Touch and Go (36 page)

A pioneer of modern anthropology; often referred to as “the father of American anthropology.”

The Silent Clowns
by Walter Kerr (Knopf, 1975).

Mateo Falcone is the hero of a short story of the same name by Prospero Merimee (who wrote the libretto for
Carmen
). Falcone shoots his beloved young son, who has betrayed a fugitive hiding in their barn.

Parts excerpted from
Chicago
(Pantheon, 1985 and 1986).

The celebrated opera singer who came from Annie's hometown of Bialystok.

And They All Sang
(The New Press, 2005, pp. 73–74).

Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist
(University of Illinois Press, 1982, p. 328).

The scandal involved the leasing of oil-rich pieces of land in Wyoming and California to private interests. Harding's Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, went to the pokey; so did his multimillion-dollar buddy, Frank Doheny. What is astonishing in the midst of all this corruption is that President Harding took it upon himself to pardon Gene Debs, who still had about five years to go on his prison term. Cal Coolidge, Harding's VP, said nothing. In fact, Silent Cal was so silent that Dorothy Parker is reputed to have said on learning that Coolidge had died, “How can they tell?” The loss of money to small investors in the Teapot Dome scandal was considerable, but peanuts compared to Enron. Tom Walsh had been irreproachable as prosecutor of Teapot Dome. Ironically, he died shortly after the convention. Otherwise, he would have been Roosevelt's choice for attorney general.

Carey McWilliams, at the time commissioner of immigration for California.

Hard Times
(The New Press, 1986, pp. 72–73).

Bernard MacFadden published a scandalous tabloid, the
Telegraph
. One of its memorable exposés concerned the teenaged Peaches and her Daddy Browning. Peaches' Ma approved.

Primarily transient workman who went from one railroad to another.

An old pool hall phrase meaning “per game.”

In the 1840s there were numerous rebellions in Middle European countries among those seeking independence and thus a better world. They were henceforth known as the “Failed '48ers.”

Château-Thierry was the site of one of the first American actions against the Germans in World War I.

Death in the Haymarket
by James Green (Pantheon, 2006).

Tank Johnson, a player for the Chicago Bears, spent several scandalous weeks in the headlines, charged with weapons possession, aggravated assault, and resisting arrest.

Adapted from
Talking to Myself
(The New Press, 1995).

One of three hundred medieval Border Ballads collected by Francis Child, Harvard Philologist.

His father was known as Hot Stove Jimmy Quinn, back in the days of Hinky Dink and Bathhouse John early in the century. His father, sitting at the hot stove, named guys he thought should be mayor.

In DC, I was the one heterosexual that was accepted at the Deck. And since then? Better than any of the grandest of prizes, I'm in the Lesbian and Gay Hall of Fame of writers—one of the few heterosexuals, perhaps the only one. I also may be the only white in the Hall of Fame of Black Writers. There was a gathering of black writers, and Haki Madhubuti mentioned my name. They all looked up, “Studs?! But he's not African American, he's white.” Haki said, “He's white genetically, but he's ours spiritually.” I made those two halls of fame, which ain't half bad.

The same reviewer who said of Margaret Truman's celebrated vocal engagement, “Better she remain a vice president's daughter,” to which Harry Truman replied, “I'm going to punch him in the nose.”