Benjamin Whitmer's Blog, page 32

Parade in Denver proceeding a convention of Klansmen

Taken from the The Denver Public Library's Digital Image Collection.

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It was pointed out in the discussion of the last of these posts that swastikas in Denver as a symbol of racial purity in the 1920s and 1930s would not have been out of place. Which made me think of one of the more sordid periods in Denver history.

After D.W. Griffith's pro-Klan feature movie Birth of a Nation — the first feature-length film in the history of cinema, and a, inexplicable perennial favorite of top 100 movie lists — Klan activity exploded. And Colorado had the largest Klan presence west of the Mississippi. According to this excellent article in the Colorado Springs Independent:

After the general election of 1924, the governor, Clarence Morley, was a Klansman. Benjamin Stapleton, the mayor of Denver, consulted the Klan when making appointments. U.S. Senator Rice Means was elected with open Klan support. The state House of Representatives had a Klan majority. Klansmen marched and burned crosses in small towns throughout the state, from Great Plains through the mountains to the Western Slope. A city council, or the mayor's office, or the police and sheriff's departments, or the county government — many fell under the Klan's control.

This is Governor Morley, surrounded by his associates:

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Original here, so you can zoom to your heart's content.

Also from the same article:

The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s was a national movement that gained its greatest political success in Colorado — perhaps because Colorado, in a perversely progressive way, was the only Klan realm with a women's auxiliary. It was national organization of white Protestants who supported "100% Americanism" and opposed lawlessness — especially the rampant violation of Prohibition.

Here's a beautiful shot of the ladies auxiliary:

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Original here. I love the expression on the face of the woman furthest to the right.

Also from the article:

About that same time, Dr. Clarence Holmes, president of the Denver NAACP chapter, started a drive to integrate Denver's theaters. The Klan burned a cross in front of his office and sent a threatening note, but he persisted.

This is a picture of the burned cross outside Dr. Holmes' office:

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Original here.

The Klan in Colorado were far from being a secret organization; they operated completely in the open. This picture is titled "Klan member at 'Klan Day' at the races at Overland Park."

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Original here.

This one's my favorite for its pure corniness, though. It's a photomontage called "Kastle Kountry Klub," though no indication is given as to why.

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Original here.

Quote

This from David French, writing for the National Review (thanks to Brian):

It is simply a fact that our social problems are increasingly connected to the depravity of the poor. If an American works hard, completes their education, gets married, and stays married, then they will rarely — very rarely — be poor. At the same time, poverty is the handmaiden of illegitimacy, divorce, ignorance, and addiction. As we have poured money into welfare, we've done nothing to address the behaviors that lead to poverty while doing all we can to make that poverty more comfortable and sustainable.

Earlier this week, Walter Russell Mead highlighted disturbing research showing that the poor — far more than the rich — are disconnected from church and religion. While church attendance is dropping among all social classes, it's falling off a cliff for the poorest and least-educated Americans. In other words, the deeper a person slides into poverty, the more they're disconnected from the very values that can save them and their families.

If you were seriously bored, you could have a lot of fun with this. You could note the pronoun disagreements, and make commentary on French's own ignorance. You could wonder exactly how French established a causal relationship between atheism and poverty. You could note that historically the rich haven't entirely been bastions of fidelity and abstinence.

But you really can't argue with stupidity like this. All you can really do, in your depravity, is hope somebody catches it out walking after dark some night, stomps it into a quivering mass, and then drops it down a fucking well.

At least that's what I've been daydreaming about since I read the piece.

Update: Y'know, I'm not a Bible scholar or anything, but this quote also comes to mind:

I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

It's almost like Jesus privileged the poor over the rich. Especially when it came to things like, well, righteousness.

Switchblade

The mighty Jedidiah Ayres wrote today about PM Press's Switchblade line, including Pike, over at the Barnes & Noble Mystery Blog, Ransom Notes.

Sure we've all got our favorite series and authors, but I want to know if you've got any publishers whose books you'll pick up just on the strength of their track record?(Seriously, if you do, I'd love to know about 'em as they must be doing something right.)

I've had a few. Black Lizard, Serpent's Tail, Hard Case Crime – I'll always take a good close look at what they're offering, and I've got my ever watchful eye on Tyrus and New Pulp Press but man, my current publisher crush has got to be PM Press's Switchblade line.

The rest.

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A long, perfect one about the recent east coast earthquake, cute little thing that it was, from Tam.

Unless you've been doing a media fast in a sealed underground bunker for the last forty-eight hours or so, surely you are aware that there was an earthquake recently in the world.

No, I don't mean the big one in Colorado, which doesn't really matter since it's not ski season and therefore nobody's there right now, at least nobody that matters.

