at the Haymarket Riot Memorial, 2009
Universal Human Rights
Tag: Haymarket
Chicago Crime Scenes Project
I have a Google News alert for the Haymarket Riot, and thus sometimes stumble upon interesting stuff, like this website devoted to a subject near to my heart: Chicago history.
Do you know where Hell’s Half-Acre was? How about the Hairtrigger Block? The Black Hole? Or Dead Man’s Corner. I didn’t either.
I didn’t, that is, until I started reading Todd Kendall’s Chicago Crime Scenes Project blog.
For the last two years, Kendall, an economist by trade, has been writing a blog that details the legendary individuals, spectacular incidents and infamous places that gave Chicago its reputation as a tough, tough town. The site is an incredible resource. There’s a nice mixture of shorter and longer posts, photographs and scans from old newspapers.…
Your posts, generally speaking, deal with Chicago’s old, sordid underbelly. Mafias. Corrupt politicians. Crime and vice. Working-class and labor struggles. What made these sorts of topics compelling, the right lens for your blog?
Between 2003 and 2008, I was on the economics faculty at Clemson University in South Carolina, and my research focus was the nexus between crime, economics, and public policy. Chicago is the perfect place to study those connections. The Haymarket riot of 1886, activities in the Levee vice district during the 1910s, the Capone syndicate’s activities during Prohibition, and modern drug-selling gangs — all of these are fundamentally about economics. I’m not very interested in serial killers and other lunatics because there’s not much economics there.[Click to continue reading Chicago Journal]
I’ve added the Chicago Crime Scenes Project to my RSS reader, and will probably link to some of its content when i have a moment. Fascinating stuff.
Flip HD footage of Haymarket
Because I feel as if I am underutilizing the potential fun of owning the Flip HD video camera, I am going to make a concerted effort to shoot more footage with the device. Viewer beware. My first attempt was pretty Cinéma vérité indie film bullshit – I need to drink less coffee perhaps, or invest in a tripod. I actually have a Flip HD tripod, but wasn’t able to use it because I was just leaning out of my window.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3DFiYclsPw
The footage was simply shot out of my office window. Less anarchists and police than in prior years – in fact, quite a lot less. Some years the street by the Haymarket Riot Memorial statue is blocked off, and a stage is erected. This year, the performers and speakers were shunted onto the sidewalk. I am pleased that nobody was run over by a car, as there was some portions of the crowd that lingered in the street.
Same video hosted on Flickr: wonder if there is any difference in the conversion codex?
The clip quickly thrown together in the current iMovie application, and audio provided by Wire1
Oh, used a handful of images taken also from my office window using my Nikon D80 with a 200 mm (digital) lens.
Footnotes:Reading Around on May 1st through May 5th
A few interesting links collected May 1st through May 5th:
- Today’s Stuff… | 1001 Positively True Stories of an Indie Filmmaker – "Today I saw (for the first time) footage from a Flip HD camera"
my footage, actually, which is embarrassingly brief and poorly shot. Oh well, I had fun making the clip anyway - theexpiredmeter.com » Blog Archive » Protect Yourself Against Broken Meters – "This flier reminds ticket writers of what the municipal code says in regards to parking at a non-working meter.
9-64-190 Parking meter zones – Regulations …It is not a violation of this section to park a vehicle at a zone or space served by a meter that does not function properly…"
- Friday Flashback: The Haymarket Massacre – Chicagoist: Chicago News, Food, Arts & Events – Photo of the Haymarket memorial sculpture by swanksalot
Since today is International Workers' Day, a day meant to commemorate the Haymarket Massacre that took place in Chicago in 1886, we thought a brief look at the tragic event important to the labor movement around the globe was in order.
David Simon and Ed Burns Working on a Haymarket Riot piece
As an aside to the main thrust of the Bill Moyers David Simon interview, Mr. Simon notes that Ed Burns1 is working on a Haymarket Riot piece. Oh please, please, please do this!! And please, please, please, I want to work on the set!. Actually, Richard Linklater was supposedly working on a Haymarket Riot film too, perhaps they could collaborate. Or share research, whatever, as long as I can help in some way with either project.
DAVID SIMON:
But I look at what’s happened with unions and I think– Ed Burns says all the time that he wants to do a piece on the Haymarket.
BILL MOYERS: The Haymarket strike.
DAVID SIMON: Yes. That– the bombing, and that critical moment when American labor was pushed so much to the starving point that they were willing to fight. And I actually think that’s the only time when change is possible. When people are actually threatened to the core, and enough people are threatened to the core that they just won’t take it anymore. And that’s– those are the pivotal moments in American history, I think, when actually something does happen.
You know, they were– in Haymarket, they were fighting for the 40-hour work week. You know? So, it wasn’t– it sounds radical at the time, but it’s basically a dignity of life issue. And you look at things like that. You look at the anti-Vietnam War effort, in this country which, you know, you had to threaten middle class kids with a draft and with military service in an unpopular war for people to rise up and demand the end to an unpopular war. I mean, it didn’t happen without that. So, on some level, as long as they placate enough people. As long as they throw enough scraps from the table that enough people get a little bit to eat, I just don’t see a change coming.
- David Simon’s long time writing partner [↩]
Richard Linklater – Haymarket Riot
Yowsa! I’ve got to call in some chips from my Austex connections, and get a consultant job for the Haymarket Riot film. I’d love to work on it in some capacity. The LBJ movie might be interesting too: I did my senior paper on LBJ and the Rise of the Surveillance State (working with original documents at the LBJ library). But the Haymarket movie needs to be made.
Exclusive: Filmmaker Richard Linklater – ComingSoon.net : … [Interviewer] I would think that being from Austin, Texas would lend itself to an interesting movie, that being a very liberal city in the middle of a conservative state.
Linklater: Yeah, Texas politics itself is very fascinating. I’d love to do a film about LBJ’s early days. There’s some cases when he was Senator where he was extremely political, just to show a really crafty politician who really cares about the people. You can take a moment in time politically. I’d like to make a film about the Haymarket Riot, a political action moment in our country’s history. You just basically execute a bunch of people because you don’t like what they believe even if they didn’t do anything wrong.
I’d even be happy to sell a few photos of the memorial to Mr. Linklater…
such as from here, or Haymarket Riot memorial, or here, or this fave of the old memorial, yadda yadda.