The hilarious bit is that the first thing they did was ask me to pay 40-€ for annual membership at the GfM! So I won't be too surprised if in the very near future I start waiting tables (which I've gladly done before) or dancing around a pole (which I haven't done yet in a professional capacity) to finance my “illustrious“ academic “career“...!

[lynn cates]

natural

Hello Maria. I didn't see anything tricky--only natural, if such a thing has any relation to nature.

Do you have a good sequence for Liz being put on the ground, cachous intact?

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Hello, Lynn.
Attempting it while standing up with the neck pointing to the ground seems too tricky. This is not as simple as butchering a small animal. I believe that Stride was cut while lying on the ground. Plus, the Ripper didn't have his wife to attempt several trials with, he only had one chance!
By the by, I was having lunch with some friends in the park today, and a tiny cat caught and ate a sparrow. Ouch!
I've just managed to fetch ink cartridges for my printer, which was not functional for days, and I've just engaged in a printing marathon, including my next plane ticket. Yikes.

[lynn cates]

flow

Hello Maria. The neck would be pointing directly towards the ground, as I hope the film will show.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Hello Lynn,
If Stride was cut while being rotated, I'd have expected her to have bled in quite a different direction. How are you expecting to prove your theory without cutting your wife?! (And please, don't ever think of this as a suggestion! I don't wish to be legally involved in any of this.)
Thank you so very much for your well wishing for the applications. Especially for the ones in the States, I'll need all the luck one can wish.
One of the post doc appointments I'm trying to apply for at Chicago (for a teaching fellowship in the humanities with interest in “cultural diversity“) includes (in addition to 2 courses) a proposal for the possibility of an “open course“ with the inclusion of young members of the community in the location of the South Side of Chicago. (If possible, also for youth of high school age.) I've proposed working with the UofC Community Service Center and with the Center for Urban School Improvement, and I'd attempt to engage African American opera singers in this, such as Lawrence Bronwley and others. The open course would concentrate in improving the education of young adults in the South Side neighborhood, to enhance the possibility of their later getting involved in a higher education in art and in the humanities, as I firmly believe that both the University and the community would benefit by a mutual exchange of ideas and resources/activities. If you'd believe it, my boss at the UofC is not interested AT ALL in actively getting involved in such a project ( despite his boasting of having spent time with the Chicago Weathermen in his very distant youth), so I've approached another Professor who's (supposedly) more socially active. But they might all consider my proposal too “leftish“ or too “Berkeleyish“! While the UofC campus is located in the very neighborhood of Obama, I mean, his former house (which they still visit infrequently) is just 2 blocks north of mine.
Wow! I just realised my complain kinda fits with this thread, if distantly, then at least politically!

[lynn cates]

standing

Hello Maria. I agree that Liz was not bolt upright when her throat was cut. On the other hand, the dictum does not preclude her being cut while being rotated--as I hope to show.

Good luck with the applications.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Hello Lynn,
yes, that's exactly what I thought that you meant, and I think that Dr. Phillips' dictum makes total sense.
Did I tell you that SPE's Letters from Hell and Scotland Yard investigates just turned up a couple days ago? I can't wait to read them, although I need to read Sugden and The ultimate first (whenever possible, as I'm quite a bit overwhelmed with 7 different impending applications, 2 in Germany and 5 in the States, the latter being a very uncertain possibility in the current situation with the economic crisis).

[lynn cates]

spurt

Hello Maria. Well, I refer to Dr. Phillips dictum that Liz was not cut whilst standing since there was no arterial spray/spurt on the ground. Instead, the blood was flowing onto the ground near the neck.

Cheers.
LC