I mean The Quake. The Big One of 2011. The one that hit at the epicenter of everything and everybody frickin' important. The one that may have actually sloshed some vodka martini out of a congresscritter's lunchtime pick-me-up at the Article One American Grill or spilled whatever brand of kibble it is that they feed the First Portuguese Water Dog.

But don't worry, the media is on this story, and no expense will be spared to reconstruct the important infrastructure of America's beating heart:

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brief book review: "pike"

Marko Kloos was nice enough to pen a review of Pike on his website the munchkin wrangler yesterday.

Benjamin Whitmer's "Pike" is published by PM Press' "Switchblade" imprint, but it's not a switchblade. "Pike" is a homemade knife, made from an old file, sharpened with an angle grinder in some shack in the Ozarks, with duct tape wrapped around the grip. Calling this novel "noir", while technically correct, doesn't come close to accurately classifying it. It's like calling Alaska "pretty cold in winter."

The rest.

Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill

As I kinda mentioned in this interview, I dropped by Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill last week. We were out shoe-shopping for the kids, and had to get dinner somewhere, so I talked my wife into it.

Now I hate Toby Keith. He's just about everything that's wrong with country music. But I promised myself to go into it with an open mind. And I did. I had an American Soldier burger with a side of Freedom Fries, served by a Whiskey Girl wearing very short denim shorts. I drank beer from a mason jar.

But, see, here's the inspiration for the joint, per Toby Keith:

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It looks a little like the kind of bars I grew up in. I mean, a gentrified, MTV version, but an attempt at an actual, well, bar.

But I'd say something got lost in the translation:

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Needless to say, there were no blue-collar boys, rednecks, truckers, fighters, hitchhikers, hookers, cowboys, or bikers. There weren't any hustlers, either.  Hell, there was no pool table — though there was a gift shop. And, of course, there were no chain-smokers, because there was no smoking allowed. And, actually, pretty much everybody looked like the yuppie who opens this video.

Which brought me to this conclusion: I love Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill. Truly I do.

Because if there's a better physical manifestation of the stupid, cynical, Nashville, fake working-class horseshit that Toby Keith represents, I don't know what it is.

Except, maybe, for the highlights in his hair.

Update: This quote from Baudrillard comes to mind: "Disneyland is there to conceal the fact that it is the 'real' country, all of 'real' America, which is Disneyland (just as prisons are there to conceal the fact that it is the social in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, which is carceral)."

More of that sort of thing here.

Quote

From Nick Mamatas, about the release of the West Memphis Three.

Thrilled to hear that the West Memphis Three have been released from prison…and all they had to do is essentially plead guilty. And if one of them is caught fishing without a license, then bam, back to the rape factory. Even I dread so much the idiot phrase "The system works" that I dare not Google it in conjunction with "WM3″ in order to find out how many pig-fools are on the Internet.

Warehouse district

Taken from the The Denver Public Library's Digital Image Collection.

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Been awhile since I posted one of these, but I'm back to trolling through them. And, come to discover, the digital image collection has a great new feature which you can use to zoom in on pictures. Just click here and use the control panel above the image to navigate.

What are you looking for? This from the summary:

Aerial view of the warehouse district in downtown Denver, Colorado. Shows a complex of buildings owned by the Weicker Transfer and Storage Company. Painted signs on the side of the building include a swastika symbol. Other businesses in the area include "Davis & Shaw Furniture Co., " "Daniels and Fisher Warehouse, No. 2, " and "Ady and Crowe Mercantile Co." A train approaches a bridge, and automobiles drive on an overpass. Boxcars sit on railroad tracks near warehouses.

Given that the picture was taken between 1930 and 1940, it seems unlikely the swastika's usage was innocuous. It seems oddly apropos, though, given the last image I posted. (And here's the new link for that image, so you can zoom in on it as well.)

There's actually quite a few swastikas around the digital image collection.

This warehouse truck, for instance:

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And this street sign on 15th Street in downtown Denver:

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Both of those were taken between 1900 and 1920, though, so there's no telling what the context was.

The Crime of it All interview

Scottish interview and crime fiction critic Len Wanner (who, by the way, just released a masterful collection of interviews called Dead Sharp) interviewed me for the The Crime of it All. Great, great questions; hopefully passable answers.

Quote

Charlie Stella, about starting an MFA program at 55:

I truly love it. And who cares whether or not I can pay the loans back some day. I'm friggin' 55 with a life expectancy of 68 years. Like Tommy Burns might say (about that unpaid loan), "What they gonna' do, arrest me? Fuck'em."

I love Charlie Stella. Love his books, love his integrity, love his 5-2 reading pattern, love his attitude on writing (and, for that matter, everything else).

I'm even thinking about going back for an MFA myself. Just thinking, mind, but no one else on earth but Charlie Stella could even make me think it.