A couple weeks ago I rode my bike to the post office and mailed a matchbook to a man I've never met.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
This story should really begin with Bookman's Alley, the marvelous used bookstore that Roger Carlson ran behind the Varsity Theater in Evanston. I started going there as a freshman at Northwestern, and stopped as a man in his 50s when Mr. Carlson finally retired.
Mr. Carlson was a savvy businessman. His books were not cheap. And while he would sometimes, writing up a receipt, he would give me a 10 percent "Friend of the store" discount, he only gave me one free book in all that time.
The book was "War! War! War" by "Cincinnatus," an anonymous anti-Semite who printed the book in October, 1940. The book blames Jews for all wars, for the Great Depression, and pretty much anything that ever went wrong anywhere. It almost defies characterization, but I managed to pluck out a single sentence that can represent the entirety:
Every unbiased student of history and foreign affairs knows that the new world war is not a war for Democracy, but a war to maintain the British-Jewish Empire, its tremendous wealth, its commercial supremacy and overlordship of the seven seas, and above all for the unconditional return of central Europe to Jewish control, even though it results in the destruction of millions of lives and the hopeless insolvency of all the civilized world.
Memory had Mr. Carlson giving it to me because he didn't want to make money from selling it. But that wasn't quite correct, I learned when I pulled the book down, for the first time, and discovered a pair of notes written on the little Bookman's Alley slips of paper he used as receipts. Dated Feb. 19, 2010, the message reads, in his distinctive all-caps handwriting: "30's AND 40's AMERICAN ANTI-SEMITISM; I'D RATHER YOU HAVE IT AS A HISTORY TEXT INSTEAD OF SELLING IT TO SOME A-HOLE WHO BUYS INTO IT. MR. C."
That is an attitude one can't help but admire, but really there was no occasion to apply it in my own life.
Until I got an email out of the blue, from a young man named Matthew in Los Angeles:
Matthew sent me his address, adding this:
That is an attitude one can't help but admire, but really there was no occasion to apply it in my own life.
Until I got an email out of the blue, from a young man named Matthew in Los Angeles:
I came across an old blog post of yours from 2014 regarding the "Fagots stay out" Barney's Beanery matchbook you have. Or, at least, Im hoping you still have it! I started collecting matchbooks through estate sales here in LA and, as a young gay man who lives right behind Barney's, I've become fascinated by the history of Barney's. Amazingly, very few people my age know this history but I've had a good time learning about it and spreading it to my friends. So, when I came across your blog post, I came to the conclusion I have to find those matches! I've been searching the internet but haven't found anyone else with them and then I realized I should just reach out to you. Do you still have those matches? If so, and if you're willing to sell them, I'd love to buy them from you. At this point it feels like they're an important part of West Hollywood history and I don't want that history to be lost! And, at least in my opinion, there's something fun about the idea of those matches going on a journey with you and now, a few decades later, returning to where it all began. If I'm able to buy them from you, my first stop with them in my pocket will be to Barney's for a beer and then after that I plan on displaying them in my apartment and telling everyone who comes over about them and their history. Let me know!"
Of course I had the matches. I thought carefully about the situation, remembered "War! War! War!" and realized I would not be selling him my matches. I wrote back:
Good to hear from you. Yes, I have those matches right here, in a little drawer in my roll top desk. As for selling them, no, I'm not interested in doing that. Their being a relic of baseless hatred, I don't think I should profit from them. But if the matches would mean something to you, then please send me your address, and I'll mail them to you, gratis. I've had them for more than 40 years. I think that's long enough.Actually, it was that last sentiment that was most important. I'm at an age when I'm surrounded by great masses of detritus, aka, crap. Files and furniture, notes and boxes, mugs, souvenirs, relics. I hate to include books, which are holy, but hundreds of books, most of which I'll never read. After I wrote the above, I went to walk the dog, and can't tell you how good I felt. The mixture of performing a small kindness plus the liberation of divestment was a real boost. Only a little thing, true: an old, used matchbook. But it's a start of the great give-away that will end with me being put, possessionless, into the ground.
Matthew sent me his address, adding this:
"Wow Neil, that means a lot to me. In a way I think you doing that completes something of a moral arc for those matches, they've seen the worst and now the best side of humanity. Thank you."
Completing the moral arc — there's a good thought for today. I tucked the matches in an envelope and mailed them the next day. He received them a few days later. A very small thing, a drop of generosity. But each one of those those waters the world, and ourselves.
I did a deep-dive into my 1876 standard "American Century of Useitisms" by Webster, N.
ReplyDeleteIt clearly states that "Faggots are a chiefly British dish of meat mainly served in earthenware with a history in southern Scotland as a protest against landed gentry. The common man-made meat flavours were so awful Londoners called their short cigarettes fags as to debase Scot mums' cooking."
It would appear "Fagots" is a new entry into the King's English lexicon. 1980s saw vicious clashes between open tobacco users and abolitionists. I was there, I should know. This red placard matchbook was the first of many smokers' slurs. Only the 2010-15 vape wars were worse.
Thank you for your kindness. I hope this Hollywood character knows the length you went to preserve the evolution of polite society's words.
I assumed they refer to the term for a bundle of sticks.
DeleteFrightening comments yet very touching ones, all in one blog.
ReplyDelete1. It appears that the so-called "Cincinnatus" was a big fan of that vile anti-Semite Henry Ford.
ReplyDelete2. I always thought that the British called small twigs they used as kindling in fires faggots.
They call cigarettes "fags."
DeleteAyup... cigarettes in the UK are commonly called fags. In addition, faggots are a preparation of mincemeat (of various kinds, generally trimmings and leftovers), formed into a meatball for cooking.
DeleteWhat you're describing as definition 2 here sounds to me like what we British would call a spill, which was something flammable that you'd improvise in order to light a larger fire from a short distance away. It might be a thin stick or a strip of tightly-twisted paper.
A rose by any other name is still hate. It’s amazing at the variety of hatred, but only one variety of love…the good kind. You’re a lucky man. You know the difference.
ReplyDeleteBravo, Neil. That was a thoughtful gesture. And boy howdy, do I hear you about all the crap. We spend our 20s and 30s acquiring stuff and our 40s and 50s getting rid of the stuff we acquired in our 20s and 30s. (I'm in my 50s. I assume the pace accelerates.)
ReplyDeleteand the kids don't want ANY of all that great stuff use paid $$$ for
DeleteBeautiful.
ReplyDeleteI assure some of the other commenters that, in the context of West Hollywood's Santa Monica Boulevard in the late 1970s, there was no linguistic ambiguity whatsoever about the sentiment being expressed by the owner of Barney's.
ReplyDeleteNicely done.
ReplyDeletejohn
Cool story bro.
ReplyDeleteNow bend over. It's Illinois property tax payment time.
Big Johnson is inflating taxes to bring illegals in and your anal 0-ring needs popping, Taxprinkle says.
Pappas laughs.
You didn't have to go to Los Angeles to find signs like that, Mr. S. I'm old enough to remember similar signs on certain sides of Chicago. Confederate flags and signs with the n-word, too..
ReplyDeleteAs for owning crap, by the time you're a pack rat in your 60s and 70s...it owns you. And if you're still buried in it when you die, a few caring next of kin might pick out the few treasures they want. The rest ends up in the trash can, the dumpster, the alley, or the landfill. Maybe somebody will donate some of it to a charity, where the "pickers" will acquire what they like. Then the process can begin all over again.