Kaufmann

[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,
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]

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,
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]

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,
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]

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.
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]

scans

Hello Maria. Thanks, and good luck.

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

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Thank you so much, Lynn. Does the Jules Hansen book interest you? I don't know when I'll be able to look at your scans, as my first priority right now is this stupid proposal. Actually I'm not particularly interested in working in their team of Fellows, which are completely disparate (Kierkegaard, South American lit, East Asian art, Nigerian music – hello?), but the money is SOOO good (over $5000/month), and between us, that's the sole reason I might go for it.
Thank you so much for willing to scan me some details.

[mariab]

Lynn,
thank you so much for the scans. I had a very quick look at them, but I'm not in a position to think very clearly right now. I'm going to bed, even the godamn sh*tty proposal will have to wait. Goodnight...

[Rob Clack]

I'm posting these for Maria, who will explain there significance at some point soon.








Rob

[mariab]

Hi all,
I'll try to post an English translation of the original French spy reports, I'll try for tonight, but I can't promise, as I urgently need to finish up a French proposal on deadline. The second report mentions a Schwartz as an orator. (These spy reports hardly EVER give first names. The only person I encountered for whom a first name was mentioned was Rudolph Rocker.)

[mariab]

Hi all,
a thousand apologies for the delay.
I'm posting a translation for the first document posted by Rob Clack in his post #72. The document is a report from the French secret police about Whitechapel socialist/anarchist activity. Please note the erroneous information about Rudolph Rocker as supposedly having been the “editor“ of Der Arbeter Fraint, which is also erroneously characterized as a "Russian revolutionary journal“. Here goes:

Paris, April 18, 1905 (from London)
The Jewish anarchist federation in London.

A gathering organized by the London Jewish anarchist federation took place last Sunday at the Trade Union Hall, Old Montague Street, East London. Anarchist Rudolph Rocker, director of the Russian revolutionry journal “The Worker's friend“, talked about “Maxim Gorki and his works“. The gathering was arranged as a contribution to Russian revolutionary propaganda. The donations value (all expenses included) is estimated to a hundred francs maximum.

[mariab]

A translation of the second document posted by Rob Clack in his post #72. This is another report of the French secret police, mentioning someone named Schwartz as an orator. I've also located another French spy report, calling Schwartz a skilled anarchist orator in Yiddish, Polish, and Ungarian, but I won't have access to a copy of this spy report before March 2011. Here goes:

Paris, February 7, 1905 (from London).
A gathering of revolutionary Russians in London.

A little flyer profusely circulating in the London workers' milieu proclaims the following:
“To the London workers.
Comrades! Those who govern us are murderers. They take advantage of the people. They have appointed Trepoff as a dictator, abandonning Witte.
Come hear the truth at the grand meeting which will take place at the Vonderland in Whitechapel.“ etc. etc..
“The Russian revolutionary committee.“

This gathering took place in the evening before yesterday on February 5 at the Vonderland Hall, under the presidency of Tchaikowsky. The room, fitting 2.000-3000 attendees, was filled to its full capacity, so that many attendees were unable to enter. The usual orators Tarrida del Marmo, Turner, Burk, Wilkin, Schwartz, Morleit, Tcherkesow pronounced particularly violent speeches in four or five different languages.
The particular interest of this gathering lied within the rumour that father Gapone, arriving to London via Switzerland, was supposed to give a talk. We waited until the end of the gathering without a sighting of father Gapone.